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Title: The Kingdom of God is Within You, What is Art
Author: Tolstoy, Leo, graf, 1828-1910
Language: English
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LYOF N. TOLSTOÏ
XIX
THE KINGDOM OF GOD
IS WITHIN YOU
WHAT IS ART?
[Illustration: COUNT TOLSTOÏ PLOWING
FROM THE PAINTING BY REPIN]
THE NOVELS AND OTHER WORKS OF
LYOF N. TOLSTOÏ
THE KINGDOM OF
GOD IS WITHIN YOU
WHAT IS ART?
[Illustration: publisher mark]
NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
1902
COPYRIGHT, 1899,
BY THOMAS V. CROWELL & CO.
INTRODUCTION
The present volume contains two contrasting treatises. The first is
religious, and shows in Count Tolstoï's earnest and eloquent manner
the meaning of Christ's words which he takes for his text,--"The
Kingdom of God is within you." The outward forms of religion,
however helpful they may be to some souls, are not essential; the
superstitions with which Faith sometimes clothes or masks herself
may or may not be uplifting; but the foundation of Christianity is
the truth contained in Christ's words, his simple, plain, undogmatic
commands and prohibitions.
One word sums it all up, and that word is Love. If the world should
take love for its guiding star, it is evident that all the evils
of the world would cease,--wars, crimes, poverty, ambitions; the
millennium would come! Count Tolstoï shows how that blessed period
may begin in every man. The translation of this beautiful and
inspiring book has been made by Mrs. Aline Delano of Boston.
In answering the question, "What is Art?" Count Tolstoï analyzes and
tests the various definitions given by other writers. He shows up
with merciless severity what he considers the fallacy in the popular
delusion that the fetish of Art pardons bestiality, obscenity, and
whatever conduces to stimulating the passions. The work is strongly
controversial, and attacks unsparingly many of the popular notions
of the day, as, for instance, that "Art is the manifestation of some
mysterious idea of God," or "the expression of man's emotions by
external signs," or the production of pleasing objects. He believes
that art has a loftier function, and he proceeds elaborately to
argue in favor of this universal activity, which should be to effect
a union among men so that they may have the same noble feelings and
progress together toward universal and individual well-being. "Art
for art's sake" is meaningless to him. It is interesting to notice
that the most original and independent of the French critics has
recently taken practically the same ground in a lecture, in which he
asserts that it is the critic's business to test art and literature,
and that art has a most intimate relation with morality.
Much of the book is racy and amusing; much of it is abstruse,
and requires close attention. But whether one follows the author
in his individual opinions or not, it cannot be denied that the
general tone of the treatise is helpful and uplifting, and that it
is based on sound common sense. Mr. Aylmer Maude of England is the
translator of this work, and has had the benefit of Count Tolstoï's
own suggestions in regard to certain points. As the special preface
explains, the translation accurately represents the author's views,
while the edition published in Russia was in many ways garbled
and distorted. The translators of both treatises have seized the
opportunity of carefully revising their work.
CONTENTS
THE KINGDOM OF GOD IS WITHIN YOU
PAGE
INTRODUCTORY 1
CHAPTER I
Doctrine of non-resistance to evil, from the origin
of Christianity, has been, and still is, professed
by the minority of men 3
CHAPTER II
Opinions of believers and unbelievers in regard to
non-resistance 30
CHAPTER III
Misconception of Christianity by non-believers 47
CHAPTER IV
Misconception of Christianity by scientists 79
CHAPTER V
Contradiction of our life and Christian consciousness 100
CHAPTER VI
Attitude of men of the present day toward war 122
CHAPTER VII
Significance of the military conscription 152
CHAPTER VIII
Certainty of the acceptance of the Christian doctrine
of non-resistance to evil by violence by the men
of our world 171
CHAPTER IX
The acceptance of the Christian life-conception
delivers men from the miseries of our pagan life 194
CHAPTER X
Uselessness of violence for the destruction of
evil--The moral advance of mankind is accomplished,
not only through the knowledge of truth, but also
through the establishment of public opinion 218
CHAPTER XI
Christian public opinion already arises in our
society, and will inevitably destroy the system
of violence of our life--When this will come about 242
CHAPTER XII
Conclusion: "Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at
hand!" 254
WHAT IS ART?
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE 339
AUTHOR'S PREFACE 341
CHAPTER I
Time and labor spent on art--Lives stunted in its
service--Morality sacrificed to and anger
justified by art--The rehearsal of an opera
described 345
CHAPTER II
Does art compensate for so much evil?--What is
art?--Confusion of opinions--Is it "that which
produces beauty"?--The word "beauty" in
Russian--Chaos in æsthetics 351
CHAPTER III
Summary of various æsthetic theories and definitions,
from Baumgarten to to-day 360
CHAPTER IV
Definitions of art founded on beauty--Taste not
definable--A clear definition needed to enable
us to recognize works of art 376
CHAPTER V
Definitions not founded on beauty--Tolstoï's
definition--The extent and necessity of
art--How people in the past have distinguished
good from bad in art 383
CHAPTER VI
How art for pleasure has come into esteem--Religions
indicate what is considered good and bad--Church
Christianity--The Renaissance--Skepticism of the
upper classes--They confound beauty with goodness 389
CHAPTER VII
An æsthetic theory framed to suit this view of life 396
CHAPTER VIII
Who have adopted it?--Real art needful for all men--Our
art too expensive, too unintelligible, and too
harmful for the masses--The theory of "the elect"
in art 401
CHAPTER IX
Perversion of our art--It has lost its natural
subject-matter--Has no flow of fresh
feeling--Transmits chiefly three base emotions 406
CHAPTER X
Loss of comprehensibility--Decadent art--Recent French
art--Have we a right to say it is bad and that what
we like is good art?--The highest art has always
been comprehensible to normal people--What fails
to infect normal people is not art 412
CHAPTER XI
Counterfeits of art produced by: Borrowing; Imitating;
Striking; Interesting--Qualifications needful for
production of real works of art, and those
sufficient for production of counterfeits 436
CHAPTER XII
Causes of production of counterfeits--Professionalism--
Criticism--Schools of art 446
CHAPTER XIII
Wagner's "Nibelung's Ring" a type of counterfeit
art--Its success, and the reasons thereof 455
CHAPTER XIV
Truths fatal to preconceived views are not readily
recognized--Proportion of works of art to
counterfeits--Perversion of taste and incapacity
to recognize art--Examples 468
CHAPTER XV
THE QUALITY OF ART, CONSIDERED APART FROM ITS
SUBJECT-MATTER--The sign of art: Infectiousness--
Incomprehensible to those whose taste is
perverted--Conditions of infection: Individuality;
Clearness; Sincerity 476
CHAPTER XVI
THE QUALITY OF ART, CONSIDERED ACCORDING TO ITS
SUBJECT-MATTER--The better the feeling the better
the art--The cultured crowd--The religious
perception of our age--The new ideals put fresh
demands to art--Art unites--Religious art--Universal
art--Both coöperate to one result--The new
appraisement of art--Bad art--Examples of art--How
to test a work claiming to be art 479
CHAPTER XVII
Results of absence of true art--Results of perversion
of art: Labor and lives spent on what is useless
and harmful--The abnormal life of the rich--
Perplexity of children and plain folk--Confusion
of right and wrong--Nietzsche and Redbeard--
Superstition, Patriotism, and Sensuality 497
CHAPTER XVIII
The purpose of human life is the brotherly union of
man--Art must be guided by this perception 507
CHAPTER XIX
The art of the future not a possession of a select
minority, but a means toward perfection and unity 510
CHAPTER XX
The connection between science and art--The mendacious
sciences; the trivial sciences--Science should deal
with the great problems of human life, and serve as
a basis for art 517
APPENDICES
APPENDIX I 528
APPENDIX II 530
APPENDIX III 537
APPENDIX IV 542
THE KINGDOM OF GOD IS
WITHIN YOU
OR,
CHRISTIANITY NOT AS A MYSTICAL DOCTRINE,
BUT AS A NEW-LIFE CONCEPTION
AUTHOR'S PREFACE
In this book I have endeavored to show that our modern Christianity
has been tried and found wanting, that the armed camp of Europe
is not Christian, but Pagan, as is latter-day religion, of which
the present state of affairs is the outcome. The book contains
three principal ideas,--the first, that Christianity is not only
the worship of God and a doctrine of salvation, but is, above all
things, a new conception of life, which is changing the whole fabric
of human society; the second, that from the first appearance of
Christianity there entered into it two opposite currents,--the one
establishing the true and new conception of life, which it gave to
humanity, and the other perverting the true Christian doctrine and
converting it into a Pagan religion, and that this contradiction
has attained in our days the highest degree of tension which now
expresses itself in universal armaments, and on the Continent in
general conscription; and the third, that this contradiction, which
is masked by hypocrisy, can only be solved by an effort of sincerity
on the part of every individual endeavoring to conform the acts of
his life,--independent of what are regarded as the exigencies of
family, society, and the State,--with those moral principles which
he considers to be true.
* * * * *
_The above is an extract (slightly adapted) from an article on
Count Tolstoï which appeared in the London_ Daily Chronicle _of
26th December,1893. Sent by Miss Tatiana Tolstoï, on behalf of
her father, to the publishers of this edition of his work, it is
inserted here as a Preface at the suggestion of Count Tolstoï._
THE KINGDOM OF GOD IS
WITHIN YOU;
OR,
CHRISTIANITY NOT AS A MYSTICAL DOCTRINE,
BUT AS A NEW LIFE-CONCEPTION
"And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you
free."--JOHN viii. 32.
"And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill
the soul; but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul
and body in hell."--MATTHEW x. 28.
"Ye are bought with a price; be not ye the servants of men."--I
CORINTHIANS vii. 23.
INTRODUCTORY
In 1884 I wrote a book entitled "My Religion," wherein I formulated
my creed.
While affirming my faith in the doctrine taught by Christ, I could
not refrain from manifesting at the same time the reason why I look
upon the ecclesiastical doctrine commonly called Christianity as
erroneous, and to me incredible.
Among the many deviations of the latter from the doctrine of Christ,
I called attention to the principal one; namely--the evasion of
the commandment that forbids man to resist evil by violence, as a
striking example of the perversion of the doctrine of Christ by
ecclesiastical interpretation.
I knew but little, no more than other men, of what had been taught
or written on the subject of non-resistance in former times. I
was familiar with the opinions of the Fathers of the Church,
Origen, Tertullian, and others; and I also knew of the existence
of certain sects called Mennonites, Herrnhuters, and Quakers, all
of which forbid Christians the use of arms, and will not submit to
conscription, but I never knew the arguments by which these sects
sought to maintain their views.
My book, as I had anticipated, was prohibited by the Russian
censors, but partly in consequence of my reputation as a writer,
partly because it excited curiosity, it had a circulation in
manuscript, and while, on the one hand, it called forth from those
persons who sympathized with my ideas, information concerning works
written on the same subject, on the other, it excited criticisms on
the opinions therein maintained.
These two results, together with the historical events of recent
years, made many things clear to me, and led me to many new
deductions and conclusions which I now desire to set forth.
I shall speak in the first place of the information I received in
regard to the history of this matter of non-resistance to evil;
and in the second place, of the arguments upon the subject offered
by religious critics, that is, by critics who profess the religion
of Christ, as well as those of secular critics, that is to say, of
men who make no such profession; and finally, the conclusions which
I drew from the arguments of both parties, as well as from the
historical events of later years.
CHAPTER I
DOCTRINE OF NON-RESISTANCE TO EVIL FROM THE ORIGIN OF CHRISTIANITY,
HAS BEEN, AND STILL IS, PROFESSED BY THE MINORITY OF MEN
Concerning the book "My Religion"--Information called forth by
this book--Letters of Quakers--Professions of Garrison--Adin
Ballou, his works and Catechism--"The Net of Faith" of
Helchitsky--Relations of men toward works that explain the
teachings of Christ--The book of Dymond "On War"--Assertion of
Non-resistance by Musser--Relations of government in 1818 toward
those who refuse to join the military service--General inimical
attitude of governments and liberal men toward those who refused
to take part in the violence of governments and their conscious
effort to conceal and ignore these demonstrations of Christian
Non-resistance.
Among the early responses called forth by my book were letters
from American Quakers. In these letters, while expressing their
sympathy with my ideas in regard to the unlawfulness of violence
and war where Christians are concerned, the Quakers made known to
me many details in relation to their sect, which for more than two
hundred years has professed the doctrine of Christ in the matter of
non-resistance, and which never has, nor does it now use weapons for
self-defense. Together with the letters, the Quakers sent me many
of their pamphlets, periodicals, and books. From these publications
I learned that already, many years ago, they had demonstrated the
Christian's duty of keeping the commandment of non-resistance to
evil by violence, and the error of the church which countenances
wars and executions.
Having shown by a succession of arguments and texts that war--the
slaughter and mutilation of men--is inconsistent with a religion
founded on peace and good-will to men, the Quakers go on to assert
that nothing is so conducive to the defamation of Christ's truth in
the eyes of the heathen, or so successful in arresting the spread
of Christianity throughout the world, as the refusal to obey this
commandment, made by men who call themselves Christians, and by the
sanction thus given to war and violence. The doctrine of Christ,
which has entered into the consciousness of men, not by force or by
the sword, as they say, but by non-resistance to evil, by humility,
meekness, and the love of peace, can only be propagated among men by
the example of peace, love, and concord given by its followers.
A Christian, according to the teaching of the Lord, should be guided
in his relations toward men only by the love of peace, and therefore
there should be no authority having power to compel a Christian to
act in a manner contrary to God's law, and contrary to his chief
duty toward his fellow-men.
The requirements of the civil law, they say, may oblige men, who,
to win some worldly advantages, seek to conciliate that which is
irreconcilable, to violate the law of God; but for a Christian,
who firmly believes that his salvation depends upon following the
teaching of Christ, this law can have no meaning.
My acquaintance with the activity of the Quakers and with their
publications, with Fox, Paine, and particularly with a work
published by Dymond in 1827, proved to me not only that men have
long since recognized the impossibility of harmonizing Christianity
and war, but that this incompatibility has been proved so clearly
and irrefragably, that one can only wonder how it is possible for
this incongruous union of Christianity with violence--a doctrine
which is still taught by the church--to remain in force.
Besides the information obtained from the Quakers, I also received
from America about the same time advices on the subject from another
and hitherto unknown source. The son of William Lloyd Garrison, the
famous anti-slavery champion, wrote to me that, having read my book,
wherein he had found ideas similar to those expressed by his father
in 1838, and taking it for granted that I should be interested to
know that fact, he sent me a book written by Mr. Garrison some fifty
years ago, entitled "Non-resistance."
This avowal of principle took place under the following
circumstances:--In 1838, on the occasion of a meeting of the Society
for the Promotion of Peace, William Lloyd Garrison, while discussing
means for the suppression of war, arrived at the conclusion that the
establishment of universal peace can have no solid foundation save
in the literal obedience to the commandment of non-resistance by
violence (Matthew v. 39), as understood by the Quakers, with whom
Garrison was on friendly terms. Having arrived at this conclusion,
he wrote, offering to the Society the following proclamation, which
at that time, in 1838, was signed by many of its members:--
"_Declaration of Sentiments adopted by the Peace Convention,
held in Boston, September 18, 19, and 20, 1838_:--
"Assembled in Convention, from various sections of the American
Union, for the promotion of Peace on earth and Good-will among
men, We, the undersigned, regard it as due to ourselves, to the
cause which we love, to the country in which we live, and to the
world, to publish a Declaration, expressive of the principles
we cherish, the purposes we aim to accomplish, and the measures
we shall adopt to carry forward the work of peaceful, universal
reformation.
"We cannot acknowledge allegiance to any human government;
neither can we oppose any such government by a resort to
physical force. We recognize but one King and Lawgiver, one
Judge and Ruler of mankind. We are bound by the laws of a
Kingdom which is not of this world; the subjects of which are
forbidden to fight; in which Mercy and Truth are met together,
and Righteousness and Peace have kissed each other; which has no
state lines, no national partitions, no geographical boundaries;
in which there is no distinction of rank or division of caste,
or inequality of sex; the officers of which are Peace, its
exactors Righteousness, its walls Salvation, and its gates
Praise; and which is destined to break in pieces and consume
all other kingdoms. Our country is the world, our countrymen
are all mankind. We love the land of our nativity only as
we love all other lands. The interests, rights, liberties of
American citizens are no more dear to us than are those of the
whole human race. Hence, we can allow no appeal to patriotism to
revenge any national insult or injury; the Principle of Peace,
under whose stainless banner we rally, came not to destroy, but
to save, even the worst of enemies. He has left us an example,
that we should follow His steps. God commendeth his love toward
us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
"We conceive that if a nation has no right to defend itself
against foreign enemies, or to punish its invaders, no
individual possesses that right in his own case. The unit
cannot be of greater importance than the aggregate. If one
man may take life, to obtain or defend his rights, the same
license must necessarily be granted to communities, states,
and nations. If _he_ may use a dagger or a pistol, _they_ may
employ cannon, bombshells, land and naval forces. The means
of self-preservation must be in proportion to the magnitude
of interests at stake, and the number of lives exposed to
destruction. But if a rapacious and bloodthirsty soldiery,
thronging these shores from abroad, with intent to commit
rapine and destroy life, may not be resisted by the people
or magistracy, then ought no resistance to be offered to
domestic troubles of the public peace or of private security.
No obligation can rest upon Americans to regard foreigners as
more sacred in their persons than themselves, or to give them a
monopoly of wrong-doing with impunity.
"The dogma, that all the governments of the world are
approvingly ordained of God, and that the powers that be in the
United States, in Russia, in Turkey, are in accordance with His
will, is not less absurd than impious. It makes the impartial
Author of human freedom and equality unequal and tyrannical. It
cannot be affirmed that the powers that be, in any nation, are
actuated by the spirit or guided by the example of Christ, in
the treatment of enemies; therefore, they cannot be agreeable
to the will of God; and therefore their overthrow, by a
spiritual regeneration of their subjects, is inevitable.
"We register our testimony not only against all wars, whether
offensive or defensive, but all preparations for war; against
every naval ship, every arsenal, every fortification; against
the militia system and a standing army; against all military
chieftains and soldiers; against all monuments commemorative
of victory over a fallen foe, all trophies won in battle, all
celebrations in honor of military or naval exploits; against all
appropriations for the defense of a nation by force and army,
on the part of any legislative body; against every edict of
government requiring of its subjects military service. Hence we
deem it unlawful to bear arms, or to hold a military office.
"As every human government is upheld by physical strength, and
its laws are enforced virtually at the point of the bayonet,
we cannot hold any office which imposes upon its incumbent the
obligation to compel men to do right, on pain of imprisonment
or death. We therefore voluntarily exclude ourselves from every
legislative and judicial body, and repudiate all human politics,
worldly honors, and stations of authority. If we cannot occupy
a seat in the legislature or on the bench, neither can we elect
_others_ to act as our substitutes in any such capacity.
"It follows that we cannot sue any man at law, to compel him by
force to restore anything which he may have wrongfully taken
from us or others; but if he has seized our coat, we shall
surrender up our cloak, rather than subject him to punishment.
"We believe that the penal code of the old covenant, 'An eye
for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth,' has been abrogated by
Jesus Christ; and that under the new covenant, the forgiveness
instead of the punishment of enemies has been enjoined upon all
His disciples, in all cases whatsoever. To extort money from
enemies, or set them upon a pillory, or cast them into prison,
or hang them upon gallows, is obviously not to forgive, but to
take retribution. 'Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the
Lord.'
"The history of mankind is crowded with evidences proving that
physical coercion is not adapted to moral regeneration; that the
sinful disposition of men can be subdued only by love; that evil
can be exterminated from the earth only by goodness; that it is
not safe to rely upon an arm of flesh, upon man whose breath is
in his nostrils, to preserve us from harm; that there is great
security in being gentle, harmless, long-suffering, and abundant
in mercy; that it is only the meek who shall inherit the earth,
for the violent who resort to the sword are destined to perish
with the sword. Hence, as a measure of sound policy--of safety
to property, life, and liberty--of public quietude and private
enjoyment--as well as on the ground of allegiance to Him who
is King of kings and Lord of lords, we cordially adopt the
non-resistance principle; being confident that it provides for
all possible consequences, will insure all things needful to us,
is armed with omnipotent power, and must ultimately triumph over
every assailing force.
"We advocate no jacobinical doctrine. The spirit of jacobinism
is the spirit of retaliation, violence, and murder. It neither
fears God nor regards man. We would be filled with the spirit of
Jesus Christ. If we abide by our principles, it is impossible
for us to be disorderly, or plot treason, or participate in any
evil work; we shall submit to every ordinance of man, for the
Lord's sake; obey all the requirements of government, except
such as we deem contrary to the commands of the gospel; and in
no case resist the operation of law, except by meekly submitting
to the penalty of disobedience.
"But while we shall adhere to the doctrine of non-resistance and
passive submission, we purpose, in a moral and spiritual sense,
to speak and act boldly in the cause of God; to assail iniquity
in high places and in low places; to apply our principles
to all existing civil, political, legal, and ecclesiastical
institutions; and to hasten the time when the kingdoms of this
world will have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His
Christ, and He shall reign forever.
"It appears to us a self-evident truth, that, whatever the
gospel is designed to destroy at any period of the world, being
contrary to it, ought now to be abandoned. If, then, the time
is predicted when swords shall be beaten into plowshares, and
spears into pruning-hooks, and men shall not learn the art of
war any more, it follows that all who manufacture, sell, or
wield those deadly weapons do thus array themselves against the
peaceful dominion of the Son of God on earth.
"Having thus briefly stated our principles and purposes, we
proceed to specify the measures we propose to adopt in carrying
our object into effect.
"We expect to prevail through the foolishness of
preaching,--striving to commend ourselves unto every man's
conscience, in the sight of God. From the press we shall
promulgate our sentiments as widely as practicable. We shall
endeavor to secure the coöperation of all persons, of whatever
name or sect. The triumphant progress of the cause of Temperance
and of Abolition in our land, through the instrumentality of
benevolent and voluntary associations, encourages us to combine
our own means and efforts for the promotion of a still greater
cause. Hence, we shall employ lecturers, circulate tracts
and publications, form societies, and petition our state and
national governments, in relation to the subject of Universal
Peace. It will be our leading object to devise ways and means
for effecting a radical change in the views, feelings, and
practices of society, respecting the sinfulness of war and the
treatment of enemies.
"In entering upon the great work before us, we are not unmindful
that, in its prosecution, we may be called to test our sincerity
even as in a fiery ordeal. It may subject us to insult, outrage,
suffering, yea, even death itself. We anticipate no small amount
of misconception, misrepresentation, calumny. Tumults may arise
against us. The ungodly and violent, the proud and pharisaical,
the ambitious and tyrannical, principalities and powers, and
spiritual wickedness in high places, may contrive to crush
us. So they treated the Messiah, whose example we are humbly
striving to imitate. If we suffer with Him we know that we
shall reign with Him. We shall not be afraid of their terror,
neither be troubled. Our confidence is in the Lord Almighty,
not in man. Having withdrawn from human protection, what can
sustain us but that faith which overcomes the world? We shall
not think it strange concerning the fiery trial which is to
try us, as though some strange thing had happened unto us; but
rejoice, inasmuch as we are partakers of Christ's sufferings.
Wherefore, we commit the keeping of our souls to God, in
well-doing, as unto a faithful Creator. For every one that
forsakes house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother,
or wife, or children, or lands, for Christ's sake, shall receive
a hundredfold, and shall inherit everlasting life.
"Firmly relying upon the certain and universal triumph of the
sentiments contained in this declaration, however formidable may
be the opposition arrayed against them--in solemn testimony of
our faith in their divine origin--we hereby affix our signatures
to it, commending it to the reason and conscience of mankind,
giving ourselves no anxiety as to what may befall us, and
resolving in the strength of the Lord God calmly and meekly to
abide the issue."
Later on, Garrison founded a Non-resistance Society and started
a periodical entitled _The Non-resistant_, wherein the full
significance and consequences of the doctrine were plainly
set forth, as has been stated in the proclamation. I gained,
subsequently, further information concerning the fate of this
society and the periodical from a biography of William Lloyd
Garrison, written by his sons.
Neither the periodical nor the society enjoyed a long life. The
majority of Garrison's associates in the work of liberating the
slaves, apprehensive lest the too radical views expressed in
the _The Non-resistant_ might alienate men from the practical
business of the abolition of slavery, renounced the doctrine of
non-resistance as expressed in the declaration, and both periodical
and society passed out of existence.
One would suppose that this declaration of Garrison, formulating,
as it did, an important profession of faith in terms both energetic
and eloquent, would have made a deeper impression on men, and have
become a subject for universal consideration. On the contrary, not
only is it unknown in Europe, but even among those Americans who
honor the memory of Garrison there are but few who are familiar with
this.
A similar fate befell another American champion of the same
doctrine, Adin Ballou, who died recently, and who for fifty years
had preached in favor of non-resistance to evil. How little is known
in regard to the question of non-resistance may be gathered from
the fact that the younger Garrison (who has written an excellent
biography of his father in four large volumes), in answer to my
inquiry whether any society for the defense of the principles of
non-resistance was yet alive and possessed adherents, wrote me
that, so far as he knew, the society had dissolved and its members
were no longer interested, while at this very time Adin Ballou, who
had shared Garrison's labors, and who had devoted fifty years of
his life to the teaching of the doctrine of non-resistance, both
by pen and by tongue, was still living in Hopedale, Massachusetts.
Afterward I received a letter from Wilson, a disciple and co-worker
of Ballou, and subsequently I entered into correspondence with
Ballou himself. I wrote to him, and he sent me his works, from
one of which I made the following extract:--"Jesus Christ is my
Lord and Master," says Ballou in one of his articles, written to
show the inconsistency of Christians who believe in the right of
defensive and offensive warfare. "I have covenanted to forsake all
and follow Him, through good and evil report, until death. But I am
nevertheless a Democratic Republican citizen of the United States,
implicitly sworn to bear true allegiance to my country, and to
support its Constitution, if need be, with my life. Jesus Christ
requires me to do unto others as I would that others should do
unto me. The Constitution of the United States requires me to do
unto twenty-seven hundred thousand slaves" (they had slaves then;
now they could easily be replaced by workmen) "the very contrary
of what I would have them do unto me--viz., assist to keep in a
grievous bondage.... But I am quite easy. I vote on. I help govern
on. I am willing to hold any office I may be elected to under the
Constitution. And I am still a Christian. I profess on. I find
difficulty in keeping covenant both with Christ and the Constitution.
"Jesus Christ forbids me to resist evil-doers by taking
'eye for eye, tooth for tooth, blood and life for life.' My
government requires the very reverse, and depends, for its own
self-preservation, on the halter, the musket, and the sword,
seasonably employed against its domestic and foreign enemies.
"In the maintenance and use of this expensive life-destroying
apparatus we can exemplify the virtues _of forgiving our injuries,
loving our enemies, blessing them that curse us, and doing good
to those that hate us_. For this reason we have regular Christian
chaplains to pray for us and call down the smiles of God on our holy
murders.
"I see it all" (that is, the contradiction between profession and
life), "and yet I insist that I am as good a Christian as ever. I
fellowship all; I vote on; I help govern on; I profess on; _and I
glory in being at once a devoted Christian and a no less devoted
adherent to the existing government_. I will not give in to those
miserable non-resistant notions. I will not throw away my political
influence, and leave unprincipled men to carry on government alone.
"The Constitution says--'Congress shall have power to declare
war, grant letters of marque and reprisal,' and I agree to this,
I indorse it. I swear to help carry it through. I vote for men to
hold office who are sworn to support all this. What, then, am I less
a Christian? Is not war a Christian service? Is it not perfectly
Christian to murder hundreds of thousands of fellow human beings; to
ravish defenseless females, sack and burn cities, and enact all the
other cruelties of war? Out upon these new-fangled scruples! This is
the very way to forgive injuries, and love our enemies! If we only
do it all in true love nothing can be more Christian than wholesale
murder!"
In another pamphlet, entitled "How many does it take?" he says--"One
man must not kill. If he does, it is murder; two, ten, one hundred
men, acting on their responsibility, must not kill. If they do, it
is still murder. But a state or nation may kill as many as they
please, and it is no murder. It is just, necessary, commendable, and
right. Only get people enough to agree to it, and the butchery of
myriads of human beings is perfectly innocent. But how many does it
take? This is the question. Just so with theft, robbery, burglary,
and all other crimes. Man-stealing is a great crime in one man, or
a very few men only. But a whole nation can commit it, and the act
becomes not only innocent, but highly honorable."
The following is, in substance, a catechism of Ballou, compiled for
the use of his congregation:--
THE CATECHISM OF NON-RESISTANCE.[1]
[1] From the Russian version, which Count Tolstoï calls a free
translation made with some omissions. After diligent search and
inquiry I have been unable to find this catechism among Ballou's
works.--TR.
_Q._ Whence comes the word non-resistance?
_A._ From the utterance: "But I say unto you, That ye resist not
evil."--Matthew v. 39.
_Q._ What does this word denote?
_A._ It denotes a lofty Christian virtue, commanded by Christ.
_Q._ Are we to understand the word non-resistance in its broad
sense, that is, as meaning that one should offer no resistance to
evil whatsoever?
_A._ No; it should be understood literally as Christ taught it--that
is, not to return evil for evil. Evil should be resisted by all
lawful means, but not by evil.
_Q._ From what does it appear that Christ gave that meaning to
non-resistance?
_A._ From the words which he used on that occasion. He said: "Ye
have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth
for a tooth. But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but
whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other
also. And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy
coat, let him have thy cloke also."
_Q._ Whom did he mean by the words: "Ye have heard that it hath been
said"?
_A._ The patriarchs and the prophets, and that which they spoke and
which is contained in the Old Testament, that the Jews generally
call the Law and Prophets.
_Q._ To what laws did Christ allude in the words: "Ye have heard"?
_A._ To those in which Noah, Moses, and other prophets grant the use
of personal violence against those who commit it, for the purpose of
punishing and destroying evil deeds.
_Q._ Mention such commandments.
_A._ "Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be
shed."--Genesis ix. 6.
"He that smiteth a man, so that he die, shall be surely put to
death. And if any mischief follow, then thou shalt give life for
life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot,
burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe."--Exodus
xxi. 12, 23, 24, 25.
"And he that killeth any man shall surely be put to death. And if
a man cause a blemish in his neighbor; as he hath done, so shall
it be done to him; breach for breach, eye for eye, tooth for
tooth."--Leviticus xxiv. 17, 19, 20.
"And the judges shall make diligent inquisition: and, behold, if
the witness be a false witness, and hath testified falsely against
his brother; then shall ye do unto him, as he had thought to have
done unto his brother. And thine eye shall not pity; but life shall
go for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for
foot."--Deuteronomy xix. 18, 19, 21.
These are the injunctions of which Jesus speaks.
Noah, Moses, and the prophets taught that he who murders, mutilates,
or tortures his neighbor doeth evil. In order to combat and destroy
this evil, the evil-doer must be chastised by death, mutilation,
or some personal torture. Transgressions are to be avenged by
transgressions, murder by murder, torture by torture, evil by evil.
Thus taught Noah, Moses, and the prophets. But Christ forbids all
this. The gospel says: "I say unto you, resist ye not evil, avenge
not one transgression by another, but rather bear a repetition of
the offense from the evil-doer." That which has been allowed is now
forbidden. Having understood what resistance we have been taught, we
know exactly what Christ meant by non-resistance.
_Q._ Did the teaching of the Ancients admit of resisting
transgression by transgression?
_A._ Yes; but Christ forbade it. A Christian has no right in any
case to take the life of, or to offend against, the evil-doer.
_Q._ May he not kill or wound another in self-defense?
_A._ No.
_Q._ May he enter a complaint to the magistrates for the purpose of
chastising the offender?
_A._ No. For that which he does through others, he practically does
himself.
_Q._ May he fight in the army against foreign or domestic enemies?
_A._ Certainly not. He can take no part in war, or in the
preparation therefor. He cannot make use of weapons. He cannot
resist one transgression by another, whether he is alone or in
company, either personally or through other agents.
_Q._ May he voluntarily select or drill soldiers for the government?
_A._ He cannot do this, if he wishes to be _faithful_ to the law of
Christ.
_Q._ May he voluntarily contribute money to assist a government
which is supported by military power, executions, and violence in
general?
_A._ No; unless the money is to be used for some special purpose,
justifiable in itself, where the object and the means employed are
good.
_Q._ May he pay taxes to such a government?
_A._ No; he should not pay taxes on his own accord, but he should
not resist the levying of a tax. A tax imposed by the government
is levied independently of the will of the citizens. It may not be
resisted without recourse to violence, and a Christian should not
use violence; therefore he must deliver his property to the forced
damage caused by authorities.
_Q._ May a Christian vote at elections and take part in courts of
law or in the government?
_A._ No. To take a part in elections, courts of law, or in the
administration of government is the same thing as a participation in
the violence of the government.
_Q._ What is the chief significance of the doctrine of
non-resistance?
_A._ To show that it is possible to extirpate evil from one's own
heart, as well as from that of one's neighbor. This doctrine forbids
men to do that which perpetuates and multiplies evil in this world.
He who attacks another, and does him an injury, excites a feeling
of hatred, the worst of all evil. To offend our neighbor because he
has offended us, with ostensible motive of self-defense, means but
to repeat the evil act against him as well as against ourselves,--it
means to beget, or at least to let loose, or to encourage the Evil
Spirit whom we wish to expel. Satan cannot be driven out by Satan,
falsehood cannot be purged by falsehood, nor can evil be conquered
by evil. True non-resistance is the only real method of resisting
evil. It crushes the serpent's head. It destroys and exterminates
all evil feeling.
_Q._ But admitting that the idea of the doctrine is correct, is it
practicable?
_A._ As practicable as any virtue commanded by the law of God.
Good deeds cannot be performed under all circumstances without
self-sacrifice, privations, suffering, and, in extreme cases,
without the loss of life itself. But he who prizes life more than
the fulfilment of God's will is already dead to the only true life.
Such a man, in trying to save his life, will lose it. Furthermore,
wherever non-resistance costs the sacrifice of one's life, or of
some essential advantage of life, resistance costs thousands of such
sacrifices.
_Non-resistance preserves; resistance destroys._
It is much safer to act justly than unjustly; to endure an offense
rather than resist it by violence; safer even in regard to the
present life. If all men refused to resist evil, the world would be
a happy one.
_Q._ But if only a few were to act thus, what would become of them?
_A._ Even if but one man were to act thus, and the others should
agree to crucify him, would it not be more glorious for him to die
in the glory of non-resisting love, praying for his enemies, than
live wearing the crown of Cæsar, besprinkled with the blood of the
murdered? But whether it be one man or thousands of men who are
firmly determined not to resist evil by evil, still, whether in the
midst of civilized or uncivilized neighbors, men who do not rely
on violence are safer than those who do. A robber, a murderer, a
villain, will be less likely to harm them if he finds them offering
no armed resistance. "All they that take the sword shall perish with
the sword," and he who seeks peace, who acts like a friend, who is
inoffensive, who forgives and forgets injuries, generally enjoys
peace, or if he dies, he dies a blessed death.
Hence, if all were to follow the commandment of non-resistance,
there would manifestly be neither offense nor evil-doing. If even
the majority were composed of such men they would establish the rule
of love and good-will even toward the offenders, by not resisting
evil by evil nor using violence. Even if such men formed a numerous
minority, they would have such an improving moral influence over
society that every severe punishment would be revoked, and violence
and enmity would be replaced by peace and good-will. If they formed
but a small minority, they would rarely experience anything worse
than the contempt of the world, while the world, without preserving
it or feeling grateful therefor, would become better and wiser from
its latent influence. And if, in the most extreme cases, certain
members of the minority might be persecuted unto death, these men,
thus dying for the truth, would have left their doctrine already
sanctified by the blood of martyrdom.
Peace be with all ye who seek peace; and may the all-conquering love
be the imperishable inheritance of every soul who submits of its own
accord to the law of Christ.
_Resist not evil by violence._--ADIN BALLOU.
* * * * *
For fifty years Ballou wrote and published books chiefly on the
subject of non-resistance. In these writings, remarkable for their
eloquence and simplicity of style, the question is considered in
all its aspects. He proved it to be the duty of every Christian
who professes to believe that the Bible is a revelation from God,
to obey this commandment. He enumerates the arguments against the
commandment of non-resistance, drawn from the Old as well as the
New Testament, the expulsion from the Temple, among others, and
answers each one in turn. Setting the Bible aside, he points out the
practical good sense on which this principle is founded, sums up the
arguments against it, and refutes them. For instance, in one chapter
of his work he treats of non-resistance to evil in exceptional
cases, and affirms that granting the truth of the supposition that
there are cases to which the rule of non-resistance cannot be
applied, that would prove that the rule in general is inconsistent.
Citing such exceptional cases, he proves that these are the very
occasions when the application of this rule is both wise and
necessary. The question has been viewed from every side, and no
argument, whether of opponent or sympathizer, has been neglected or
left unanswered. I mention this in order to call attention to the
deep interest which works of this class ought to excite in men who
profess Christianity; and it would seem therefore that Ballou's
zeal should have been recognized, and the ideas he expressed either
accepted or disproved. But such was not the case.
The life-work of Garrison, the father, his founding the society
of the Non-resistant, and his declaration, convinced me, more
even than my intercourse with the Quakers, that the divergence of
the Christianity of the State from Christ's law of non-resistance
by violence has been long since noticed and pointed out, and men
have labored and still do labor to counteract it. Thus Ballou's
earnestness has fortified my opinion. But the fate of Garrison, and
particularly that of Ballou, almost unknown, notwithstanding fifty
years of active and persistent work in one direction, has confirmed
me in the belief that there exists a certain inexpressed but fixed
determination to oppose all such attempts by a wall of silence.
In August of 1890 Ballou died, and his obituary appeared in the
American _Religio-Philosophical Journal_ of August 23d.
From this obituary we learn that Ballou was the spiritual leader of
a community, that he had preached from 8000 to 9000 sermons, married
1000 couples, and written 500 articles, but in regard to the object
of his life's devotion not a word is said; the word "non-resistance"
is never mentioned.
All the exhortations of the Quakers for 200 years, all the efforts
of Garrison, the father, the foundation of his society, his
periodical, and his declarations, as well as the life-work of
Ballou, are the same as if they had never existed.
Another striking example of the obscurity into which a work written
for the purpose of explaining the principle of non-resistance, and
to denounce those who refuse to recognize this commandment, may
fall, is the fate of a book by the Czech Helchitsky, which has only
recently been discovered, and which up to the present time has never
been printed.
Shortly after the publication of my book in German, I received a
letter from a professor of the Prague University, who wrote to tell
me of a book which had never been printed, a work written in the
fifteenth century by the Czech Helchitsky, and entitled "The Net of
Faith." In this work, written four centuries ago, Helchitsky, as
the professor tells me, has expressed exactly the same opinion in
regard to true and false Christianity that I did in my work entitled
"My Religion." The professor wrote that the work of Helchitsky was
to appear in print for the first time in the Czech language in one
of the publications of the St. Petersburg Academy of Science. As I
was unable to obtain the book, I endeavored to ascertain all that
was known of Helchitsky himself, and this knowledge I gained from
a German book sent to me by the same professor in Prague. Besides
that I learned something from Pipin's "History of Czech Literature."
Pipin says:--
"'The Net of Faith' is the doctrine of Christ, wherewith man
is to be raised from the gloomy depths of the social sea of
iniquity. True faith is to believe the words of God; but we are
living in times when men call the true faith heresy; hence it is
upon our own reason that we must rely to discover the truth if
we possess it not. Darkness has concealed it from men, and they
no longer recognize the true law of Christ.
"As an illustration of the law, Helchitsky cites the original
social organization of Christian society, which is considered by
the Church of Rome of the present time as rank heresy.
"This primitive church was his own ideal of a social order
founded upon equality, liberty, and fraternity. Christianity,
according to Helchitsky, still preserves this foundation, and
has but to return to its pure teaching to render any other
social order, whose existence requires the authority of pope or
king, quite superfluous. The law of love will suffice for all....
"Historically, Helchitsky assigns the decadence of Christianity
to the time of Constantine the Great, whom the Pope Silvester
received into the Church in spite of his pagan life and morals.
Constantine, in return, rewarded the Pope by endowing him with
riches and temporal power. Since then these two forces have
played into each other's hands, seeking only outward glory.
Doctors, men of learning, and the clergy, caring only to
maintain their influence over the world, excited the nations one
against the other, encouraging the crimes of murder and rapine,
and thus destroying Christianity, both in faith and practice.
Helchitsky totally denies the right of man to wage war or to
exact the penalty of death. According to him, every soldier,
even if he be a 'knight,' is only a transgressor, a criminal,
and a murderer."
All this, with the addition of some biographical details and
extracts from the correspondence of Helchitsky, is related in the
German book.
Having thus become acquainted with the essence of Helchitsky's
teachings, I waited with still greater impatience the appearance of
"The Net of Faith" in the Academy's periodical. But one, two, three
years passed, and the book was not forthcoming. It was only in 1888
that I learned that the printing had been suspended. I obtained
the proof-sheets of what had been printed, and read them. In many
respects it was a wonderful book.
Its contents have been accurately summarized by Pipin. Helchitsky's
principal idea is that Christianity, in league with sovereignty
during the reign of Constantine the Great, and continuing to
develop under these conditions, became corrupted, and ceased to be
Christianity. He called his book "The Net of Faith" because he had
chosen for his motto that verse from the New Testament which speaks
of the disciples as fishers of men. He carries on the simile thus:
"Through His disciples, Christ caught the world in the net of His
faith, but the larger fishes, breaking the net, escaped; then others
followed through these same holes made by the large fishes, and the
net was left almost empty." By the big fish he means the popes,
emperors, and sovereigns who, without giving up their authority,
accepted Christianity, not in its reality, but in its semblance.
Helchitsky teaches the same doctrine that is now taught by the
non-resistant Mennonites and Quakers, and in former times by
the Bogomiles, the Paulicians, and other sects. He teaches that
Christianity, requiring, as it does from its followers, humility,
gentleness, a forgiving spirit, the turning of the other cheek when
one is struck, and the love of one's enemies, is not compatible
with that violence which is an essential element of authority. A
Christian, according to Helchitsky, should not only refuse to be a
commander or a soldier, but he should take no part in government,
neither should he become a tradesman, nor even a landowner. He
might be an artisan or a farmer. This book is among the few which
have been saved from the flame into which books denouncing official
Christianity were commonly cast. As all such so-called heretical
works were usually burned with their authors, very few of those
which denounce official Christianity have been preserved--and for
this reason the book of which we speak has a special interest.
But apart from its interest, concerning which there may be
differences of opinion, it is one of the most remarkable results of
human thought, both on account of its profundity and the wonderful
power and beauty of its language, not to mention its antiquity. And
yet this book has remained unprinted for centuries, and continues to
be unknown except to a few specialists. (_See Note, end of Chapter._)
One would think that works like these of the Quakers, of Garrison,
of Ballou, and of Helchitsky,--which affirm and prove by the
authority of the Bible that the world misinterprets the teaching of
Christ,--would arouse an interest, would make a sensation, would
give rise to discussions between the clergy and their flocks.
One might suppose that works which deal with the very essence of the
Christian doctrine would be reviewed, and either acknowledged to be
just, or else refuted and condemned.
Not at all. Every one of these works suffers the same fate. Men
of widely differing opinions, believers, and, what is still more
surprising, unbelieving liberals, as though by common consent,
preserve an obstinate silence in regard to them. Thus every attempt
to explain the true meaning of Christ's doctrine goes for nothing.
And more astonishing still is the ignorance concerning two works
whose existence was made known to me after the publication of my
own book. One is a work by Dymond, "On War," printed for the first
time in London in 1824, and the other by Daniel Musser, entitled
"Non-resistance Asserted," was written in 1864.
The ignorance in regard to these books is amazing; the more so, that
apart from their merit, both treat, not so much of the theory as of
its practical application to life; of the relations of Christianity
to military service, which is particularly interesting in view of
the system of conscription. It may be asked, perhaps, what action is
befitting for a subject who believes that war is incompatible with
religion when his government calls upon him for military service?
One would take this to be a vital question, whose answer, in view
of our present system of conscription, becomes one of serious
importance. All men, or the majority of mankind, are Christians,
and every male is required to do military duty. How man, in his
Christian character, is to meet this demand, Dymond gives the
following reply:--
"_It is his duty, mildly and temperately, yet firmly, to refuse to
serve._
"There are some persons who, without any determinate process of
reasoning, appear to conclude that responsibility for national
measures attaches solely to those who direct them; that it is the
business of governments to consider what is good for the community,
and that, in these cases, the duty of the subject is merged in the
will of the sovereign. Considerations like these are, I believe,
often voluntarily permitted to become opiates of the conscience. I
have no part, it is said, in the councils of the government, and
am not, therefore, responsible for its crimes. We are, indeed, not
responsible for the crimes of our rulers, but we are responsible for
our own; and the crimes of our rulers are our own, if, whilst we
believe them to be crimes, we promote them by our coöperation....
"Those who suppose that obedience in all things is required, or that
responsibility in political affairs is transferred from the subject
to the sovereign, reduce themselves to a great dilemma. It is to
say that we must resign our conduct and our consciences to the will
of others, and act wickedly, or well, as their good or evil may
preponderate, without merit for virtue or responsibility for crime."
It is worthy of notice that the same is expressed in a maxim to
soldiers, which they are required to memorize. Dymond says that only
a commander answers for the consequences of his order. But this
is unjust. A man cannot remove the responsibility for his actions
from himself. And this is evident from the following: "If your
superior orders you to kill your child, your neighbor, your father,
or your mother, will you obey? If you will not, there is an end of
the argument; for if you may reject his authority in one instance,
where is the limit to rejection? There is no rational limit but that
which is assigned by Christianity, and that is both rational and
practicable....
"We think, then, that it is the business of every man who believes
that war is inconsistent with our religion, respectfully, but
steadfastly, to refuse to engage in it. Let such as these remember
that an honorable and an awful duty is laid upon them. It is upon
their fidelity, so far as human agency is concerned, that the
cause of peace is suspended. Let them, then, be willing to avow
their opinions and to defend them. Neither let them be contented
with words, if more than words, if suffering also, is required.
It is only by the unyielding fidelity of virtue that corruption
can be extirpated. If you believe that Jesus Christ has prohibited
slaughter, let not the opinions or the commands of a world induce
you to join in it. By this 'steady and determinate pursuit of
virtue,' the benediction which attaches to those who hear the
sayings of God, and do them, will rest upon you, and the time will
come when even the world will honor you as contributors to the work
of human reformation."
Musser's work, entitled "Non-resistance Asserted; or, Kingdom of
Christ and Kingdom of this World Separated," was published in 1864.
This book deals with the same question, drawing its illustrations
from the drafting of the United States citizens during the time of
the Civil War. In setting forth the reasons why men should have
the right to decline military service, his arguments are no less
applicable to the present time. In his Introduction the author says:
"It is well known that there are great numbers of people in the
United States who profess to be conscientiously opposed to war. They
are mostly called non-resistants, or defenseless Christians, and
refuse to defend their country, or take up arms at the call of the
government and go forth to battle against its enemies. Hitherto this
conscientious scruple has been respected by the government in this
country; and those claiming it have been relieved or excused from
this service.
"Since the commencement of the present civil war in the United
States the public mind has been unusually agitated on this subject.
It is not unreasonable that such persons as feel it to be their
duty to go forth and endure the hardships of camp life, and imperil
health, life, and limb in defense of their country and government,
should feel some jealousy of those who have, with themselves, long
enjoyed the protection and benefits of the government, and yet, in
the hour of its need, refuse to share the burden of its defense
and protection. Neither is it strange that such a position should
be looked upon as most unreasonable and monstrous, and those who
hold it be regarded with some suspicion. "Many able speakers and
writers," says the author, "have raised their voices and pens
to refute the idea of non-resistance, as both unreasonable and
unscriptural. This is not to be wondered at, seeing that those who
profess the principle and do not possess it, or correctly understand
it, act inconsistently, and thereby bring the profession into
disrepute and contempt. However much misapplication or abuse of a
principle may prejudice the minds of those who are unacquainted with
a subject, it is yet no argument against its truth."
The author at first proves it to be the duty of each Christian to
obey the rule of non-resistance. He says that the rule is perfectly
explicit, and that it has been given by Christ to all Christianity
without any possibility of being misinterpreted. "Judge for
yourselves, whether it is right or wrong to obey man more than you
do the Lord," said both Peter and John; and in exactly the same way
every man who wishes to be a Christian should regard the requirement
of his nation to be a soldier, remembering that Christ has told him,
"Do not resist evil."
This, in the opinion of Musser, decides the question of principle.
Another point, as to the right of declining military duty while
one enjoys the advantages accruing through violence, the author
considers in detail, and arrives at the conclusion that should a
Christian who follows the teaching of Christ refuse to go to the
war, he must also decline to take any position under the government
or any part in the elections, neither must he have recourse to any
officer of the law for his own personal advantage. Our author goes
on to consider the relation between the Old and New Testaments,
and the significance of government for non-Christians; arguments
against the doctrine of non-resistance are enumerated and refuted.
The author closes his book with the following words:--"Christians
need no governments: for they ought not to obey it in those matters
wherein Christ's teaching is set at naught, and still less should
they take an active part in it. Christ has chosen His disciples out
of the world. They have no promise of temporal good or happiness,
but the contrary. Their promise is in the world to come. The spirit
which they possess renders them happy and contented in any sphere of
life. So long as the world tolerates them, they are contented; but
if it will not let them dwell in peace, they flee to another city or
place; and so they are true pilgrims and strangers on earth, having
no certain abiding place.... They are well contented that the dead
may bury their dead, if they are only permitted to follow Christ."
Without deciding upon the merits of this definition of a Christian's
duty in regard to war, which we find set down in these two works, we
cannot fail to see the urgent need for a decision in regard to the
question itself.
There are men--hundreds of thousands of Quakers, Mennonites, our
own Duhobortzi, Molokani, men who belong to no sect whatsoever--who
believe that violence and therefore military service is incompatible
with Christianity; every year, for instance, we see in Russia a
number of men refusing to obey the conscription because of their
religious opinions. And how does the government deal with them?
Does it release them? Oh, no!... Does it use force, and in case
of disobedience punish them? Not exactly.... In 1818, government
managed the affair in this wise.
The following is an extract, hardly known to any one in Russia, from
a letter of Muraviev-Karsky, which was prohibited by the Russian
censor:--
"TIFLIS, _October 2d, 1818_.
"This morning the commander of the fortress told me that five
peasants belonging to the landowners of the government of Tambov
had been recently sent into the province of Grusia. These men
were intended to serve as soldiers, but they refused to obey.
They were flogged several times and made to run the gantlet,
but they were ready to give themselves up to the most cruel
tortures, yea, even to death itself, to escape military service.
'Let us go our way and harm us not; we do no harm ourselves. All
men are equal. The sovereign is a man like one of us, why should
we pay him taxes, and wherefore should we risk our lives to
kill in battle those who have never done us any harm? Draw and
quarter us, if you will, and we shall never change our minds; we
will never wear the uniform, nor mess at the soldier's table.
Some pitying soul may give us alms but from the government we
neither have had nor will have anything whatsoever.' Such are
the words of these peasants, who assure us that there are many
men in Russia like themselves. Four times they were brought
before the Committee of Ministers, and it was finally decided
that a report be made to the Czar, who ordered them to be sent
to Grusia for discipline, and desired the Commander-in-Chief to
forward a monthly report of the progress made in bringing these
peasants to a proper frame of mind."
The final result of this discipline is not known, for the matter was
kept a profound secret, and the episode may never have been made
public.
This was the conduct of the government seventy-five years ago in the
greater number of cases, always carefully hiding the truth from the
people; and it pursues the same policy at the present day, except
in regard to the German Mennonites, who live in the government of
Kherson, and who in lieu of military duty serve a corresponding term
as foresters,--the justice of their refusal to obey the conscription
being recognized.
But they are the sole exception; all others who, from religious
scruples, refuse to perform military duty are treated in the manner
just described.
At first the government employs all the methods of coercion now in
use to discipline and _convert_ the rebels, while at the same time
the most profound secrecy envelops all these proceedings. I know of
a process which was begun in 1884 against a man who had declined to
serve,--a long-drawn-out trial which was guarded by the Ministry as
a great secret.
The first step is usually to send the accused to the priests,
and, be it said to their shame, they always try to win over the
insubordinate. But as the influence exercised in the name of Christ
is generally unsuccessful, the delinquent is sent from the clergy to
the gendarmes, who, finding in him no political offense, send him
back; whereupon he is despatched to the scientists, the doctors, and
thence into the insane hospital. While he is thus sent to and fro,
the delinquent, deprived of his liberty like a condemned convict,
is made to endure every kind of indignity and suffering. Four such
cases have come to my knowledge. The doctors generally release the
man from the insane hospital, and then every underhanded and crafty
device is employed to delay the accused, because his release might
encourage others to follow his example. He is not allowed to remain
among the soldiers lest they discover from him that conscription
is not, as they are taught to believe, in accordance with the law
of God, but opposed to it. The most satisfactory arrangement for a
government would be either to execute the delinquent, or beat him
with rods until he died, as was done in former times. But it is
awkward to condemn a man to public execution because he is true to
the doctrine which we all profess to believe. Nor is it possible to
take no notice of a man when he refuses to obey. So the government
either tortures the man in order to compel him to deny Christ, or
tries to rid itself of him by some means which will hide both the
man and the crime from the eyes of the world, rather than resort to
public execution. All sorts of cunning manœuvers and tricks are
employed to torment the man. He is either banished to some remote
province, or exasperated to disobedience and then imprisoned, or
sent to the reform battalion, where he may be subjected to torture
without publicity or restriction; or he is pronounced insane and
locked up in the insane asylum. For instance, one was exiled to
Tashkent; that is to say, a pretense was made of transferring him
thither. Another was sent to Omsk, a third was court-martialed for
disobedience and imprisoned, and a fourth was put into a house for
the insane. The same thing is repeated on every side. Not only
the government, but the majority of liberal free-thinkers, as
though by preconcerted agreement, carefully avoid alluding to what
has been said, written, or done in this matter of denouncing the
inconsistency of violence, as embodied in its most shocking, crude,
and striking form, in the person of a soldier,--this readiness to
commit murder,--not only with the precepts of Christianity, but with
the dictates of mere humanity, which the world professes to obey.
Hence all the information that I have gathered concerning what
has been accomplished, and what is still going on in this work of
explaining the doctrine of Christ and the light in which it is
regarded by the ruling powers of Europe and America, has confirmed
me in the conviction that a spirit inimical to true Christianity
dwells in these authorities, exhibited chiefly by the conspiracy of
silence with which they enshroud any manifestation of it.
NOTE
"The publication of this book ('The Net of Faith') was ended
[completed] by the Academy in the last months of the present
year (1893)."--_Note received by the Publisher from Count
Tolstoï while this work was going to press._
CHAPTER II
OPINIONS OF BELIEVERS AND UNBELIEVERS IN REGARD TO NON-RESISTANCE
The fate of the book, "My Religion"--The evasive answers
of religious critics to the questions propounded in that
book--1st answer, Violence does not contradict Christianity--2d
answer, Necessity of violence for the purpose of repressing
evil-doers--3d answer, Necessity of violence for the defense of
one's neighbor--4th answer, The violation of the commandment of
Non-resistance regarded as a weakness--5th answer, Evasion of
the answer by a pretense that this matter has long since been
decided--The cloak of church authority, antiquity, the holiness
of religious men, explain for many the contradictions between
violence and Christianity, in theory as well as in life--Usual
attitude of the clergy and authorities in regard to the
profession of true Christianity--General character of Russian
secular writers--Foreign secular critics--Incorrectness of the
opinions of the former and the latter caused by a failure to
understand the true meaning of the doctrine of Christ.
All the criticisms of the statements contained in my own book have
given me a similar impression of a wish to ignore the subject.
As I had anticipated, no sooner was the book published than it
was prohibited, and should, according to law, have been burned.
But instead of being consumed by the flames, every copy was taken
by the government officials and circulated in large numbers,
both in manuscript and in the lithographed sheets, as well as in
translations which were published abroad. It was not long before
criticisms began to appear, not only from the clergy, but from the
secular world, which the government, so far from forbidding, took
pains to encourage. Hence the very refutation of the book, the
existence of which they assumed to be unknown, was made the theme of
theological controversy.
These criticisms, both foreign and domestic, may be divided into two
classes, religious and secular; the former by persons who consider
themselves believers, and the latter by free-thinkers. I shall
begin by considering the former. In my book I accuse the clergy
of inculcating doctrines contrary to the commandments of Christ,
plainly and clearly expressed in the Sermon on the Mount, and
particularly in regard to the commandment of non-resistance to evil,
thereby depriving the doctrine of Christ of all its significance.
Do the ministers of the gospel believe the Sermon on the Mount,
including the commandment of non-resistance, to be of divine origin?
Having felt themselves obliged to review my book, it would seem as
if they must first of all answer the principal charge, and declare
at once whether they do or do not consider the Sermon on the Mount
and the commandment of non-resistance obligatory upon a Christian.
Instead of making the usual reply, couched in words such as, "Though
one cannot deny, neither can one affirm, the more so as," etc.,
let them give a categorical answer to my question: Did Christ
practically require his disciples to do that which he taught in
the Sermon on the Mount, and therefore may a Christian appeal to a
legal tribunal, either for defense or prosecution, and still remain
a Christian? May he consistently take a part in a government which
is the instrument of violence? And that most important question,
which, since the introduction of the general conscription, concerns
us all: May a Christian remain a Christian and still disobey the
direct command of Christ; may he promise to conduct himself in a
manner directly opposed to the doctrine of Christ, by entering into
military service and putting himself in training to be a murderer?
The questions are put plainly and directly, and would seem to call
for plain and direct answers. But no; my book has been received
just as all previous denunciations have been, those denunciations
of the clergy who have deviated from the law of Christ, with which
history abounds since the time of Constantine the Great. Many
words have been expended in noting the errors of my interpretation
of this or that passage of the Scriptures, of how wrong I am in
referring to the Trinity, the Redemption, and the Immortality of
the soul, but never a word of that vital question: How are we to
reconcile those lessons of forgiveness, humility, patience, and
love toward all mankind, our neighbors as well as our enemies,
taught us by the Teacher, which dwell in the heart of each of us,
with the necessities caused by military aggressions against our
own countrymen as well as against foreigners? All that deserves
the name of a response to these questions may be summed up under
five headings. I have endeavored to bring together in this book not
only the criticisms upon my book, but everything that has ever been
written on this subject.
The first criticisms with which I deal come mostly from men of high
position, either in Church or State, who feel quite sure that no one
will venture to combat their assertions; should any one make the
attempt, they would never hear the arguments. These men, intoxicated
for the most part by their authority, have forgotten that there is a
Christianity in whose name they hold their places. They condemn as
sectarian all that which is truly Christ-like in Christianity, while
on the other hand, every text in both Old and New Testaments which
can be wrested from its meaning so as to justify an anti-Christian
or pagan sentiment--upon these they establish the foundation of
Christianity. In order to confirm their statement that Christianity
is not opposed to violence, these men generally quote, with the
greatest assurance, equivocal passages from the Old and New
Testaments, interpreting them in the most anti-Christian spirit--the
death of Ananias and Sapphira, the execution of Simon the Sorcerer,
etc. All of Christ's words that can possibly be misinterpreted are
quoted in vindication of cruelty--the expulsion from the Temple, the
words "... it shall be more tolerable in that day for Sodom than
for that city" (Luke x. 12), and other passages. According to these
men, a Christian is not at all obliged to be guided by the spirit
of humility, forgiveness, and love of his enemies. It is useless
to try to refute such a doctrine, because men who affirm it refute
themselves, or rather they turn away from Christ Himself, to invent
an ideal and a form of religion all their own, forgetful of Him in
whose name both the Church and the offices they hold exist. If men
but knew that the Church preaches an unforgiving, murder-loving, and
belligerent Christ, they would not believe in that Church, and its
doctrines would be defended by none.
The second method, somewhat more awkward, consists in affirming that
though Christ did, in point of fact, teach us to turn the other
cheek, and to share our cloak, and that these are indeed lofty
moral laws, still ... the world abounds in evil-doers, and if these
wretches are not subdued by force, the righteous will perish and the
world will be destroyed. I met with this argument for the first time
in St. John Chrysostom, and have called attention to its unfairness
in my book entitled "My Religion."
This argument is groundless, because if we allow ourselves to look
upon our fellow-men as evil-doers, outcasts (Raka), we sap the very
foundations of the Christian doctrine, which teaches us that we,
the children of the Heavenly Father, are brothers, and equal one to
the other. In the second place, if the same Father had permitted
us to use violence toward wrong-doers, as there is no infallible
rule for distinguishing the good from the evil, every individual
or every community might class its neighbors under the head of
evil-doers, which is practically the case at the present time. In
the third place, if it were possible to distinguish the righteous
from the unrighteous, even then it would not be expedient in a
Christian community to put to death, to cripple, or to imprison the
evil-doers, as in such a community there would be no one to execute
these sentences, since every man in his quality of Christian is
forbidden to do violence to a malefactor.
The third mode of reply, more ingenious than the preceding ones,
consists in affirming that while to obey the commandment of
non-resistance is every Christian's duty, when the injury is a
personal one, it ceases to be obligatory when harm is done to one's
neighbor, and that in such an emergency a Christian is bound to
break the commandment and use force against the evil-doer. This
assertion is purely arbitrary, and one finds no justification for it
throughout the whole body of the doctrine of Christ.
Such an interpretation is not only a narrow one, but actually
amounts to a direct negation. If every man has the right to employ
violence whenever his neighbor is threatened with danger, then the
question becomes reduced to this: How may one define what is called
danger to one's neighbor? If, however, my private judgment is to be
arbiter in this matter, then any violence which I might commit on
any occasion whatever could be excused by the declaration that my
neighbor was in danger. Magicians have been burned, aristocrats and
Girondists put to death, because the men in power considered them
dangerous.
If this important condition, which destroys the significance of the
commandment, ever entered into the thought of Christ, it would have
been formulated somewhere. Not only is no such exception to the
commandment to be found throughout the Teacher's life and lessons,
but there is on the other hand a warning against an interpretation
so false and misleading.
The error and the impracticability of such a definition is vividly
illustrated in the Bible story of Caiaphas, who made use of this
very same interpretation. He admitted that it was not well to put
to death the innocent Jesus, but at the same time he perceived the
existence of a danger, not for himself, but for all the people, and
therefore declared it better for one man to die, rather than that a
whole nation should perish.
And we have a still more explicit proof of the fallacy of this
interpretation in the words addressed to Peter, when he tried to
revenge by violence the attack upon Jesus (Matthew xxvi. 51). Peter
was defending not himself, but his beloved and divine Master, and
Christ distinctly forbade him, saying, "For all they that take
the sword shall perish with the sword" (Matthew xxvi. 52). One
can never justify an act of violence against one's fellow-man by
claiming to have done it in defense of another who was enduring some
wrong, because in committing an act of violence, it is impossible
to compare the one wrong with the other, and to say which is the
greater, that which one is about to commit, or the wrong done
against one's neighbor. We release society from the presence of a
criminal by putting him to death, but we cannot possibly know that
the former might not have so changed by the morrow as to render the
execution a useless cruelty. We imprison another, we believe him a
dangerous man; but no later than next day this very man may have
ceased to be dangerous, and his imprisonment has become unnecessary.
I see a robber, a man known to me, pursuing a girl; I hold a gun
in my hand; I wound or perhaps kill the robber, and save the girl.
The fact that I have either wounded or killed the robber remains,
but I know not what might have happened had I not done so. And what
a vast amount of harm must and does accrue from the assurance that
a man feels of his right to provide against a possible calamity.
Ninety-nine parts of the world's iniquity, from the Inquisition to
the bomb-throwing of the present day, and the execution of tens of
thousands of political criminals, so called, result from this very
assurance.
The fourth and still more ingenious reply to this question of
the Christian's responsibility in regard to the commandment of
Christ concerning non-resistance to evil by violence, consists in
asserting that this commandment is not denied, but acknowledged,
like all the others; it is only the special significance attributed
to it by sectarians that is denied. Our critics declare that the
views of Garrison, Ballou, and Dymond, as well as those professed
by the Quakers, the Shakers, the Mennonites, the Moravians, the
Waldenses, Albigenses, Bogomiles, and Paulicians, are those of
bigoted sectarians. This commandment, they say, has the importance,
no more and no less, of all the others; and one who through weakness
has transgressed against any of the commandments, whether that of
non-resistance or another, does not for that cause cease to be a
Christian, provided his creed be true.
This is a very cunning and persuasive subterfuge, especially for
those who are willing to be deceived, reducing the direct negation
of the commandment to its accidental infraction. One has, however,
but to compare the attitude of the clergy toward this or any of the
other commandments which they do acknowledge, to be convinced that
it is quite different from their attitude toward this one.
The commandment against fornication they acknowledge without
reservation, and in no case will they ever admit that this sin is
not an evil. There are no circumstances mentioned by the clergy
when the commandment against fornication may be broken, and they
always insist that the occasions for this sin must be avoided.
But in regard to non-resistance it is a very different matter.
Every clergyman believes that there are circumstances wherein this
commandment may be held in abeyance, and they preach accordingly.
So far from teaching their parishioners to avoid the temptations
to this sin, chief among which is the oath of allegiance, they
take the oath themselves. Clergymen have never been known to
advocate the breaking of any other commandment; but in regard to
the doctrine of non-resistance, they distinctly teach that this
prohibition must not be taken too literally, that so far from
always obeying this commandment, one should on occasion follow
the opposite course--that is, one should sit in judgment, should
go to war, and should execute criminals. Thus in most of the cases
where non-resistance to evil by violence is in question, the
preachers will be found to advocate disobedience. Obedience to this
commandment, they say, is difficult, and can only be practicable
in a state of society whose members are perfect. But how is it to
become less difficult, when its infraction is not only condoned, but
directly encouraged, when legal tribunals, prisons, the implements
of warfare, the cannon and muskets, armies and battles, receive the
blessing of the Church? Therefore this reply is not true. Evidently
the statement that this commandment is acknowledged by the clergy to
be of equal validity with the other commandments cannot be true.
Clergymen do not really acknowledge it, yet, unwilling to admit this
fact, they try by evasion to conceal their non-acknowledgment.
Such is the fourth method of answering.
The fifth, more ingenious than its predecessor, is the popular one
of all. It consists in quietly evading reply, pretending that the
question was solved ages ago, in a cogent and satisfactory manner,
and that it would be a waste of words to reopen the subject. This
method is employed by all the more cultured authors, who, if they
made answer at all, would feel themselves bound to be logical.
Realizing that the inconsistency between that doctrine of Christ,
of which we make a verbal profession, and the scheme of our daily
lives, is not to be solved by words, and that the more it is talked
the more glaring this inconsistency becomes, they evade it with
more or less circumspection, pretending that the question of union
between Christianity and the law of violence has either been already
solved, or else that it cannot be solved at all.[2]
[2] I know of but one criticism, or rather essay, for it can hardly
be termed criticism, in the strict sense of the word, which treats
of the same subject, having my book in view. It is a pamphlet by
Troïtzky, called "The Sermon on the Mount" (printed in Kazan).
Evidently the author acknowledges the doctrine of Christ in the
fullness of its meaning. He declares that the commandment of
non-resistance to evil means what it says, and the same with the
commandment as to taking an oath. He does not deny, as others have
done, the meaning of Christ's teaching, but unfortunately neither
does he draw those inevitable conclusions which must result from
a conception such as his own of Christ's doctrine. If one is not
to resist evil by violence, nor to take an oath, it is but natural
to ask: Then what is the duty of a soldier? And what is to be done
about taking the oath of allegiance? But to these questions the
author makes no reply, and surely a reply should have been given. If
he had none to make, it would have been better to have said nothing
at all.
Most of my clerical critics have made use of this method. I might
quote scores of criticisms of this class, wherein everything
is discussed except the vital principle of the book. As a
characteristic specimen of these criticisms I will quote from an
article by that well-known and scholarly Englishman, the writer and
preacher, Canon Farrar, who, like so many other learned theologians,
is an expert in the art of silently ignoring and evading a
statement. The article appeared in an American magazine, _The
Forum_, for October, 1888.
After briefly but conscientiously setting forth the subject-matter
of my book, Farrar says:--"After repeated search the central
principle of all Christ's teaching seemed to him [Tolstoï] to be,
'Resist not evil' or 'him that is evil.' He came to the conclusion
that a coarse deceit had been palmed upon the world when these words
were held by civil society to be compatible with war, courts of
justice, capital punishment, divorce, oaths, national prejudice,
and indeed with most of the institutions of civil and social life.
He now believes that the Kingdom of God would come if all men
kept these five commandments, which he holds to be the pith of
all Christ's teaching--viz.: 1. Live in peace with all men. 2. Be
pure. 3. Take no oaths. 4. Never resist evil. 5. Renounce national
distinctions.... Most of the Bible does not seem to him to reflect
the spirit of Christ at all, though it has been brought into
artificial and unwarrantable connection with it. Hence he rejects
the chief doctrines of the Church: that of the Atonement by blood,
that of the Trinity, that of the descent of the Holy Ghost upon the
Apostles and the transmission to the priesthood by laying on of
hands, that of the need of the seven sacraments for salvation. He
sets aside the authority of Paul, of councils, of fathers, popes,
or patriarchs, and believes himself to be the immediate disciple of
Christ alone.... But we are compelled to ask, Is this interpretation
of Christ a true one? Are all men bound, or is any man bound, to act
as this great writer has done?"
One might naturally expect that this vital question, which alone
could induce a man to write a dissertation on the book, would be
answered either by admitting that my interpretation of the doctrine
of Christ is correct and should be accepted, or declaring that
it is erroneous, proving his point, and offering a more correct
interpretation of the words which I have misconstrued. But no;
Farrar merely expresses his belief that "though actuated by the
noblest sincerity, Count Tolstoï has been misled by partial and
one-sided interpretations of the meaning of the gospel and the
mind and will of Christ." In what this error consists he does not
explain, but says: "_To enter into the proof of this is impossible
in this article, for I have already exceeded the space at my
command_." And concludes with equanimity: "Meanwhile the reader
who feels troubled lest it should be his duty also to forsake all
the conditions of his life, and to take up the position and work
of a common laborer, may rest for the present on the principle,
'Securus judicat orbis terrarum.' With few and rare exceptions the
whole of Christendom, from the days of the Apostles down to our
own, has come to the firm conclusion that it was the object of
Christ to lay down great eternal principles, but not to disturb the
bases and revolutionize the institutions as well as all inevitable
conditions. Were it my object to prove how untenable is the doctrine
of communism, based by Count Tolstoï upon the divine paradoxes,
which can be interpreted on only historical principles in accordance
with the whole method of the teaching of Jesus, it would require an
ampler canvas than I have here at my disposal." What a pity that he
has no space! And, wonderful to relate, no one for fifteen centuries
ever had the space to prove that the Christ whom we profess said one
thing and meant another. And of course they could prove it if they
would! But it is not worth while to prove what everybody knows to be
true. It is enough to say: "Securus judicat orbis terrarum."
The criticisms of all educated believers are very much alike,
because realizing as they must the danger of their position, they
feel that their only safeguard lies in the hope that by sheltering
themselves behind the authority and holiness of the Church, they may
succeed in intimidating their readers, or diverting them from any
idea of reading the Bible for themselves or using their own reason
to solve this question. And this is a method that succeeds. To whom
would it ever occur, indeed, that all these assurances, repeated
with so much solemnity, century after century, by archdeacons,
bishops, and archbishops, synods and popes, are a base falsehood,
a calumny against the character of Christ, uttered for the purpose
of assuring to themselves the money they require to lead a life
of ease at the expense of others,--a falsehood and a calumny so
palpable, particularly now, that the only chance of perpetuating
this falsehood lies in holding the people in awe by their arrogance
and audacity?
The very same thing has been going on of late years in the Bureau
of military conscription. A number of aged officials, decorated
and self-important, are at a table, a full-lengthed portrait of
the Emperor with the mirror of justice before them, and, while
leisurely chatting with each other, they write, call out the names,
and give their orders. Here also, with a cross upon his breast, his
hair blowing over his stole, a genial and venerable-looking priest
dressed in a silk robe sits before a pulpit on which is placed a
golden cross and a Bible with gilt clasps.
Ivan Petrov is called. An untidy, poorly clad youth, with a
frightened expression, twitching muscles, and gleaming eyes that
have a wandering look, steps forward, and in a hesitating, broken
voice almost whispers: "I ... according to law ... as a Christian
... I ... I cannot...." "What is he muttering?" asks the chairman,
impatiently, squinting and making an effort to hear, as he raises
his head from the book. "Speak louder!" exclaims the colonel with
the glittering shoulder-straps. "As a Christian ... I ... I...."
And at last it becomes plain that the youth refuses to enter the
military service because he is a Christian. "Don't talk nonsense!
Measure him! Doctor, be kind enough to look at the measure. Will he
do?" "He will do." "Holy Father, let him take the oath."
Not only is there no uneasiness on the part of the officers, but no
one pays the least attention to the muttering of this frightened,
pitiable youth. "They always mutter, and we are in a hurry; we have
still so many more to receive."
The recruit tries to speak again. "This is against the law of
Christ!" "Move on! move on! We know what is lawful and what is not!
Move on! Father, make him understand! Next! Vassili Nikitin!"
Then the trembling youth is led away. Now which of all these men,
the soldiers, Vassili Nikitin, the new man on the list, or any other
witness of the scene,--which of these would ever dream that the
unintelligible, broken utterances of the youth, silenced forthwith
by the magistrates, embodied the real truth, while the loud,
arrogant speeches of the officials, of the priest, uttered with
authority, were actually false?
The same impression is made not only by Farrar's essay, but by
all those grandiloquent sermons, reviews, and other publications
which spring into existence on every side wherever truth is found
combating the arrogance of falsehood. At once these orators and
writers, subtle or bombastic, begin by dwelling upon points closely
allied to the vital question, while preserving an artful silence on
the question itself.
And this is the fifth and most efficacious method of accounting for
the inconsistent attitude of ecclesiastical Christianity, which,
while professing Christ, with its own life denies, and teaches
others to deny, this doctrine in the practice of daily life.
They who employ the first method of justification by boldly and
distinctly affirming that Christ sanctioned violence, meaning wars
and murders, put themselves beyond the pale of Christ's teaching;
while they who defend themselves according to the second, third, and
fourth methods soon become entangled, and are easily convicted of
falsehood; but the fifth class, they who condescend not to reason,
use their dignity for a screen, and insist that all these questions
were settled ages ago, and need no reconsideration; they, apparently
invulnerable, will maintain an undisputed authority, and men will
repose under the hypnotic suggestion of Church and State, nor seek
to throw off the yoke.
Such were the views of the clergy, of the professors of
Christianity, in regard to my book, nor could anything different
have been expected: they are in bonds to their inconsistent
position, believers in the divinity of the Teacher, and yet
discrediting His plainest words,--an inconsistency which they are
bound to reconcile in some way. Hence it is not to be supposed
that they would give unbiased opinions in regard to the essential
question of that change which must take place in the life of one
who makes a practical application of the doctrine of Christ to
the existing order. From secular critics and free-thinkers, who
acknowledge no obligation to the doctrine of Christ, and who might
be expected to judge them without prejudice, I had prepared myself
for criticisms such as these. I thought that the Liberals would look
upon Christ not only as the founder of a religion involving personal
salvation (as understood by the ecclesiastics and their followers),
but, to use their own expression, as upon a reformer who tears down
the old foundations to make way for new ones, and whose reformation
is not even yet complete.
To set forth that conception of Christ and his doctrine has been
the object of my book. But to my surprise not one out of the many
criticisms, Russian or foreign, that have appeared, has accepted my
view, or even discussed it from my standpoint, which is, that the
teaching of Christ is a philosophical, moral, and social doctrine.
(I use the phraseology of the scientists.) The Russian secular
critics, conceiving the sum and substance of my book to be a plea
in favor of resistance to evil, and taking it for granted (probably
for the sake of argument) that the doctrine forbade any struggle
whatsoever against the wrong, made a virulent, and for several
years, most successful attack upon this doctrine, proving that the
teaching of Christ must be false, since it forbids any effort to
overcome evil. Their refutations of this so-called _false_ doctrine
had all the more chance of success, because the censorship had
prohibited, not only the book itself, but also all articles in its
defense, and consequently they knew beforehand that their arguments
could not be assailed.
It is worthy of note that here in Russia, where not a word against
the Holy Scriptures is allowed by the censor, for several years
in succession the distinct and unmistakable commandment of Christ
(Matthew v. 39) was criticized, distorted, condemned, and mocked at
in all the leading periodicals.
The Russian secular critics, apparently ignorant of all that had
been said and done in regard to non-resistance to evil, seemed to
think that I had invented the principle myself, and attacked it
as if it were my idea, first distorting and then refuting it with
great ardor, bringing forward time-worn arguments that had been
analyzed and refuted over and over again, showing that the oppressed
and downtrodden should be defended by violence, and declaring the
doctrine of Christ concerning non-resistance to be immoral.
All the significance that the Russian critics saw in Christ's
preaching was, that it seemed expressly intended to hamper them
in their struggles against what they believe to be an evil in the
present day. Thus it came about that the principle of non-resistance
to evil by violence was attacked from two opposite camps; the
Conservatives, because this principle interfered with them in their
efforts to suppress sedition, and as opposed to all persecution,
as well as to the punishment of death; the Revolutionists, because
this principle forbade them to resist the oppression of the
Conservatives, or to attempt their overthrow. The Conservatives were
indignant that the doctrine of non-resistance to evil by violence
should thwart an energetic suppression of revolutionary elements,
which might imperil the welfare of a nation; the Revolutionists
in the like manner were indignant because this same doctrine
averted the downfall of the Conservatives, who, in their opinion,
imperil the welfare of the people. It is a circumstance worthy
of notice that the Revolutionists should attack the principle of
non-resistance to evil by violence; for of all the doctrines dreaded
by despotism, and dangerous to its existence, this is the chief one.
Since the creation of the world the opposite principle of resistance
by violence has been the corner-stone of every despotic institution,
from the Inquisition to the fortress of Schlüsselburg.
Moreover, the Russian critics declared that the progress of
civilization itself would be checked were this commandment of
non-resistance applied to everyday life, by which they mean the
civilization of Europe, which is, according to them, the model for
all mankind.
Such was the substance of Russian criticism.
Foreign critics start from the same premises, but their deductions
differ somewhat from those of the Russian critics; not only are they
less captious and more cultivated, but their modes of analysis are
not the same.
In discussing my book, and more particularly the gospel doctrine
as it is expressed in the Sermon on the Mount, the foreign critics
affirmed that the latter could not really be called Christian
doctrine (they believe that the Christian doctrine is embodied in
Catholicism or Protestantism), and that the precepts of the Sermon
on the Mount are only a series of the delightful but unpractical
visions of the "charmant docteur," as Renan says, suited to the
artless, half-civilized Galileans who lived 1800 years ago, or to
the Russian and semi-barbarous peasants, to Sutaev and Bondarev, and
to the Russian mystic Tolstoï, but which are by no means adapted to
the lofty plane of European culture. The foreign secular critics, in
a courteous way, in order not to wound my feelings, have endeavored
to show that my belief that mankind may be guided by so simple a
doctrine as the Sermon on the Mount arises partly from my limited
knowledge of history and ignorance of the many vain attempts to
carry out in daily life the principles of the Sermon on the Mount,
which history tells us have always proved an utter failure, and
partly from my misconception of the significance of our modern
civilization, with its Krupp guns, its smokeless powder, its African
colonization, its Home Rule, its parliaments, journalism, strikes,
and constitutions, not to mention the Eiffel Tower,--on which the
entire population of Europe is at present reposing.
Thus wrote Vogüé, thus wrote Leroy-Beaulieu, Matthew Arnold, the
American writer Talmage, who is also a popular preacher, the
free-thinker Ingersoll, and others.
"The teaching of Christ is no longer practicable, because it does
not suit our industrial times," Ingersoll ingenuously remarks, and
thereby he no doubt gives utterance to the views which this cultured
generation holds in regard to the doctrine of Christ. The doctrine
has no affinity with the industrialism of the present age, as though
industrialism were a sacred institution which can suffer no change.
A drunkard might thus reply to one who calls upon him to be sober,
that a man in liquor finds such advice absurd.
The arguments of all secular writers, Russian as well as foreign,
however varied in form or expression, are substantially alike;
they all agree in misapprehending the doctrine of Christ, with its
outcome of non-resistance, and in affirming that it is not expedient
because it implies a need of a change of life.
The doctrine of life is inexpedient, because if we lived up to it
our lives could not go on as they have done hitherto; in other
words, if we were to begin to live like righteous men, as Christ
bids us, we must abandon the wicked ways to which we have grown
accustomed. So far from discussing the question of non-resistance of
evil by violence, the very mention of the fact that the precepts of
Christ include such a command is considered as sufficient proof of
the inexpediency of the whole doctrine.
And yet it would seem necessary to offer some solution of this
question, as it lies at the root of all that most interests us.
The question is how to settle these differences among men, when the
very action that is considered evil by one man is considered good by
another. It is no answer to say that I think an action evil although
my adversary may consider it a good one. There are but two ways of
solving the difficulty. One is to find a positive and indisputable
standard of evil, and the other is to obey the command, resist not
evil by violence.
Men have tried to achieve the former from the earliest historical
ages, and we all know with what unsuccessful results.
The second solution--that is, the non-resistance of what we must
consider evil until we have found a universal standard: that
solution has been suggested by Christ himself.
It might be thought that the solution suggested by Christ was the
wrong one, and a better one might be substituted after the standard
had been found which is to define evil once and for all. One might
not know of the existence of such a question, as is the case with
the barbarous races, but no one can be permitted to pretend,
like the learned critics of the Christian doctrine, that no such
question does exist, or that the recognition of the right of certain
individuals or groups of individuals, and still less of one's own
right, to define evil, and to resist it by violence, decides the
question, because we all know that such a recognition does not
decide it at all, for there are always persons who will refuse to
admit that such a prerogative can exist.
And yet this very acknowledgment, that anything that seems evil to
us is evil, or else an utter misconception of the question, affords
a basis for the conclusions of secular critics concerning the
doctrine of Christ; hence not only the utterances of the clerical,
but also those of the secular critics in regard to my book, have
made it evident to me that most men totally fail to comprehend
either the doctrine of Christ, or the questions which it is intended
to decide.
CHAPTER III
MISCONCEPTION OF CHRISTIANITY BY NON-BELIEVERS
The meaning of the Christian doctrine, which is clear for
the minority, has become unintelligible for the majority of
men--The cause of it is the false conception of Christianity
and the misguided assurance of believers, as well as of
unbelievers, that they apprehend it--The apprehension of
Christianity for believers is concealed by the Church--The
apprehension of Christianity--Its essence and its unlikeness
to the pagan doctrines--Misunderstood at first, it has grown
clear to those who embrace it owing to its correspondence with
the truth--Contemporaneously with it arose the assertion that
the true meaning of the doctrine was understood, and had been
confirmed by miraculous transmission--The Council of Disciples
according to the Acts--Authoritative and miraculous assertion
of the true conception of Christ's doctrine has found its
logical conclusion in the acknowledgment of the Credo and
the Church--The Church could not have been established by
Christ--Definition of Churches according to the Catechism--There
are various Churches, ever antagonistic to one another--Where is
heresy?--The work of Mr. Arnold concerning heresies--Heresies
are the sign of activity in the Churches--Churches always divide
mankind, and are ever inimical to Christianity--In what the
activity of the Russian Church consists--Matthew xxiv. 23--The
Sermon on the Mount, or the Credo--The Orthodox Church conceals
from the people the true meaning of Christianity--The same is
done by other Churches--All the contemporary external conditions
are such that they destroy the doctrine of the Church, and
therefore Churches use all their efforts to defend it.
The knowledge which I obtained after the publication of my book in
regard to the views which the minority of mankind have held, and
still hold, concerning the doctrine of Christ in its simplicity
and real significance, as well as the criticisms of clerical and
secular writers, who deny the possibility of apprehending it in
its actual meaning, have convinced me that while the minority has
not only always possessed a true conception of this doctrine, and
that this conception has grown steadily more and more clear, for
the majority, on the other hand, its sense has become more and more
vague, reaching at last such a degree of obscurity that men fail to
understand the simplest commands expressed in the Bible, even when
couched in the plainest possible language.
The inability that prevails at the present time to comprehend the
doctrine of Christ in its true, simple, and actual meaning, when
its light has penetrated into the remotest recesses of the human
understanding, when, as Christ said, they proclaim from the roofs
that which He whispered in the ear; when this doctrine penetrates
every phase of human life, domestic, economical, civil, politic, and
international,--this failure to apprehend it would be inexplicable,
if one had not discovered the reasons for it.
One of the reasons is, that believers as well as unbelievers are
perfectly sure that they long ago understood the doctrine of Christ
so completely, unquestionably, and finally, that it can have no
other meaning but the one which they attribute to it. That is
because the tradition of this false conception has been handed down
for ages,--and therefore its misconception.
The most powerful stream of water cannot add one single drop to a
vessel that is already full.
One might succeed in explaining to the dullest of men the most
difficult of problems, if he had no previous conception in regard to
them; but it is impossible to explain to the cleverest man even the
simplest matters, if he is perfectly sure that he knows everything
about it.
The Christian doctrine appears to men of the present times to be a
doctrine of that kind, known for ages, and never to be questioned
in its most trivial details, and which is susceptible of no other
interpretation.
At the present time Christianity is conceived by those who profess
the doctrines of the Church as a supernatural, miraculous revelation
of all that is expressed in the Credo; while unbelievers look upon
it as an affair of the past, a manifestation of the demand of
humanity for a belief in the supernatural, as an historical fact,
which has found its fullest expression in Catholicism, Orthodoxy,
and Protestantism, and which has for us no vital meaning. For the
believers the real significance of the doctrine is concealed by the
Church; for the unbelievers it is hidden by science.
Let us begin by considering the former.
Eighteen hundred years ago, in the pagan world of Rome, there
appeared a strange and novel doctrine, unlike any of its
predecessors, which was ascribed to the man Christ.
It was a doctrine wholly new in form as well as in substance, both
for the Hebrew world, from whose midst it had sprung, as well as for
the Roman world, in whose midst it was preached and promulgated.
Among the accurately defined religious precepts of the Jews, where,
according to Isaiah, there was precept upon precept, and among the
highly perfected Roman legislative assemblies, there appeared a
doctrine that not only repudiated all deities, all fear of them,
all augury and all faith in it, but also denied the necessity for
any human institutions whatsoever. Instead of the precepts and
creeds of former times, this doctrine presented only an image of
interior perfection, truth, and love in the person of Christ, and
the attainment of this interior perfection possible for men, and, as
a consequence, of the outward perfection foretold by the prophets:
the coming of the Kingdom of God, when all enmity shall cease, when
every man will hear the word of the Lord and be united with another
in brotherly love, and when the lion and the lamb shall lie down
together. Instead of threats of punishment for the non-observance of
the commandments of the old laws, religious no less than secular,
instead of tempting men by promise of rewards to observe these laws,
this doctrine attracted mankind only by proclaiming itself to be the
truth.
"If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether
it be of God, or whether I speak of myself."--John vii. 17.
"Which of you convinceth me of sin? And if I say the truth, why do
ye not believe me?"--John viii. 46.
"But now ye seek to kill me, a man that hath told you the
truth...."--John viii. 40.
"And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you
free."--John viii. 32.
God must be worshiped in truth. All the doctrine will be made plain
by the Spirit of Truth. Do as I command you, and you will know
whether what I say is the truth.
No evidence was brought to prove the doctrine, except the truth and
its harmony therewith. The whole substance consisted in learning the
truth and in following its guidance, drawing nearer and nearer to it
in the affairs of everyday life.
According to this doctrine, there is no mode of action that can
justify a man or make him righteous; as regards interior perfection
we have only the image of truth, in the person of Christ, to win our
hearts, and outward perfection is expressed by a realization of the
Kingdom of God. In order to fulfil the doctrine it needs but to take
Christ for our model, and to advance in the direction of interior
perfection by the road which has been pointed out to us, as well as
in that of exterior perfection, which is the establishment of the
Kingdom of God. The degree of human happiness, whether it be more
or less, depends, according to this doctrine, not on the degree
of perfection at which it arrives, but on the comparative rate of
progress toward that perfection.
The advance toward perfection of Zacchæus the publican, of the
adulteress, of the thief on the cross, is, according to this
doctrine, better than the stagnation of the righteous Pharisee.
The shepherd rejoices more over the one sheep which was lost and
is found than over the ninety and nine which are in the fold. The
prodigal returned, the piece of money which was lost and is found,
is more precious unto God than that which was never lost.
According to this doctrine, each state is but a step on the road
toward the unattainable interior and exterior perfection, and
therefore it has no significance in itself. The progress of this
movement toward perfection is its merit; the least cessation of this
movement means the cessation of good works.
"Let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth," and "No
man, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for
the kingdom of God." "Rejoice not that the spirits are subject unto
you; but rather rejoice, because your names are written in heaven."
"Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is
perfect." "Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness."
The fulfilment of the doctrine lies in a continual progress toward
the attainment of a higher truth, and in the growing realization of
that truth within one's self, by means of an ever increasing love;
as well as in a more and more keen realization of the Kingdom of
God in the world around us. It is evident that the doctrine that
appeared in the midst of the Hebrew and pagan world could not be
accepted by the majority of men, who lived a life so totally unlike
the one prescribed by this new doctrine; and even those who did
accept it could not comprehend its full meaning, because of its
contradiction of all former ideas.
It is only through a series of misapprehensions, errors, one-sided
explanations, corrected and supplemented by generations of men,
that the meaning of the Christian doctrine has become more and more
plain. The Christian world-conception and that of the Hebrew and
pagan peoples mutually acted and reacted upon each other, and the
Christian principle being the more vital, it penetrated deeper and
deeper into the Hebrew and pagan principles that had outlived their
usefulness, and became more clearly defined, freeing itself from
the spurious admixtures imposed upon it. Men understood its meaning
better and better, and realized it more and more unmistakably in
life.
The older the world grew, the more lucid became its apprehension of
Christianity, as must always be the case with any doctrine relating
to human life.
Successive generations rectified the mistakes of the preceding ones
and approached nearer and nearer to the apprehension of its true
meaning. Thus it was from the very beginning of Christianity. And
it was then that certain men came to the front who affirmed that
the only true interpretation was the one which they themselves
proclaimed, adducing the miracles as a proof thereof.
This was the principal cause of its misapprehension in the first
place, and of its complete perversion in the second.
The doctrine of Christ was supposed to be transmitted to mankind not
like any other truth, but in a peculiar, supernatural manner; hence
they propose to prove its authority, not because it satisfies the
demands of reason and of human nature in general, but because of the
miraculous character of its transmission, which is supposed to be
an incontrovertible proof of the validity of its conception. This
idea sprang from a misconception, and the result was that it became
impossible to understand it.
It originated at the very beginning, when the doctrine was so
imperfectly understood and often so erroneously construed; as, for
example, in the Gospels and the Acts. The less men understood it,
the more mysterious it appeared, and the greater need was there for
visible proof of its authenticity. The rule for doing unto others as
you would wish them to do unto you, called for no miraculous proof,
neither did it require faith, because the proposition is convincing
in itself, both to reason and to human nature. But the proposition
that Christ was God needed miraculous testimony.
The more mystical grew the apprehension of Christ's teaching, the
more the miraculous element entered into it; and the more miraculous
it became, the farther it was from its original meaning; and the
more complicated, mystical, and remote from its original meaning it
came to be, the more necessary it was to declare its infallibility,
and the less intelligible it became.
From the very beginning of Christianity one could see from the
Gospels, the Acts, and the Epistles how the misapprehension of the
doctrine called forth the necessity of proofs--miraculous and beyond
human intelligence.
It dated from the time mentioned in the Acts, when the disciples
went up to Jerusalem to consult with the elders in regard to the
question that had arisen as to whether the uncircumcised and those
who abstained not from the meat offered to idols should be baptized.
The very manner of asking the question showed that those who
discussed it misconceived the doctrine of Christ, who rejected all
external rites, such as the washing of the feet, purification,
fasts, and the Sabbath. It is said distinctly: "Not that which goeth
into the mouth defileth a man; but those things which proceed out
of the mouth come forth from the heart; and they defile the man."
And therefore the question in regard to the baptism of those not
circumcised could only arise among men who, loving their Teacher and
with the intuitive perception of the grandeur of his doctrine, could
not as yet comprehend its exact meaning. And so it was.
And in proportion as the members of the assembly failed to
comprehend the doctrine, did they stand in need of an outward
affirmation of their incomplete conception. And in order to decide
the question, whose very proposal proves the misconception of
the doctrine, it was that in this assembly for the first time,
according to the description given in the Acts, were uttered those
awful words, productive of so much harm, by which the truth of
certain propositions has been for the first time confirmed: "For it
seemed good to the Holy Ghost, and to us;" that is to say, it was
a declaration that the truth of what they said was witnessed by a
miraculous participation of the Holy Ghost, that is--of God.
But the assertion that the Holy Ghost--that is to say, God--had
spoken through the apostles, in its turn required proof. And
therefore it became necessary to declare that on the fiftieth day
the Holy Ghost, in the shape of fiery tongues, descended on those
who had made this assertion. [In the description the descent of the
Holy Ghost precedes the council, but the Acts were written much
later than either.] But the descent of the Holy Ghost must also
be proved, though it would be difficult to say why a fiery tongue
hovering over a man's head should be a proof of the truth of what
he says any more than the miracles, the cures, the resurrections,
the martyrdoms, and all the rest of those persuasive miracles with
which the Acts are filled, and which serve rather to repel than to
convince one of the truth of the Christian dogmas. The results of
these methods were such that the more pains they took to confirm
their statements, accumulating stories of miracles, the more the
doctrine itself deviated from its original meaning, and the less
intelligible it became.
Thus it was from the beginning of the Christian era, and thus
it continued to increase, until in its own time it has reached
its logical consummation in the dogma of transubstantiation, the
infallibility of the Pope, the bishops, and Scriptures, which is
something utterly incomprehensible and nonsensical, requiring
a blind faith, not in God or Christ, nor even in the doctrine,
but a faith either in one person, as in Catholicism, or in many
persons, as in Orthodoxy, or in a book, as in Protestantism. The
more widely spread Christianity became, and the larger the number
of uninstructed men it received, the less it was understood, the
more the infallibility of its conceptions was insisted upon,
and the more slender grew the possibility of understanding its
true meaning. Already, about the time of Constantine, the entire
conception of the doctrine amounted to the _résumé_ formulated by
the temporal power,--the outcome of discussions that took place in
the council,--to the Credo, in which it is said: I believe in this
and that, etc., and at the end, "in the one holy, Apostolic and
Œcumenical Church," that is, in the infallibility of the persons
who constitute it; so that it all amounted to this, that a man
believed not in God, nor in Christ, as they revealed themselves to
him, but in that which was believed by the Church.
But the Church is holy, and was founded by Christ. God could not
allow men to interpret His doctrine as they chose, and therefore He
established the Church. All these propositions are so unjust and
unfounded, that one is actually ashamed to refute them. In no place,
and in no manner whatsoever, save in the assertion of the Church,
is it seen that either God or Christ can ever have founded anything
like the Church in its ecclesiastical sense. There is a distinct
and evident warning in the New Testament against the Church, as
an outside authority, in the passage which bids the disciples of
Christ call no man father or master. But nowhere is there a word
in regard to the establishment of what the ecclesiastics call the
Church. The word "church" is used in the New Testament twice, once
in speaking of the assembly which is to decide a dispute; the second
time in connection with the obscure words in regard to the rock,
Peter, and the gates of hell. From these two references, where the
word is used only in the sense of an assembly, men have derived the
institution which we recognize at present under the same of the
Church.
But Christ could by no means have founded a church, that is, what we
understand by that word at the present time, because nothing like
our Church, as we know it in these days, with the sacraments, the
hierarchy, and above all the establishment of infallibility, was to
be found either in the words of Christ, or in the ideas of the men
of those times.
Because men have called something which has been established since,
by the same word that Christ used in regard to another thing, by no
means gives them a right to assert that Christ founded only one true
Church.
Moreover, if Christ had it in his mind to establish a church which
was to be the depository of the whole doctrine and faith, He would
surely have expressed this so plainly and clearly, and would have
given, apart from all stories of miracles which are repeated with
every variety of superstition, such signs as would leave no doubt as
to its authenticity; yet this was not the case, and now, as always,
one finds different institutions, each one calling itself the only
true Church.
The Catholic catechism says: "L'Eglise est la société des fidèles
établie par N.-S. Jésus-Christ, répandue sur toute la terre et
soumise à l'autorité de pasteurs légitimes, principalement notre
S.-P. le pape,"--meaning by "pasteurs légitimes,"[3] a human
institution made up of a number of men bound together by a certain
organization of which the Pope is the head.
[3] The Church is the society of the faithful, established by our
Lord Jesus Christ, diffused throughout the world, subject to the
authority of its lawful pastors and our holy father the Pope.
The Orthodox catechism says: "Our Church is a society established
on earth by Jesus Christ, united by the divine doctrine and the
sacraments under the government and direction of a hierarchy
established by the Lord,"--those words, "established by the Lord,"
signifying a Greek hierarchy, composed of certain men who are
ordained to fill certain places.
The Lutheran catechism says: "Our Church is a holy Christian society
of believers under Christ, our Master, in which the Holy Ghost, by
means of the Bible and the sacraments, offers, communicates, and
dispenses the divine salvation,"--meaning by that, that the Catholic
Church is in error, and has fallen away from grace, and that the
genuine tradition has been preserved in Protestantism.
For Catholics the divine Church is identified with the Pope and
the Roman hierarchy. For the Orthodox it is identified with the
institution of the Eastern and Russian hierarchy.[4] For Lutherans
the divine Church signifies a congregation of men who acknowledge
the Bible and the Lutheran catechism.
[4] The definition of Homiakov, which had a certain success among
the Russians, does not help the case, if one believes with him
that the Orthodox is the only true Church. Homiakov asserts that
a church is a society of men (without distinction between the
ecclesiastics and the laity) united by love, and to whom the truth
is revealed ("Let us love one another, that we may unanimously
profess," etc.), and that such a church is, in the first place, one
that professes the Nicene creed, and, secondly, one which, after
the division of the churches, refused to recognize the authority of
the Pope and the new dogmas. With such a definition as this, the
difficulty of identifying a church which is united by love with a
church professing the Nicene creed, and the accuracy of Photius, as
Homiakov would have it, is still greater. Hence the statement of
Homiakov that this church united by love, and therefore holy, is
the same as that of the Greek hierarchy, is still more arbitrary
than the assertions of the Catholics and the old Greek Orthodox
believers. If we admit the existence of the Church according to the
idea of Homiakov, that is, as a society of men united by love and
truth, then all that any man can say in regard to it, is that it
would be most desirable to be a member of that society,--if such
an one exists,--that is, to live in the spirit of love and truth;
but there are no outward manifestations by which one could either
acknowledge one's self, or recognize others as members of this holy
society, or exclude one's self from it, for there is no outward
institution to be found which corresponds to that idea.
When those who belong to any one of the existing churches speak of
the beginnings of Christianity, they generally use the word "church"
in the singular, as though there had never been but one church. This
is quite unfair. The Church, which as an institution declares itself
to be the depository of infallible truth, did not arise until there
were already two.
While the faithful still agreed among themselves, the congregation
was united, and there was no occasion for calling itself a church.
It was only when it separated into two hostile parties that each
party felt obliged to assert its possession of the truth by claiming
infallibility.
During the course of the controversies between the two parties,
while each one claimed infallibility for itself and declared its
opponent heretical, arose the idea of the one church.
We know that there was a church in the year 51, which granted
the admission of the uncircumcised, and we know it only because
there was another, the Jewish Church, which denied their right to
membership.
If at the present time there is a Catholic Church which asserts
its infallibility, it is because there are other churches, namely,
the Greek Orthodox and the Lutheran, each one asserting its own
infallibility, and thus disowning all other churches. Hence the idea
of one church is but the product of the imagination, containing not
a shadow of reality.
It is an historical fact that there have existed, and still continue
to exist, numerous bodies, each one of whom maintains itself to be
the true Church established by Christ, declaring at the same time
that all the others who call themselves churches are heretical and
schismatic.
The catechisms of those churches which possess the greatest number
of communicants, the Catholic, the Orthodox, and the Lutheran,
express this in the plainest language.
The Catholic catechism says: "Quels sont ceux qui sont hors de
l'Eglise? Les infidèles, hérétiques, et schismatiques."[5] By
schismatics it means the so-called Orthodox, and by heretics the
Lutherans; so that, according to the Catholic catechism, the Church
is composed only of Catholics.
[5] Who are those outside the Church? The infidels, heretics, and
schismatics.
In the so-called Orthodox catechism it says: "The name Church of
Christ means only the Orthodox Church, which has remained in perfect
union with the universal Church. As to the Roman Church and the
Protestant creeds" (they are not even called a church), "they cannot
belong to the one true Church, for they have separated themselves
from it."
According to this definition the Catholics and the Protestants are
outside of the Church, and only the Orthodox are in it.
The Lutheran catechism says: "Die wahre Kirche wird darein erkannt,
das in ihr das Wort Gottes lauter und rein ohne Menschenzusetzung
gelehrt und die Sacramenten treu nach Christ Einsetzung gewartet
werden."[6]
[6] Thereby may be the true Church known that in it the word of God
is taught plainly and clearly, without human additions, and that
sacraments are administered faithfully according to the teaching of
Christ.
According to this definition, those who have added anything
whatsoever to the teaching of Christ and the apostles, as the
Catholic and Greek Churches have done, are outside the Church, and
the Lutherans alone are in it.
The Catholics assert that the Holy Ghost dwells perpetually with
their hierarchy; the Orthodox assert that the same Holy Ghost
resides also with them; the Arians claim that the Holy Ghost
manifests itself to them (and they have the same right to assert
this as have the prevailing religions of the present day); all the
denominations of Protestants--Lutherans, Reformed Presbyterians,
Methodists, Swedenborgians, and Mormons--assert that the Holy Ghost
manifests itself only with them.
If the Catholics assert that the Holy Ghost during the separation of
the Arian and Greek Churches withdrew from the separating churches
and remained in the one true Church, then the Protestants of any
denomination whatsoever may assert with as much right that during
the separation of their Church from the Catholic, the Holy Ghost
left the Catholic Church and entered into their own. And this is
exactly what they do say. Every church professes to derive its creed
by an unbroken tradition from Christ and the apostles. And certainly
every Christian creed derived from Christ must have reached the
present generation through tradition of some sort. But this is no
proof that any one of these traditions embodies infallible truth, to
the exclusion of all others.
Every branch proceeds from the root without interruption; but the
fact that each one comes from one root, by no means proves it to
be the only branch. And so it is in regard to the churches. The
proofs which each church offers of its apostolic succession, and
the miracles which are to prove its authenticity, are the same in
every case; consequently there is but one exact definition of what
is called a church (not the imaginary church which we may desire,
but the actual church which has really existed). The Church is a
body of men which lays claim to the exclusive possession of the
truth. All these various societies which were afterward transformed
by State authority into powerful organizations have really been the
chief obstacles to the diffusion of true Christianity. It could not
be otherwise: for the principal characteristic which distinguishes
the doctrine of Christ from those of earlier times is that the men
who accepted it strove to understand and to fulfil it more and more
perfectly; whereas the doctrine of the Church affirmed that it was
already thoroughly understood and also fulfilled.
However strange this may seem to us, reared as we have been in the
false doctrine of the Church, as if it were a Christian institution,
and taught to despise heresy, it is nevertheless in that which men
call heresy that true progress, that is, true Christianity, was
manifested, and it only ceased to be such when these heresies were
checked, and it was, so to speak, stamped with the immutable imprint
of the Church.
What, then, is heresy? Read all the theological works which treat of
heresies, of that subject which above all others calls for an exact
definition, for every theologian speaks of the true doctrine in the
midst of the false ones by which it is surrounded, and nowhere will
you find even the shadow of a definition of heresy.
As an instance of the complete absence of the definition of what
is understood by the word heresy, we will quote the opinion of a
learned Christian historian, E. de Pressensé in "Histoire du Dogme,"
with its epigraph, "Ubi Christus, ibi Ecclesia" (Paris, 1869). This
is what he says in his preface (p. 4):--
"I know that they dispute our right to qualify thus" (that is, to
pronounce them heretical) "the tendencies which were so actively
resisted by the early Fathers. The very name of heresy seems an
attack upon liberty of conscience and thought. We cannot share
these scruples, for they would simply deprive Christianity of any
individual character."
And having said that after Constantine the Church did in fact
abuse its authority to describe the dissenters as heretics and
to persecute them, he says, in speaking of the early ages of
Christianity: "The Church is a free association; there is an
advantage to be gained in separating from it. The controversy
against error is based on feelings and ideas; no uniform body of
dogma has as yet been adopted; differences of secondary importance
appear in the East and West with perfect freedom; theology is not
limited by unalterable formulas. If amid these varying opinions a
common groundwork of faith is discerned, have we not the right to
see in this, not a definite system devised and formulated by the
representatives of a school, but faith itself in its most unerring
instinct and spontaneous manifestation? If this very unanimity
which is revealed in the essential matters of faith is found to be
antagonistic to certain tendencies, have we not the right to infer
that these tendencies disagreed with the fundamental principles of
Christianity? Will not this supposition become a certainty if we
recognize in the doctrine rejected by the Church the characteristic
features of one of the religions of the past? If we admit that
gnosticism or ebionitism are legitimate forms of Christian thought,
we must boldly declare that Christian thought does not exist, nor
does it possess any specific characteristic by which it may be
recognized. We should destroy it even while pretending to enlarge
its limits. In the time of Plato no one would have dared to advocate
a doctrine which would leave no room for the theory of ideas, and he
would have been subjected to the well-deserved ridicule of Greece,
if he attempted to make of Epicurus or of Zeno a disciple of the
Academy. Let us then admit that if there exists a religion or a
doctrine called Christianity, it may have its heresies."
The writer's argument amounts to this, that every opinion which does
not accord with the code of dogmas that we have professed at any
given time, is a heresy. At a certain time and in a certain place
men make a certain profession, but this profession can never be a
fixed criterion of the truth. All is summed up in the "Ubi Christus,
ibi Ecclesia," and Christ is wherever we are.
Every so-called heresy which claims that what it professes is the
actual truth, may likewise find in the history of the Church a
consistent explanation of the faith it professes, and apply all
the arguments to its own use. Pressensé simply calls his own creed
Christian truth, precisely as every heretical sect has done.
The primary definition of the word heresy (the word ἁίρεσις means
a part) is the name given by a society of men to any opinion
contradicting any part of the doctrine professed by the society. A
more specific meaning is an expression of an opinion which denies
the truth of the creed, established and maintained by the temporal
power.
There is a remarkable, although little known, work entitled
"Unpartheyische Kirchen und Ketzer-Historie," 1729, by Gottfried
Arnold, which treats of this subject, and points out the illegality,
the perversity, the lack of sense, and the cruelty of employing the
word heresy in the sense of refutation. This book is an attempt to
relate the history of Christianity in the form of a history of
heresies.
In his introduction the author asks a series of questions: (1) Of
those who make heretics (Von denen Ketzermachern selbst); (2) Of
those who have become heretics; (3) Of the subjects of heresy; (4)
Of the ways of making heretics; and (5) Of the aims and consequences
of the making of heretics. To each of these points he adds scores
of other questions, giving the answers from the works of well-known
theologians, but principally leaving it to the reader to draw his
own deductions from the contents of the book. As instances of
questions which are to a certain extent their own answers I will
quote the following:--Concerning the 4th question, of the methods
for making heretics, he asks in one of the questions (the 7th):
"Does not all history tend to show us that the greatest makers of
heretics, the adepts in the art, were those very wiseacres from
whom the Father concealed his secrets--that is, the hypocrites, the
Pharisees, and the Scribes, or utterly godless and evil-minded men?
(Question 20-21) And in the corrupted times of Christianity did
not the hypocrites and envious ones reject the very men, talented
and especially indorsed by the Lord, who would have been highly
esteemed in periods of pure Christianity? (21) And, on the other
hand, would not those men who during the decadence of Christianity
rose above all others, and set themselves up as teachers of the
purest Christianity, would not they, during the times of the
apostles of Christ and his disciples, have been considered as the
shameful heretics and anti-Christians?" Among other things, while
expressing the idea that the verbal declaration of the essence of
faith which was required by the Church, the abjuration of which was
regarded as a heresy, could never cover all the ideas and beliefs
of the faithful, and that hence the requirement that faith shall be
expressed by a certain formula of words is the immediate cause of
heresy, he says in the 21st question:--
"And supposing that holy acts and thoughts appear to a man so high
and so profound that he finds no adequate words wherewith to convey
them, should he be considered a heretic if he is unable to formulate
his conception? (33) And was not this the reason why there were no
heresies in the early times of Christianity, because Christians
judged each other, not by their words, but by their hearts and by
their deeds, enjoying a perfect freedom of expression, without the
fear of being called heretic?" "Was it not one of the convenient and
easiest methods of the Church," he asks in the 31st question, "when
the ecclesiastics wished to rid themselves of any one, or ruin his
reputation, to excite suspicion in regard to the doctrine he held,
and by investing him in the garment of heresy, condemn and cast him
out?"
"Although it is true that among so-called heretics sins and errors
have been committed, it is no less true, as the numerous examples
here quoted bear testimony" (that is to say, in the history of
the Church and of heresies), "that there has never been a sincere
and conscientious man of any importance whose safety has not been
endangered through the envy of the ecclesiastics."
This was the interpretation of heresy almost 200 years ago, and the
same meaning is attached to it to-day, and so long as the idea of
the Church shall exist it will never change. Where the Church exists
there must also exist the idea of heresy. The Church is a body of
men claiming possession of indisputable truth. A heresy is the
opinion of men who do not acknowledge the truth of the Church to be
indisputable.
Heresy is the manifestation of a movement in the Church; it is
an attempt to destroy the immutable assertion of the Church, the
attempt of a living apprehension of the doctrine. Each advance that
has been made toward the comprehension and the practice of the
doctrine has been accomplished by heretics: Tertullian, Origen,
Augustine, and Luther, Huss, Savonarola, Helchitsky, and others were
all heretics. It could not be otherwise.
A disciple of Christ, who possesses an ever growing sense of
the doctrine and of its progressive fulfilment as it advances
toward perfection, cannot, either for himself or others, affirm,
simply because he is a disciple of Christ, that he understands and
practises the doctrine of Christ to its fullest extent; still less
could he affirm this in regard to any body of men. To whatsoever
state of comprehension and perfection he may have arrived, he
must always feel the inadequacy both of his conception and of its
application, and must ever strive for something more satisfactory.
And therefore to claim for one's self, or for any body of men
whatsoever, the possession of a complete apprehension and practice
of the doctrine of Christ is in direct contradiction to the spirit
of Christ's doctrine itself.
However strange this statement may appear, every church, as a
church, has always been, and always must be, an institution not
only foreign, but absolutely hostile, to the doctrine of Christ. It
is not without reason that Voltaire called it "_l'infâme_"; it is
not without reason that all so-called Christian sects believe the
Church to be the Scarlet Woman prophesied by the Revelation; it is
not without reason that the history of the Church is the history of
cruelties and horrors.
Churches in themselves are, as some persons believe, institutions
based upon a Christian principle, from which they have deviated to a
certain extent; but considered in the light of churches, of bodies
of men claiming infallibility, they are anti-Christian institutions.
Between churches in the ecclesiastical sense and Christianity,
not only is there nothing in common except the name, but they are
two utterly contradictory and hostile elements. One is pride,
violence, self-assertion, inertia, and death. The other is meekness,
repentance, submission, activity, and life.
No man can serve these two masters at the same time; he must choose
either the one or the other.
The servants of the churches of every creed, especially in these
modern times, strive to represent themselves as the partisans of
progress in Christianity; they make concessions, they try to correct
the abuses that have crept into the Church, and protest that it is
wrong to deny the principle of the Christian Church on account of
these abuses, because it is only through the medium of the Church
that unity can be obtained, and that the Church is the only mediator
between God and man. All this is untrue. So far from fostering the
spirit of unity, the churches have ever been the fruitful source of
human enmity, of hatred, wars, conflicts, inquisitions, Eves of St.
Bartholomew, and so on; neither do the churches act as the mediators
between God and man,--an office, moreover, quite unnecessary, and
directly forbidden by Christ himself, who has revealed his doctrine
unto each individual; it is but the dead formula, and not the living
God, which the churches offer to man, and which serves rather to
increase than diminish the distance between man and his Creator.
The churches, which were founded upon a misconception, and which
preserve this misconception by their immutability, must of necessity
harass and persecute any new conception, because they know, however
they may try to conceal it, that every advance along the road
indicated by Christ is undermining their own existence.
Whenever one reads or listens to the essays and sermons in which
ecclesiastical writers of modern times belonging to the various
creeds discuss the Christian truths and virtues, when one hears
and reads these artificial arguments, these exhortations, these
professions of faith, elaborated through centuries, that now and
then sound sincere, one is almost ready to doubt if the churches can
be inimical to Christianity. "It cannot be possible that men like
John Chrysostom, Fénelon, Butler, and other Christian preachers,
could be inimical to it." One would like to say, "The churches may
have gone astray from Christianity, may have committed errors, but
they cannot have been hostile to it." But one must first see the
fruit before he can know the tree, as Christ has taught, and one
sees that their fruits were evil, that the result of their works has
been the distortion of Christianity; and one cannot help concluding
that, however virtuous the men may have been, the cause of the
church in which these men served was not Christian. The goodness
and virtue of certain individuals who served the churches were
peculiar to themselves, and not to the cause which they served. All
these excellent men, like Francis of Assisi and Francis de Sales,
Tichon Zadònsky, Thomas à Kempis, and others, were good men, even
though they served a cause hostile to Christianity; and they would
have been still more charitable and more exemplary had they not
yielded obedience to false doctrines.
But why do we speak of, or sit in judgment on, the past, which may
be falsely represented, and is, in any event, but little known to
us? The churches, with their principles and their works, are not of
the past; we have them with us to-day, and can judge them by their
works and by their influence over men.
What, then, constitutes their power? How do they influence men? What
is their work in the Greek, the Catholic, and in all the Protestant
denominations? and what are the consequences of such work?
The work of our Russian so-called Orthodox Church is visible to all.
It is a factor of primary importance, which can neither be concealed
nor disputed.
In what manner is the activity of the Russian Church
displayed,--that vast institution which labors with so much zeal,
that institution which numbers among its servants half a million of
men, and costs the people tens of millions?
The activity of the Church consists in forcing, by every means in
its power, upon the one hundred millions of Russian people, those
antiquated, time-worn beliefs which have lost all significance,
and which were formerly professed by foreigners, with whom we had
nothing in common, beliefs in which nearly every man has lost
his faith, even in some cases those very men whose duty it is to
inculcate them.
The endeavor to force upon the people those formulas of the
Byzantine clergy, marvelous to them and senseless to us, concerning
the Trinity, the Virgin, the sacraments, grace, and so forth,
embraces one province of the activity of the Russian Church; another
function is the encouragement given to idolatry, in the literal
sense of the word: the veneration of holy relics and holy images,
the sacrifices offered to them in the faith that they will hear and
grant prayers. I will pass over in silence what is written in the
ecclesiastical magazines by the clergy who possess a semblance of
learning and liberality, and will speak only of what is really done
by the clergy throughout the immense extent of Russia, among its one
hundred millions of inhabitants. What is it that is taught to the
people with such unremitting pains and endeavor, and with so much
earnestness? What is required of them for the sake of the so-called
Christian religion?
I will start at the beginning, with the birth of the child. When
a child is born, we are taught that a prayer must be read over
the mother and child, in order to purify them, for without that
prayer the mother remains unclean. For that purpose, and facing the
ikons of the saints, whom the common people simply call gods, the
priest takes the infant in his arms, reads the exhortation, and by
that means he is supposed to cleanse the mother. Then the parents
are instructed, nay, even ordered, under penalty of punishment
in the event of non-compliance, to christen the child--that is,
to let the priest immerse it three times in the water, while
words unintelligible to all present are read, and still less
intelligible ceremonies are performed, such as the application of
oil to different parts of the body, the cutting of the hair, the
blowing and spitting of the sponsors at the imaginary devil. All
this is necessary to cleanse the child, and make a Christian of
him. Then the parents are told that the child must receive the
holy sacrament--that is, he is to swallow, in the form of bread
and wine, a particle of the body of Christ, by which means the
child will receive the blessing of Christ, and so on. Then they
are told that as the child grows it must be taught to pray, which
means that he is to stand in front of boards upon which the faces
of Christ, the Virgin, and the saints are painted, bow his head
and body, while with his right hand, his fingers being folded in
a peculiar manner, he touches his forehead, his shoulders, and
his stomach, and utters certain Slavonic words, the commonest of
which, those which all children learn, are the following: "Mother
of God, ... Virgin, rejoice," etc. Then the child is taught that he
must repeat this--that is, that he must make the sign of the cross
whenever he sees a church or an ikon. Furthermore, he is taught
that on a holiday (holidays are either the day on which Christ was
born, although no one knows when that took place, or the day of his
circumcision, or that on which the Virgin died, or when the cross or
the ikon was brought, or when some fanatic beheld a vision, etc.) he
should array himself in his best clothes, go to church, buy candles,
and set them up before the ikons of the saints, give to the priest
memoranda bearing the names of the dead who are to be prayed for,
receive bread with triangular pieces cut out of it, pray repeatedly
for the health and welfare of the Czar and bishops, as well as for
himself and his own affairs, and then kiss the cross and the hand of
the priest.
Thus is he taught to pray; and besides this, he is also taught
that he must perform his devotions once a year. To perform one's
devotions means to go to church and tell one's sins to the priest,
it being assumed that this recital of one's sins to a stranger will
have a purifying effect on a man; then he is to swallow a spoonful
of bread and wine, which will purify him still more. Moreover,
men are told that if a man and woman desire to have their sexual
relation sanctified they must come to church, put crowns of metal
upon their heads, swallow some wine, walk three times round a table,
accompanied by the sound of singing, and this will make their sexual
relation holy and entirely different from any others.
In daily life the observation of the following rules is enjoined:
to eat no meat nor drink no milk on certain days, to say _Te Deums_
and _Requiems_ on certain other days, to invite the priest to
one's house on holidays and present him with money; to take from
the church several times a year boards upon which are painted the
images of the saints, and to carry them on towels through fields and
houses. Before death a man must without fail receive a spoonful of
bread and wine; and if there be time to be anointed with oil, that
is still better, for it insures his welfare in the future life.
After his death his relatives are told that, in order to save his
soul, it is well to place in his hand a printed prayer; it is also a
good thing to read a certain book over the dead, and for his name to
be mentioned in church at stated times.
This is what constitutes every man's religious obligation. But
if any one wishes to take a special care of his soul, this creed
teaches that the greatest amount of happiness may be secured in
the next world by bequeathing money for churches and monasteries,
thereby obliging the saints to pray for one. According to this faith
it is also well to visit monasteries and kiss the miraculous ikons
and the relics.
These are believed to impart a peculiar holiness, strength, and
grace; and to be near these objects, as one must be in kissing them,
placing tapers before them, crawling under them, and repeating _Te
Deums_ before them, greatly promotes salvation.
And this is the faith called Orthodox, this is the true faith,
the one which, under the garb of a Christian religion, has been
energetically taught to the people for many centuries, and is
inculcated at the present time more vigorously than ever.
Let it not be said that the Orthodox teachers look upon all this as
an ancient form of faith which it was not considered worth while
to abolish, and that the essence of the doctrine abides elsewhere.
This is not the truth. Throughout Russia, and lately with increased
energy, the entire Russian clergy teaches this faith, and this
alone. Nothing else is taught. Men may write about other doctrines
and discuss them in the capitals, but among the hundred million
inhabitants this, and only this, is taught. The ecclesiastics may
discuss other doctrines, but only this is what is taught.
All this--the worship of relics and shrines--is included in theology
and the catechism; the people are carefully instructed in all this,
theoretically and practically, by every kind of solemnity, splendor,
authority, and violence; the people are compelled to believe in it
all; they are hypnotized, and the faith is jealously guarded against
any attempt to deliver them from these foolish superstitions.
As I said in my book, I have during the course of many years had
frequent opportunities to remark the ridicule and rude jests
that have been applied to Christ's words and doctrine, and the
ecclesiastics not only failed to condemn it, they even encouraged
this scoffing; but let a man venture to say one disrespectful word
of the ugly idol called the Iverskaya,[7] sacrilegiously carried
around Moscow by intoxicated men, and a groan of indignation will
rise from these same Orthodox ecclesiastics. In fact, it is only an
external worship in the form of idolatry that is propagated. And
let it not be said that the one does not exclude the other, that
"All therefore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do;
but do not ye after their works: for they say, and do not" (Matthew
xxiii. 3). This is said concerning the Pharisees, who fulfilled
all the outward commands of the law, and therefore the words,
"whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do," refer to
acts of benevolence and charity; whereas the words, "do not ye after
their works, for they say and do not," refer to their observances of
the rites and their indifference to works of charity, and directly
contradicts the clerical interpretation of this passage, which
explains it as a commandment which has to do only with the rites. An
external worship is hardly compatible with the service of charity
and truth; one is apt to exclude the other. It was so with the
Pharisees, and the same may be said of our professing Christians.
[7] The ikon of the Virgin which stands in a chapel in the heart
of Moscow, and which is the object of a special veneration to the
Russians.--TR.
If a man is to be saved by redemption, the sacraments, and prayer,
good works are no longer of any value to him. It must be either the
Sermon on the Mount or the Credo. No man can believe in both, and
the ecclesiastics have chosen the latter. The Credo is taught and
recited as a prayer in the churches, while the Sermon on the Mount
is excluded even from selections from the Bible which are read in
churches, so that the congregation never hear it, except on the days
when the entire Bible is read. It is inevitable; the men who can
believe that a cruel and unreasonable God had condemned humanity to
eternal death and sacrificed his own Son, and who had destined a
certain portion of mankind to everlasting torture, cannot believe
in a God of love. A man who believes in God, in the Christ who is
coming in his glory to judge and punish the dead and the living,
cannot believe in a Christ who commands us to turn the other cheek
to the offender, who forbids us to sit in judgment, and who bids us
to forgive our enemies and to love them. A man who believes in the
inspiration of the Old Testament and in the holiness of David, who
on his deathbed ordered the murder of an old man who had offended
him, and whom he could not kill himself because he was bound by
an oath (1 Kings ii. 8,9), and many other horrors of a similar
character, in which the Old Testament abounds, cannot believe in the
moral law of Christ; a man who believes in the doctrine and sermons
of the Church, wherein the practice of war and the penalty of death
are reconciled with Christianity, cannot believe in the brotherhood
of humanity.
But, above all, a man who believes in salvation through faith, in
redemption, and in the sacraments, cannot strive with all his might
to live up to the moral precepts of Christ. A man who has been
taught by the Church the sacrilegious doctrine that he is to be
saved through a certain medium, and not by his own efforts, will
surely have recourse to that medium; he will not trust to his own
efforts, on which, he has been assured, it is sinful to rely. Every
Church, with its doctrines of redemption and salvation, and above
all, the Orthodox faith, with its idolatry, excludes the doctrine
of Christ. But it is said, "This has always been the faith of the
people, and that they will continue to hold it is proved by the
whole history of the Russian nation. It would be wrong to deprive
them of their traditions." Herein lies the fallacy. The people,
it is true, did once upon a time profess something like what is at
present professed by the Church; but besides this worship of images
and relics, the people had always a profound moral conception of
Christianity never possessed by the Church, and only met with in
her noblest representatives; but the people, in the better class,
and in spite of the obstacles raised by the State and the Church,
have long since abandoned the cruder phase of belief, a fact that
is proved by the rationalistic sects that are beginning to spring
up on every side, sects that Russia is filled with at the present
day, and against which the ecclesiastics wage so hopeless a warfare.
The people are beginning to recognize the moral, vital side of
Christianity more and more plainly. And now the Church appears,
failing to give them a moral support, but forcibly teaching old-time
paganism,--the Church, with its immutable formulas, endeavoring to
thrust men back into the gloom from which they are struggling so
earnestly to escape.
The ecclesiastics say: "We are teaching nothing new; it is the same
faith which the people already hold, only we teach it in a more
perfect manner." It is like binding a chicken and trying to put it
back into the shell from which it came. I have often been struck by
the spectacle, which would be simply absurd were not its results so
terrible, of men traveling, so to speak, in a circle, deceived and
deceiving, but wholly unable to escape from the charmed circle.
The first question, the first doubt, that enters the head of
every Russian when he begins to reason, is a suspicion of the
miraculous ikons, and principally of the relics: is it true that
they are incorruptible, and that they perform miracles? Hundreds
and thousands of men ask these questions, and are at a loss for an
answer, especially since bishops and metropolitans and other eminent
persons kiss both the relics and the miraculous images. Ask the
bishops and other personages of importance why they do this, and
they will tell you that they do it in order to impress the masses,
and the masses do it because the bishops and other magnates do it.
The activity of the Russian Church, despite the veneer of modernity
and the scientific and spiritual standards which its members have
begun to establish by their essays, their religious reviews, and
their sermons, consists not only in encouraging the people in a
coarse and grotesque idolatry, but in strengthening and promulgating
superstition and religious ignorance, and in endeavoring to destroy
the vital conception of Christianity that exists in the people side
by side with this idolatry.
I remember being once in a book-shop of the monastery of Optinæ
Desert while an old peasant was selecting spiritual reading for
his educated grandson. The monk was offering him a description of
relics, of holy days, of miraculous ikons, the Book of Psalms, and
the like. I asked the old man if he had a Bible. "No," he replied.
"Give him a Russian Bible," I said to the monk. "We don't sell that
to them," said the monk. This, in short, is the activity of our
Church.
But the European or American reader may say, "That only happens in
barbaric Russia," and the remark will be correct, but only so far as
it applies to the government, which supports the Church to maintain
in our land its stupefying and demoralizing influence.
It is true that there is nowhere in Europe a government so despotic,
or that is in more perfect accord with the established Church.
Therefore in Russia the government authorities play an important
part in demoralizing the people; but it is not true that the Russian
Church differs from other churches in respect to its influence over
the people.
Churches are everywhere alike, and if the Catholic, Anglican, and
Lutheran have not at their beck so submissive a government as the
Russian, we may be sure that they would not fail to take advantage
of it were it within their reach.
The Church as a church, whether it be Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran,
or Presbyterian, or any denomination whatsoever, inasmuch as it is
a church, cannot help striving after the same object as the Russian
Church--namely, to conceal the true meaning of the doctrine of
Christ, and to substitute a meaning of its own, which imposes no
obligations, which excludes the possibility of understanding the
true, living doctrine of Christ, and which above all justifies the
existence of a priesthood living at the expense of the people.
Do we not find Catholicism with its prohibition against reading the
Bible, and with its demand for implicit obedience to the clergy
and the infallible Pope? Wherein does Catholicism differ in its
preaching from the Russian Church? The same external worship, the
same relics, miracles, and statues, miracle-performing Madonnas
and processions; the same vague and mystical utterances concerning
Christianity in books and sermons, and all in support of the
grossest idolatry.
And is it not the same in the Anglican or in the Lutheran, or in any
other Protestant denomination with an established form of church?
The same demands that the congregation shall acknowledge a belief in
dogmas which were defined in the fourth century, and which have lost
all meaning for the men of our time; the same call for idol worship,
if not of relics or ikons, at least of the Sabbath and the letter
of the Bible; the same endeavor to conceal the real requirement of
Christianity and the substitution of exterior rites, and "cant," as
the English so happily define the tendency which finds such sway
among them.
This activity is more noticeable in Protestantism, because that
creed has not even the excuse of antiquity. And is not the same
thing going on in the present "Revivalism," a regenerated Calvinism,
which has given birth to the Salvation Army? Inasmuch as the
attitude of all ecclesiastical dogmas toward the doctrine of Christ
is very much the same, so are their methods of a similar character.
The attitude they have taken obliges them to make every effort to
conceal the doctrine of that Christ in whose name they speak.
The disparity between ecclesiastical creeds and the doctrine of
Christ is so great that a special effort is required to keep mankind
in ignorance. Indeed, one needs but to consider the position of
any adult, I do not say educated, but one who has assimilated
superficially the current notions concerning geology, physics,
chemistry, cosmography, and history, when for the first time he
actually reflects on the faith impressed upon him in his childhood,
and maintained by the Church, concerning the creation of the world
in six days, the appearance of light before the sun was created, the
story of Noah's ark and the animals preserved in it,--concerning
Jesus and his divine origin as the Son of God who created all things
before time existed; that this God came down to earth because of
Adam's sin; that he rose from the dead, ascended into heaven, and
sits on the right hand of the Father; that he will come in the
clouds to judge the living and the dead, etc.
All these ideas evolved by the men of the fourth century, which had
for them a certain meaning, have none whatever for us. The present
generation may repeat these words, but it can never believe in them,
because the statements that God dwells in heaven, that the heavens
opened and a voice was heard to utter certain words, that Christ
arose from the dead and ascended into heaven, that he will come
again from some place in the clouds, etc., have no meaning for us.
It was possible for a man who believed that heaven was a substantial
arch of limited dimensions to believe or to disbelieve that God
created it, that it opened, and that Christ ascended thither,--but
for us there is no sense in such ideas. Men of our time can only
affirm that it is one's duty to believe all this,--which they do.
But they cannot really believe in what has no meaning in it for them.
But if all these utterances are supposed to have an allegorical
signification and are only intended as similes, then we know in the
first place that all the churchmen will not agree to this--on the
contrary, the majority insist on taking the Scriptures literally;
and in the second place, that these interpretations differ greatly,
and are supported by no reliable authority.
And even if a man wished to believe the doctrine of the Church as
it is taught, the increase of culture, the reading of the Bible,
and the intercourse among the members of different churches, form a
greater and more insurmountable obstacle to belief.
Nowadays a man has but to buy the Bible for threepence, and to read
the simple, indisputable words of Christ to the Samaritan woman,
that the Father seeketh worshipers neither in Jerusalem nor in this
or that mountain, but worshipers in spirit and truth; or the words,
that a Christian should pray not like the heathen in the temples,
nor at the corners of streets, but in the secrecy of his closet; or,
that a disciple of Christ may call no one father or mother,--one has
but to read these words to be indubitably convinced that priests who
call themselves teachers in opposition to the teaching of Christ,
and dispute among themselves, cannot be authorities, and that that
which they teach is not Christian.
But this is not enough. If the modern man were to go on believing
in miracles and never read the Bible, the fellowship with men of
other creeds and professions, which is so much a matter of course in
these days, will compel him to question the truth of his religion.
It was natural enough for a man who had never met a believer in a
creed different from his own, to think that his was the only faith;
but an intelligent man has but to encounter--and that is an everyday
occurrence--good and bad men of all creeds, who criticize each
other's beliefs, in order to question the truth of his own religion.
Now, only a man either totally ignorant or indifferent to the
problems of life as dealt with by religion can remain in the faith
of the Church.
What shrewdness is needed, and what efforts must the churches make,
in order to go on, in the face of all these faith-destroying
influences, building temples, saying masses, preaching, instructing,
converting, and above all receiving for this the large compensations
which all those priests, pastors, stewards, superintendents, abbots,
archdeacons, bishops, and archbishops receive!
A special and supernatural effort is called for, and to this the
Church responds, exerting herself more and more. In Russia, besides
many other measures, they employ a simple, rude violence, by virtue
of the power invested in the Church. People who shrink from an
outward observance of faith and who do not conceal the fact are
simply punished or deprived of their civil rights; and to those who
strictly comply with the rites, privileges and rewards are granted.
So much for the Orthodoxy; but every church, without exception,
makes the most of the means at its disposal, and hypnotism is one of
the chief agents.
Every art, from architecture to poetry, is enlisted, in order to
move and intoxicate the human soul. This hypnotic and mesmerizing
influence is markedly displayed in the activity of the Salvation
Army, which employs novel, and to us abnormal, methods, such, for
instance, as drums, horns, singing, banners, uniforms, processions,
dancing, outbursts of tears, and dramatic gestures.
Still, these methods are startling simply because of their novelty.
Is not the familiar form of worship in cathedrals, with their
peculiar illumination, the golden pomp, the candles, choirs, organs,
bells, vestments, the weeping preachers, etc., of a similar nature?
And yet, however powerful may be the influence of this hypnotism,
it is by no means the chief or most harmful form which the activity
of the Church assumes. Its most malign activity is that which is
devoted to deceiving the children--those little ones of whom Jesus
has said, "Woe be unto him who tempts the least of these." From
the earliest awakening of a child's intelligence he is deceived
and formally taught that which his teachers no longer believe
themselves, and this goes on until the delusion becomes from habit
a part of his nature. A child is systematically deceived concerning
the most important affair in life, and when this deception has
become so incorporated with his being that it is difficult to uproot
it, then the world of science and reality is opened to him--a world
that is wholly at variance with the faith which he has imbibed from
his teachers--and he is left to reconcile those contradictions as
best he may.
Given the problem of how to muddle a man so that he will be unable
to discriminate between two antagonistic conceptions that have been
taught to him since his childhood, one could never have devised
anything more effectual than the education of every young man in our
so-called Christian society.
Shocking as it is to contemplate the work of the churches among men,
still, if we consider their position, we shall see that they cannot
act otherwise. They are face to face with a dilemma: the Sermon on
the Mount or the Nicene creed; the one excludes the other. If a man
sincerely believes the Sermon on the Mount, the Nicene creed must
inevitably lose all its meaning for him, and the same would hold
true as regards the Church and its representatives; but if a man
accepts the Nicene creed, that is to say, the Church, or those who
call themselves its representatives, then he will find no use for
the Sermon on the Mount. Hence it is incumbent on the churches to
make every effort to obscure the meaning of the Sermon on the Mount
and to endeavor to draw the people toward them. It is only due to
their intense activity in that direction that the influence of the
churches has not decreased. Let the Church but pause in this effort
to influence the masses by hypnotizing men and deceiving children
for ever so short a time, and men will comprehend the doctrine
of Christ, and this comprehension will do away with churches and
their influence. Therefore the churches cease not for one moment
their compulsory activity through the hypnotism of adults and the
deception of children. And it is this activity of the churches that
gives people a false conception of Christ's doctrine, and prevents
the majority of men, the so-called believers, from understanding it.
CHAPTER IV
MISCONCEPTION OF CHRISTIANITY BY SCIENTISTS
The relation of scientists to religions in general--What
are religions, and their significance to human life--Three
conceptions of life--The Christian doctrine is the expression of
the divine life-conception--The misconception of Christianity
by scientists who study its outward manifestations due to
the fact that they consider it from the standpoint of the
social life-conception--Opinion resulting therefrom, that
the teaching of Christ is exaggerated and unpractical--The
expression of the life-conception of the gospel--Erroneous
judgments of scientists concerning Christianity are based upon
the assurance that they possess an infallible criterion of
knowledge--Hence arise two misapprehensions in regard to the
Christian doctrine--The first misapprehension concerning the
impracticability of the doctrine arises from the fact that the
Christian doctrine presents a conduct of life different from
that of the social life-conception--Christianity offers not a
rule, but an ideal--Christ adds the consciousness of a divine
power to that of an animal power--Christianity seems to exclude
the possibility of life only when the indication of the ideal
is taken for the rule--An ideal cannot be belittled--According
to the doctrine of Christ, life is movement--The ideal and
the commandments--The second misapprehension arises from the
attempt to replace the love of God and His service by the love
and service of humanity--Scientists believe that Christianity
and their doctrine concerning the service of humanity are
identical--The doctrine of love toward humanity has for its
foundation the social life-conception--The love for humanity
which springs logically from love for the individual has no
meaning, because humanity is a fiction--Christian love springing
from the love of God has for its object not only humanity but
the whole world--Christianity teaches a life in accordance with
its divine nature--It indicates that the essence of a man's soul
is love, and that its good is obtained from its love of God,
whom he feels to be within him through love.
Let us now turn our attention to another fallacious conception of
Christianity, which is antagonistic to its actual principles,--the
scientific conception.
The Christianity of the churchmen is something which they have
evolved for themselves, and which they believe to be the only true
interpretation of Christian doctrine.
The scientists take the professions of faith of the various
churches for Christianity, and assuming that these dogmas embody
an exhaustive definition of Christian doctrine, they affirm that
Christianity has had its day.
One needs but to take into consideration the important part
which all religions, and especially Christianity, have played in
the life of man, and the significance which science attaches to
them, to see at once how impossible it would be to obtain any just
apprehension of Christian doctrine through these conceptions. As
each individual must possess certain impressions in regard to the
meaning of his life, and, though often unconsciously, conform his
conduct thereunto, so mankind in the aggregate, or groups of men
living under the same conditions, must likewise possess a conception
of the meaning of their common life and its consequent activities.
As an individual passing from one period of life to another
inevitably changes his ideas, the point of view of a grown-up man
differs from that of a child, so also mankind in the aggregate--the
nation--inevitably, and in conformity with its age, changes its
views of life and the activity that springs therefrom.
The difference in this respect between an individual and mankind
in general lies in the fact that while the individual, in forming
his conception of the significance and responsibilities of that new
period of life upon which he is about to enter, may avail himself of
the advice of his predecessors who have already passed that stage,
mankind can have no such advantage, because it is advancing along an
unbeaten track and there is no one of whom it can ask for the clue
to the mystery of life, or how it shall demean itself under these
unfamiliar conditions to which no nation has ever yet been subjected.
The married man with a family of children will not continue to
view life as he did when he was a child; neither is it possible
for mankind, with the many changes that have taken place,--the
density of the population, the constant intercourse of nations,
the perfected means of combating the forces of nature, and the
increase of knowledge generally,--to view the life of the present
day in the light of the past; hence it becomes necessary to evolve
a life-conception from which activities corresponding with a new
system which is to be established will naturally develop.
And this need is supplied by that peculiar capacity of the race for
producing men able to impart a new significance to human life,--a
significance developing a different set of activities.
The birth of the life-conception, which always takes place when
mankind enters upon new conditions and its subsequent activities, is
what we call religion.
Therefore, in the first place, religion is not, as science regards
it, a phenomenon which formerly traveled hand in hand with the
development of mankind, and which has since been left behind; on the
contrary, it is a phenomenon inherent to human existence itself, and
never more distinctly manifested than at the present day. In the
second place, religion defines future rather than past activities;
therefore it is evident that an investigation of the phenomena of
the past can by no means touch the essence of religion.
The longing to typify the forces of nature is no more the essence
of religion than is the fear of those same forces, or the need of
the miraculous and its outward manifestations, as the scientists
suppose. The essence of religion lies in the power of man to
foreknow and to point out the way in which mankind must walk. It is
a definition of a new life which will give birth to new activities.
This faculty of foreknowledge concerning the destiny of humanity
is more or less common, no doubt, to all people; still from time
to time a man appears in whom the faculty has reached a higher
development, and these men have the power clearly and distinctly
to formulate that which is vaguely conceived by all men, thus
instituting a new life-conception from which is to flow an unwonted
activity, whose results will endure for centuries to come. Thus far
there have been three of these life-conceptions; two of them belong
to a bygone era, while the third is of our own time and is called
Christianity. It is not that we have merged the various conceptions
of the significance of life into three arbitrary divisions, but that
there really have been but three distinct conceptions, by which the
actions of mankind have been influenced, and save through these we
have no means of comprehending life.
These three life-conceptions are--firstly, the individual or animal;
secondly, the social or pagan; and thirdly, the universal or divine.
According to the first of these, a man's life is his personality,
and that only, and his life's object is to gratify his desires.
According to the second, his life is not limited to his own
personality; it includes the sum and continuity of many
personalities,--of the family, of the race, and of the State,
and his life's object is to gratify the will of the communities
of individuals. And according to the third, his life is confined
neither to his personality nor to that of the aggregate of
individuals, but finds its significance in the eternal source of all
life,--in God Himself.
These three life-conceptions serve as the basis for the religions of
every age.
The savage sees life only through the medium of his own desires. He
cares for nothing but himself, and for him the highest good is the
full satisfaction of his own passions. The incentive of his life is
personal enjoyment. His religion consists of attempts to propitiate
the gods in his favor, and of the worship of imaginary deities, who
exist only for their own personal ends.
A member of the pagan world recognizes life as something concerning
others besides himself; he sees it as concerning an aggregate of
individuals,--the family, the race, the nation, the State, and is
ready to sacrifice himself for the aggregate. The incentive of his
life is glory. His religion consists in honoring the chiefs of his
race, his progenitors, his ancestors, his sovereigns, and in the
worship of those gods who are the exclusive patrons of his family,
his tribe, his race, and his State.[8]
[8] The unity of this social and pagan life-conception is by no
means destroyed by the numerous and varied systems which grow out of
it, such as the existence of the family, of the nation, and of the
State, and even of that life of humanity conceived according to the
theory of the Positivists.
These multifarious systems of life are based upon the fundamental
idea of the insignificance of the individual, and the assurance that
the meaning of life is to be sought and found only in humanity,
taken in its broadest sense.--AUTHOR.
The man who possesses the divine life-conception neither looks upon
life as centered in his own personality nor in that of mankind at
large, whether family, tribe, race, nation, or State; but rather
does he conceive of it as taking its rise in the eternal life of
God, and to fulfil His will he is ready to sacrifice his personal,
family, and social well-being. Love is the impelling motive of his
life, and his religion is the worship, in deed and in truth, of the
beginning of all things,--of God Himself.
History is but the transcript of the gradual transition from the
animal life-conception of the individual to the social, and from
the social to the divine. The history of the ancients for thousands
of centuries, culminating in that of Rome, is the history of the
evolution from the animal life-conception of the individual to that
of society and the State. From the advent of Christianity and the
fall of Imperial Rome we have the history of that change which is
still going on from the social to the divine life-conception.
The latter, together with the Christian doctrine which is based
upon it, and by which our lives are shaped, and our activities,
both practical and scientific, are quickened, is regarded by the
pseudo-scientists, who judge it only by its outward signs, as
something outlived, which has lost all meaning for us.
According to scientists this doctrine is embodied in the dogmas
of the Trinity, the Redemption, the miracles, the Church and its
sacraments, etc., and is only one of the many religions which have
arisen during the progress of human history, and now, having played
its part and outlived its time, is vanishing before the dawn of
science and true enlightenment.
The grossest of human errors spring in most cases from the fact
that men who stand on a low intellectual plane, when they encounter
phenomena of a higher order, instead of trying to rise to the
higher plane from which these phenomena may be fitly regarded, and
making an effort to understand them, judge them by their own low
standard, and the less they know of what they speak, the more bold
and determined are their judgments.
Most scientists, who treat of the moral doctrine of Christ from the
lower standpoint of a social life-conception, regard it as nothing
more than an amalgam without cohesion of the asceticism of India
with the doctrine of the Stoics and Neo-Platonists, and of vague
anti-social dreams, devoid of all serious meaning in these latter
days; they simply see its outward manifestation in the form of
dogmas in Catholicism, in Protestantism, and in its struggle with
the powers of the world. Interpreting the design of Christianity
from its outward aspects, they are like unto deaf men, who judge
of the meaning and excellence of music by the movements of the
musicians.
Hence it is that all such men, from Comte and Strauss to Spencer
and Renan, not understanding the purport of Christ's words, knowing
nothing whatever of their intention, ignorant of the question
to which they serve as an answer, and taking no pains to learn
it,--such men, if they are inimical to Christianity, utterly deny
the sense of the doctrine; but if they are leniently inclined, then,
from the height of their superior wisdom, they amend it, taking for
granted that Christ would have said what they think He meant, had He
known how to express himself. They treat His doctrine just as men
of overweening self-conceit treat their inferiors, correcting them
in their speech: "You mean so and so." And the spirit of emendation
is always such as to reduce the doctrine of the higher, the divine
life-conception, to that of the lower and the social conception.
It is usually admitted that the moral teaching of Christianity
is good but exaggerated; that in order to make it perfect, its
hyperboles, which are incompatible with our present mode of life,
should be discarded. "A doctrine which requires so much that is
impracticable is more hurtful than one which demands of men only
what is in proportion to their strength." Thus declare the learned
interpreters of Christianity, thus unwittingly reiterating the
assertion of those who misunderstood the Christian doctrine long
years ago, and crucified the Master.
The Hebrew law, "An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth," the
retributive justice known to mankind thousands of years ago, seems
far better suited to the court of contemporary scientists than the
law of love which Christ preached 1800 years ago, and which was to
replace this identical law of justice.
It would seem that every action of those men who accepted the
teaching of Christ in its literal sense, and lived up to it, all the
words and deeds of sincere Christians, and all the agencies which,
under the guise of socialism and communism, are now transforming
the world, are merely exaggeration, not worth discussing. Nations
which have lived under Christian influences, and which are now
represented by their advanced thinkers, the scientists, have
arrived at the conclusion that the Christian doctrine is a matter
of dogma; that its practical teaching has been a mistake and an
exaggeration, inimical to the just requirements of morality that
are in accord with human nature, and that the very doctrine which
Christ repudiated, and for which he substituted a dogma of his own,
is far better suited to us. The scientist considers the commandment
of non-resistance to evil by violence an exaggeration, and even an
act of folly. It would be far better, in his opinion, to reject it,
never dreaming that it is not the doctrine of Christ which he is
controverting, but something which he assumes to be the doctrine in
question. He does not realize when he says that the commandment of
non-resistance in the doctrine of Christ is an exaggeration, that
he is like one who, teaching the theory of the circle, declares
that the equality of the radii is an exaggeration. It is just as
if one who has no idea of the form of a circle were to affirm that
the law which requires that each point of its circumference shall
be equidistant from its center, is an exaggeration. As a suggestion
to reject or modify the proposition concerning the equality of the
radii of a circle signifies an ignorance in regard to the circle
itself, so also does the idea of rejecting or modifying, in the
practical teaching of Christ, the commandment of non-resistance to
evil by violence signify a misunderstanding of the doctrine.
And those who entertain these views do not really comprehend the
doctrine. They do not understand that it is the unfolding of a new
conception of life, corresponding to the new phase of existence
upon which the world entered 1800 years ago, and a definition of
the new activity to which it gave birth. Either they do not believe
that Christ said what He meant to say, or that what is found in the
Sermon on the Mount and elsewhere He said either from His enthusiasm
or lack of wisdom and simplicity of character.[9]
[9] Here, for example, is a characteristic expression of opinion
in the American periodical, _The Arena,_ for November, 1890,
from an article entitled "New Basis of Church Life." Discussing
the significance of the Sermon on the Mount, and especially the
doctrine of non-resistance to evil, the author, having no reason for
obscuring its meaning as the ecclesiastics do, says:--
"Devout common sense must gradually come to look upon Christ
as a philanthropic teacher, who, like every enthusiast who
ever taught, went to an Utopian extreme in his own philosophy.
Every great agitation for the betterment of the world has been
led by men who beheld their own mission with such absorbing
intensity that they could see little else. It is no reproach to
Christ to say that he had the typical reformer's temperament;
that his precepts cannot be literally accepted as a complete
philosophy of life; and that men are to analyze them reverently,
but, at the same time, in the spirit of ordinary truth-seeking
criticism," etc.
"Christ did in fact preach absolute communism and anarchy; but,"
and so on. Christ would have been glad to have expressed Himself
in more fitting terms, but He did not possess our critical
faculty in the use of exact definitions, therefore we will set
Him right. All He said concerning meekness, sacrifice, poverty,
and of taking no thought for the morrow, were but haphazard
utterances, because of His ignorance of scientific phraseology.
Matt. vi. 25-34.--25. _Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought
for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor
yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more
than meat, and the body than raiment?_
26. _Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither
do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father
feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?_
27. _Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his
stature?_
28. _And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of
the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin:_
29. _And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory
was not arrayed like one of these._
30. _Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which
to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not
much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?_
31. _Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or,
What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?_
32. _(For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your
heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things._
33. _But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his
righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you._
34. _Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow
shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the
day is the evil thereof._
Luke xii. 33-34.--33. _Sell that ye have, and give alms; provide
yourselves bags which wax not old, a treasure in the heavens
that faileth not, where no thief approacheth, neither moth
corrupteth._
34. _For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also._
Matt. xix. 21.--"_Go and sell that thou hast, and give to the
poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and
follow me._"
Mark viii. 34.--"_Whosoever will come after me, let him deny
himself, and take up his cross, and follow me._"
John iv. 34.--"_My meat is to do the will of him that sent me,
and to finish his work._"
Luke xxii. 42.--"_Not my will, but thine, be done._"
_Not what I wish, but what Thou wishest, and not as I wish, but
as Thou wishest. Life consists in doing not your own will, but
the will of God._
All these doctrines are regarded by men who adhere to the lower
life-conception as expressions of enthusiastic exaltation, with no
special reference to daily life. And yet these doctrines are no less
the natural outcome of the Christian life-conception than is the
idea of giving one's labor for the common good, or of sacrificing
one's life to defend one's country, the outcome of the social
life-conception.
As the believer in the social life-conception says to the savage:
"Rouse yourself! Consider what you are doing! The life that man
lives for himself alone cannot be the true one, for life is fleeting
and full of woe. It is the life of the community at large, the
race, the family, the State, that endures: therefore a man must
sacrifice his personality for the life of the family and the State;"
Christianity in like manner says unto him who believes in a social
life-conception of the community: "Repent, μετανοετα, that
is, arouse yourself, consider your ways, else shall you perish. Know
you that this bodily, animal life is born to-day and dies to-morrow;
nothing can assure its permanence, no outward expedients, no system
whatsoever can give it stability. Consider your ways and learn that
the life you live is not the real life, that neither family, social,
nor State life will save you from perdition. An honest rational
life is possible for man provided that he be, not a participant
of the life of the family or life of the State, but a partaker of
the source of all life--that of the Father Himself; then his life
is united to the life of the Father." Such is beyond a doubt the
meaning of the Christian conception of life, clearly set forth in
every maxim of the New Testament.
One may not share such a conception of life, one may deny it, or
prove it to be inaccurate and fallacious; but no man can possibly
judge a doctrine without having first made himself familiar with the
life-conception which forms its basis; and still more impossible is
it to judge a lofty subject from a low standpoint, to pronounce upon
the belfry from a knowledge of the foundation. Yet this is precisely
what is done by contemporary scientists. And this is because they
are laboring under an error similar to that of the clergy, in
believing that they possess such infallible methods of studying
their subject that, if they but bring their so-called scientific
methods to bear upon the subject under consideration, there can be
no doubt as to the accuracy of their conclusion.
The possession of a guide to knowledge, which they believe to be
infallible, is really the chief obstacle to the comprehension of
the Christian doctrine among unbelievers and so-called scientists,
by whose opinions the great majority of unbelievers, the so-called
educated classes, are guided. All the errors of the scientists
concerning Christianity, and especially two strange misapprehensions
that avail more than anything else to blind men to its real
signification, arise therefrom.
One of these misapprehensions is that the doctrine of a Christian
life not being practical, it remains optional with the individual
whether he take it for his guide or no; and if he chooses to do
so, it may then be modified to suit the exigencies of our social
life. The second misapprehension is that the Christian doctrine of
love of God, and therefore of the service due to Him, is a mystical
requirement, neither clearly expressed nor offering any well-defined
object of love: consequently the more definite and intelligible
doctrine of love of man and of the service of humanity may be
substituted for it.
The first misapprehension which relates to the impracticability of
the Christian doctrine arises from the fact that men who believe in
the social life-conception, not comprehending the rule obeyed by
men who hold the Christian doctrine, and mistaking the Christian
standard of perfection for the guiding principle of life, believe
and declare that it is impossible to follow the teaching of Christ,
because implicit obedience to this doctrine would end by destroying
life. "If man were to fulfil the precepts of Christ, he would
destroy his life; and if all the world were to fulfil them, the
human race would soon become extinct. If you were to take no thought
for the morrow, neither of what ye shall eat or drink, nor what
ye shall put on; if one may not resist evil by violence or defend
one's life, nor even give up one's life for his friend; if one is to
preserve absolute chastity, mankind could not long exist;" so they
believe and affirm.
And they are right, if one takes the incentives to perfection
offered by the teaching of Christ as laws which each man must obey,
just as, for instance, in the social order every man must pay his
taxes, and some must serve in the courts of law, and so on.
The misapprehension consists in overlooking the fact that the
doctrine of Christ, and the doctrine formulated by a lower
life-conception, guide men in very different ways. The doctrines of
the social life-conception guide men in fulfilling the requirements
of the law. The doctrine of Christ guides men by manifesting the
infinite perfection of the Heavenly Father, to which it is natural
for every man to aspire, whatever may be his shortcomings.
The misconception of those who judge the Christian doctrine by the
standard of the state or civil doctrine is this,--that they imagine
that the perfection of which Christ speaks may be attained in this
life, and ask themselves just as they would ask concerning some law
of the State, what will happen when all this shall be fulfilled?
This hypothesis is fallacious, because the perfection indicated
by Christianity is infinite and can never be attained; and Christ
promulgates his doctrine, knowing that although absolute perfection
will never be attained, yet the aspiration toward it will ever
contribute to the welfare of mankind, that this welfare may by this
means be everlastingly increased.
Christ is not teaching angels, but men who live and move in an
animal life, and whose impulses are of an animal nature. And to
this animal impulse Christ, so to speak, adds another force by
communicating to man a sense of the divine perfection, guiding the
current of life between these two forces.
To take it for granted that human life is to follow the direction
indicated by Christ would be like expecting the boatman, who,
crossing a swift river, steers almost directly against the current,
to float in that direction.
Christ recognizes the fact that a parallelogram has two sides,
and that a man's life is controlled by two indestructible forces:
his animal nature and his consciousness of a filial relationship
to God. Disregarding the factor of the animal life, which never
looses its hold, and is beyond man's control, Christ speaks of the
divine consciousness, urging man to its fuller recognition, its
complete emancipation from all that fetters it, and to its utmost
development.
Man's true life, according to the precepts of Christ, is only to
be found in this emancipation and in the growth of the divine
consciousness. According to the old dispensation, a true life meant
the fulfilment of the precepts of the law; but according to Christ,
it means the closest approach to the divine perfection which has
been manifested to every man, and which every man recognizes,--a
closer and closer union of his will to the will of God; a union
which every man is striving to attain, and which would utterly
destroy the life we now lead.
God's perfection is the asymptote of human life, toward which it is
forever aspiring and drawing nearer, although it can only reach its
goal in the infinite.
It is only when men mistake the suggestion of an ideal for a rule
of conduct that the Christian doctrine seems at odds with life.
Indeed, the reverse is true, for it is by the doctrine of Christ,
and that alone, that a true life is rendered possible. "It is a
mistake to require too much," men usually say, when discussing the
demands of the Christian religion. "One ought not to be required
to take no thought for the morrow, as the Bible teaches, but of
course one should not be over-anxious; one cannot give all that he
possesses to the poor, still he should bestow a certain portion of
his goods in charity; one ought not to remain unmarried, but let him
avoid a dissolute life; one need not renounce his wife and children,
although one must not idolize them."
These arguments are equivalent to telling a man who is crossing a
swift river and steering his boat against the current, that no one
can cross a river by steering against the current, but that he must
direct his boat in a straight line toward the point he wishes to
reach.
The doctrine of Christ differs from former doctrines in that it
influences men, not by outward observances, but by the interior
consciousness that divine perfection may be attained.
It is this illimitable and divine perfection that absorbs the soul
of man, not restricted laws of justice and philanthropy. It needs
but the aspiration toward this divine perfection to impel the
course of human life from the animal to the divine, so far as may be
humanly possible.
In order to land at any given point one must steer beyond it. To
lower the standard of an ideal means not only to lessen the chances
of attaining perfection, but to destroy the ideal itself. The
ideal that influences mankind is not an ingenious invention; it is
something that dwells in the soul of each individual. It is this
ideal of utter and infinite perfection that excites men and urges
them to action. A possible degree of perfection would have no appeal
to the souls of men.
It is because the doctrine of Christ requires illimitable
perfection, that is to say, the blending of the divine essence,
which is in each man's soul, with the will of God, the union of
the Son with the Father, that it has authority. It is only the
emancipation of the Son of God, who dwells with each one of us, from
the animal element within us, and the drawing near to the Father,
that can, in the Christian sense of the word, be called life.
The presence of the animal element in man is not enough of itself to
constitute human life. Neither is a spiritual life, which is guided
only by the will of God, a human life. A true human life is composed
of an animal and of a spiritual life united to the will of God, and
the nearer this component life approaches to the life of God, the
more it has life.
According to the Christian doctrine, life is a condition of progress
toward the perfection of God; hence no one condition can be either
higher or lower than another, because each is in itself a certain
stage in human progress toward the unattainable perfection, and
therefore of equal importance with all the others. Any spiritual
quickening, according to this doctrine, is simply an accelerated
movement toward perfection. Therefore the impulse of Zacchæus the
publican, of the adulteress, and the thief on the cross, show forth
a higher order of life than does the passive righteousness of the
Pharisee. This doctrine, therefore, can never be enforced by
obligatory laws. The man who, from a lower plane, lives up to the
doctrine he professes, ever advancing toward perfection, leads a
higher life than one who may perhaps stand on a superior plane of
morality, but who is making no progress toward perfection.
Thus the stray lamb is dearer to the Father than those which are in
the fold; the prodigal returned, the coin that was lost and is found
again, more highly prized than those that never were lost.
Since the fulfilment of this doctrine is an impulse from self toward
God, it is evident that there can be no fixed laws for its movement.
It may spring from any degree of perfection or of imperfection; the
fulfilment of rules and fulfilment of the doctrine are by no means
synonymous; there could be no rules or obligatory laws for its
fulfilment.
The difference between social laws and the doctrine of Christ
is the natural result of the radical dissimilarity between the
doctrine of Christ and those earlier doctrines which had their
source in a social life-conception. The latter are for the most
part positive, enjoining certain acts, by the performance of which
men are to be justified and made righteous, whereas the Christian
precepts (the precept of love is not a commandment in the strict
sense of the word, but the expression of the very essence of the
doctrine), the five commandments of the Sermon on the Mount, are all
negative, only meant to show men who have reached a certain degree
of development what they must avoid. These commandments are, so to
speak, mile-stones on the infinite road to perfection, toward which
humanity is struggling; they mark the degrees of perfection which it
is possible for it to attain at a certain period of its development.
In the Sermon on the Mount Christ expressed the eternal ideal to
which mankind instinctively aspires, showing at the same time the
point of perfection to which human nature in its present stage may
attain.
The ideal is to bear no malice, excite no ill-will, and to love all
men. The commandment which forbids us to offend our neighbor is one
which a man who is striving to attain this ideal must not do less
than obey. And this is the first commandment.
The ideal is perfect chastity in thought, no less than in deed; and
the commandment which enjoins purity in married life, forbidding
adultery, is one which every man who is striving to attain this
ideal must not do less than obey. And this is the second commandment.
The ideal is to take no thought for the morrow, to live in the
present, and the commandment, the fulfilment of which is the point
beneath which we must not fall, is against taking oath or making
promises for the future. Such is the third commandment.
The ideal--to use no violence whatsoever--shows us that we must
return good for evil, endure injuries with patience, and give up the
cloak to him who has taken the coat. Such is the fourth commandment.
The ideal is to love your enemies, to do good to them that
despitefully use you. In order to keep the spirit of this
commandment one must at least refrain from injuring one's enemies,
one must speak kindly of them, and treat all one's fellow-creatures
with equal consideration. Such is the fifth commandment.
All these commandments are reminders of that which we, in our
striving for perfection, must and can avoid; reminders, too, that we
must labor now to acquire by degrees habits of self-restraint, until
such habits become second nature. But these commandments, far from
exhausting the doctrine, do not by any means cover it. They are but
stepping-stones on the way to perfection, and must necessarily be
followed by higher and still higher ones, as men pursue the course
toward perfection.
That is why a Christian doctrine would make higher demands than
those embodied in the commandments, and not in the least decrease
its demands, as they who judge the Christian doctrine from a social
life-conception seem to think.
This is one of the mistakes of the scientists in regard to the
significance of Christ's doctrine. And the substitution of the
love of humanity for the love and service of God is another, and it
springs from the same source.
In the Christian doctrine of loving and of serving God, and (as
the natural consequence of such love and service) of loving and
serving one's neighbor, there seems to the scientific mind a certain
mysticism, something at once confused and arbitrary; and, believing
that the doctrine of love for humanity rests on a firmer basis and
is altogether more intelligible, they utterly reject the requirement
of love and service of God.
The theory of a scientist is that a virtuous life, a life with a
purpose, must be useful to the world at large; and in a life of this
kind they discover the solution of the Christian doctrine, to which
they reduce Christianity itself. Assuming their own doctrine to be
identical with that of Christianity, they seek and believe that they
find in the latter an affirmation of their own views.
This is a fallacy. The Christian doctrine, and the doctrine of the
Positivists, and of all advocates of the universal brotherhood of
man, founded on the utility of such a brotherhood, have nothing
in common, and especially do they differ in that the doctrine of
Christianity has a solid and a clearly defined foundation in the
human soul, whereas love of humanity is but a theoretical conclusion
reached through analogy.
The doctrine of the love of humanity has for its basis the social
life-conception.
The essence of the social life-conception consists in replacing the
sense of individual life by that of the life of the group. In its
first steps, this is a simple and natural progression, as from the
family to the tribe; from the family to the race is more difficult,
and requires special education,--which has arrived at its utmost
limits when the State has been reached.
It is natural for every man to love himself, and he needs no
incentive thereto; to love his tribe, which lends both support and
protection; to love his wife, the delight and comfort of his daily
life; the children, who are his consolation and his future hope; his
parents, who gave him life and cherished him,--all this, although
not so intense as love of self, is natural and common to mankind.
To love one's race, one's people, for their own sake, although not
so instinctive, is also common. To love one's ancestors, one's
kinsfolk, through pride, is also natural and frequent; and a man may
feel love for his fellow-countrymen, who speak the same language
and profess the same faith as himself, although the emotion is
less strong than love of self or love of family. But love for a
nation, Turkey, for instance, or Germany, England, Austria, Russia,
is almost impossible, and notwithstanding the training given in
that direction, it is only a fictitious semblance; it has no real
existence. At this aggregate ceases man's power of transfusing
his innermost consciousness; for such a fiction he can feel no
direct sentiment. And yet the Positivists and all the preachers
of the scientific fraternity, not taking into consideration the
fact that this feeling is weakened in proportion to the expansion
of its object, continue to theorize on the same lines. They say:
"If it were to the advantage of an individual to transfuse his
consciousness into the family, and thence into the nation and the
State, it follows that it will be to his further advantage to
transfuse his consciousness into the universal entity, mankind, that
all men may live for humanity, as they have lived for the family and
for the State."
And theoretically they are right.
After having transferred the consciousness and love for the
individual to the family, and from the family to the race, the
nation, and the State, it would be perfectly logical for men, in
order to escape the strife and disasters that result from the
division of mankind into nations and states, to transfer their love
to humanity at large. This would appear to be the logical outcome,
and it has been offered as a theory by those who forget that love
is an innate sentiment, which can never be inspired by preaching;
that it must have a real object, and that the entity which men call
humanity is not a real object, but a fiction.
A family, a race, even a State, are no inventions of men; these
things have formed themselves like a hive of bees, or a colony of
ants, and possess an actual existence. The man who loves his family,
after a human fashion, knows whom he is loving--Ann, Maria, John, or
Peter. The man who loves his ancestors, and is proud of them, knows
that he loves the Guelphs, for instance, or the Ghibellines; the man
who loves his country knows that he loves France from the Rhine to
the Pyrenees, that he loves its capital, Paris, and all its history.
But the man who loves humanity, what is it that he loves? There is a
State, there is a people, there is the abstract conception of man.
But humanity as a concrete conception is impossible.
Humanity? Where is its limit? Where does it end and where does
it begin? Does it exclude the savage, the idiot, the inebriate,
the insane? If one were to draw a line of demarcation so as to
exclude the lower representatives of the human race, where ought
it to be drawn? Ought it to exclude the Negro, as they do in the
United States, or the Hindoos, as some Englishmen do, or the Jews,
as does another nation? But if we include all humanity without
exception, why should we restrict ourselves to men? Why should we
exclude the higher animals, some of whom are superior to the lowest
representatives of the human race?
We do not know humanity in the concrete, nor can we fix its limits.
Humanity is a fiction, and therefore it cannot be loved. Indeed,
it would be advantageous if men could love humanity as they love
the family. It would be very useful, as the communists say, to
substitute a community of interests for individual competition,
or the universal for the personal; in a word, to make the whole
world a mutual benefit society,--only that there are no motives to
bring about such a result. The Positivists, communists, and all
the exponents of the scientific fraternity exhort us to extend
the love which men feel for themselves, their families, their
fellow-countrymen, over humanity at large, forgetting that the love
of which they speak is a personal love, which may be kindled for the
family, and even extend to include one's native country, but which
expires altogether when it is appealed to in behalf of an artificial
state, such as Austria, England, or Turkey; and when claimed for
that mystical object, humanity in general, one cannot even grasp the
idea.
"A man loves himself, his physical personality, he loves his family,
he even loves his country. Why should he not also love mankind?
It would seem such a happy consummation! And it so happens that
Christianity inculcates the same precept." These are the opinions of
the Positivist, the communist, and the socialist fraternities.
It would indeed be fortunate, but it is impossible, because love
founded on a personal and social life-conception can go no further
than the love of country.
The flaw in the argument arises from the fact that the social
life-conception, the basis of family love and of patriotism, is
itself an individual love, and such a love, in its transference from
a person to a family, a race, a nation, and a State, gradually loses
its efficiency, and in the State has reached its final limit, and
can go no further.
The necessity for widening the sphere of love is not to be denied,
and yet it is the very attempt to satisfy this requirement that
destroys its possibility, and proves the inadequacy of personal
human love.
And here it is that the advocates of the Positivist, communist, and
socialist brotherhood offer as a prop to the humanitarianism that
has proved its inefficiency, a Christian love, not in its essence,
but only in its results; in other words, not the love of God, but
the love of man.
But there can be no such love; it has no _raison d'étre_. Christian
love comes only from a Christian life-conception, whose sole
manifestation is the love and service of God.
By a natural sequence in the extension of love from the individual
to the family, and thence to the race, the nation, and the State,
the social life-conception has brought men not to the consciousness
of love for humanity,--which is illimitable--the unification of
every living creature,--but to a condition which evokes no feeling
in man, to a contradiction for which it provides no reconciliation.
It is only the Christian doctrine which, by lending to human life
a new significance, is able to solve the difficulty. Christianity
presents the love of self and the love of the family, as well as
patriotism and the love of humanity, but it is not to be restricted
to humanity alone; it is to be given to every living creature; it
recognizes the possibility of an indefinite expansion of the kingdom
of love, but its object is not to be found outside itself, in the
aggregate of individuals, neither in the family, nor in the race,
nor in the State, nor in mankind, nor all the wide world, but in
itself, in its personality,--a divine personality, whose essence is
the very love which needed a wider sphere.
The distinction between the Christian doctrine and those which
preceded it may be thus defined. The social doctrine says: Curb thy
nature (meaning the animal nature alone); subject it to the visible
law of the family, of society, and of the State. Christianity says:
Live up to thy nature (meaning the divine nature); make it subject
to nothing; neither to thine own animal nature, nor to that of
another, and then thou shalt attain what thou seekest by subjecting
thine outward personality to visible laws. The Christian doctrine
restores to man his original consciousness of self, not the animal
self, but the godlike self, the spark of divinity, as the son
of God, like unto the Father, but clothed in a human form. This
consciousness of one's self as a son of God, whose essence is love,
satisfies at once all those demands made by the man who professes
the social life-conception for a broader sphere of love. Again, in
the social life-conception the enlargement of the domain of love was
a necessity for the salvation of the individual; it was attached
to certain objects, to one's self, to one's family, to society,
and to humanity. With the Christian world-conception love is not a
necessity, neither is it attached to any special object; it is the
inherent quality of a man's soul; he loves because he cannot help
loving.
The Christian doctrine teaches to man that the essence of his soul
is love; that his well-being may be traced, not to the fact that he
loves this object or that one, but to the fact that he loves the
principle of all things--God, whom he recognizes in himself through
love, and will by the love of God love all men and all things.
This is the essential difference between the Christian doctrine and
that of the Positivists, and all other non-Christian theorists of a
universal brotherhood.
Such are the two chief misapprehensions in regard to the Christian
doctrine, and from those most of the false arguments on the subject
have originated.
One is, that the doctrine of Christ, like the doctrines which
preceded it, promulgates rules which men must obey, and that these
rules are impracticable. The other, that the whole meaning of
Christianity is contained in the doctrine of a coöperative union of
mankind, in one family, to attain which, leaving aside the question
of love of God, one should obey only the rule of love of one's
fellow-men.
Finally, the mistake of scientists, in supposing that the doctrine
of the supernatural contains the essence of Christianity, that
its life-teaching is not practicable, together with the general
misapprehensions that result from such a misconception, further
explains why men of our time have so misunderstood Christianity.
CHAPTER V
CONTRADICTION OF OUR LIFE AND CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS
Men consider that they may accept Christianity without changing
their life--The pagan life-conception no longer corresponds to
the present age of humanity, which the Christian life-conception
alone can satisfy--The Christian life-conception is still
misunderstood by men, but our life itself necessitates its
acceptance--The requirements of a new life-conception always
seem unintelligible, mystical, and supernatural--Such, for
the majority of men, seem the requirements of the Christian
life-conception--The acceptance of a Christian life-conception
will inevitably be accomplished both through spiritual and
material agencies--The fact that men, conscious of a higher
life-conception, continue to entertain the lower forms of
life, causes contradiction and suffering, which embitter life
and require its alteration--Contradictions of our life--The
economical contradiction, and the suffering it causes to the
working-men and to the rich--The contradiction of State, and
the sufferings that arise from obedience to State laws--The
international contradiction, and its acknowledgment by
contemporary writers: Komarvosky, Ferri, Booth, Passy, Lawson,
Wilson, Bartlett, Defourny, Moneta--The military contradiction
the extreme.
Many causes have contributed toward the misunderstanding of the
teaching of Christ. One of these is that men assumed to understand
the doctrine, when, like the faithful of the Church, they accepted
the statement that it had been transmitted in a supernatural
manner; or, like the scientists, after having investigated certain
of its outward manifestations. Another reason may be found in the
conviction that it is impracticable, and that it may be replaced by
the doctrine of love of humanity. But the principal reason of all
such misconceptions is that men look upon the doctrine of Christ as
one that may be accepted or rejected without any special change in
one's life.
Men, attached by habit to the existing order, shrink from
attempting to change it, hence they agree to consider this doctrine
as a mass of revelations and laws that may be accepted without
making any change in one's life: whereas the doctrine of Christ
is not a doctrine of rules for man to obey, but unfolds a new
life-conception, meant as a guide for men who are now entering upon
a new period, one entirely different from the past.
The life of humanity continues its course and has its stages, like
the life of an individual; each age has its own life-conception,
which a man must adopt whether he will or no. Those who do not adopt
it consciously, adopt it unconsciously. The same change that takes
place in the views of the individual, as life goes on, occurs also
in the existence of nations and of humanity in general.
If a father were to conduct his affairs like a child, his life would
certainly become so unbearable that he would cast about for a
different plan of life, and would eagerly grasp at one better suited
to his years.
And the human race is at the present time passing through a
similar experience, in its transition from a pagan to a Christian
life-conception. A man of the society of the present day finds that
the pagan life-conception is no longer suited to the times, hence he
is induced to submit to the requirements of the Christian religion,
whose truths, however misunderstood and falsely interpreted they
may be, are yet familiar to his ears, and seem to offer the only
practical solution of the contradictions that beset his path. If the
demands of the Christian doctrine seem unintelligible, peculiar, and
dangerous to a man who has hitherto held the social life-conception,
the demands of the latter seemed none the less so to a savage of a
previous age, who neither fully apprehended them, nor was able to
foresee their consequences.
The savage reasoned thus: "It would be folly for me to sacrifice
my peace or my life to defend an incomprehensible, intangible, and
uncertain ideal, family, race, country, and, above all, it would be
dangerous to deliver myself into the hands of an unknown power." But
there came a time in the life of the savage when, on the one hand,
he had begun, although vaguely, to understand the meaning of social
life, as well as that of its chief incentive,--social approval or
condemnation: glory,--while, on the other hand, the sufferings
of his personal life had become so severe that it was no longer
possible for him to go on believing in the truth of his former
life-conception; whereupon he accepted the social and State doctrine
and submitted to its laws.
And he who holds the social life-conception is now undergoing a
similar experience.
"It is madness"--thus reasons the man holding such views--"to
sacrifice one's interests or those of one's family and of one's
country, in order to fulfil the requirements of a law that would
compel one to renounce the most natural and praiseworthy feelings
toward one's self, one's family, and one's country, and, above all,
the guarantee of protection afforded by the State."
But there comes a time when, on the one hand, a vague awakening
consciousness stirs the soul, the consciousness of the higher law,
love of God and one's neighbor, and the sufferings a man endures
from the contradictions of life, compel him to renounce the social
life-conception and to adopt the new Christian life-conception which
is offered him. And this time has now arrived.
To us, who underwent the transition from the individual to the
social life-conception thousands of years ago, this transition
appears to have been both natural and inevitable, just as the
present transition, through which we have been passing these last
1800 years, seems arbitrary, unnatural, and overwhelming. But it
seems so for the simple reason that the former change is a thing
of the past, and has fixed in us certain habits, whereas we are
still practically accomplishing the present transition, and have to
accomplish it consciously.
It was centuries, indeed thousands of years, before the social
life-conception was adopted by all mankind; it passed through
various phases, and we ourselves possess it through heredity,
education, and unconscious habit; hence it seems natural to us. But
5000 years ago it seemed as strange and unnatural to men as the
Christian doctrine in its true meaning seems to them now.
The universal brotherhood of man, the equality of races, the
abolition of property, the anomalous doctrine of non-resistance,
all these requirements of the Christian religion seem to us
impossibilities. But in olden times, thousands of years ago, not
only the requirements of the State, but even those of the family,
as, for instance, the obligation of parents to feed their children,
of children to support their aged parents, and that of conjugal
fidelity, seemed equally impossible. And still more unreasonable
seemed the demands of the State, requiring citizens to submit
to established authority, to pay taxes, to perform military
duty in defense of their country, etc. We find no difficulty in
comprehending these requirements now; they seem perfectly simple
and natural, with nothing mystical or alarming in their aspect;
but five or even three thousand years ago, such demands seemed
intolerable.
Thus the social life-conception served as a foundation for religion,
for at the time when it was first manifested to men it seemed to
them to be utterly incomprehensible, mystical, and supernatural. Now
that we have passed that phase of human life, we can understand the
reasons for the aggregation of men into families, communities, and
states. But in the early ages the demand for these aggregations was
made in the name of the supernatural, and its fulfilment assured by
the same authority.
The patriarchal religion deified the family, the race, the people.
State religions deified the sovereigns and the State. Even at
the present day the uneducated masses, the Russian peasants, for
instance, who call the Czar a God upon earth, obey the laws from
religious instinct, not because their reason counsels them to do so,
nor because they have the least idea of a State.
And to those men of our own times who hold the social
life-conception, the Christian doctrine seems to be a supernatural
religion, whereas in reality there is nothing mystical or
supernatural about it; it is only a doctrine concerning human life,
corresponding with the degree of development which man has attained,
and one which he cannot refuse to accept.
The time will come, and it is already near at hand, when the
Christian foundations of life--equality, brotherly love, community
of goods, non-resistance of evil by violence--will seem as natural
and simple as the foundations of family, social, and State life
appear to us at the present time.
There can be no retrogression for humanity. Men have outgrown the
lower life-conception of the family and the State, and must press
forward to embrace the next higher conception, as they have already
begun to do.
This movement is accomplished in two ways: consciously, by moral
causes; unconsciously, by material ones. It rarely happens that a
man changes his mode of life at the dictates of reason; however
conscious he may be of the new design and purpose revealed to him by
his reason, he goes on in the old fashion until his life has become
intolerably inconsistent, and therefore distressing. Likewise, the
larger portion of mankind, after learning through its religious
teachers a new conception of life and its objects, to which it has
yet to adjust itself, will for a long time pursue its wonted course,
and only make the change in the end because its former life has
become impossible.
In spite of the necessity for a change of life, acknowledged and
proclaimed by our religious guides and admitted by the wisest men,
in spite of the religious respect entertained for these guides, the
majority of men continue to be influenced in life, now additionally
complicated, by their former views. It is as if the father of a
family, knowing well enough how to conduct himself properly, should
through force of habit or thoughtlessness continue to live as if he
were still a child.
At this very moment we are experiencing one of these transitions.
Humanity has outgrown its social, its civic age, and has entered
upon a new epoch. It knows the doctrine that must underlie the
foundations of life in this new epoch; but, yielding to inertia,
it still clings to its former habits. From this inconsistency
between the theory of life and its practice follow a series of
contradictions and sufferings that embitter man's life and compel
him to make a change.
One needs but to compare the practice of life with its theory to be
horrified at the extraordinary contradictions between the conditions
of life and our inner consciousness.
Man's whole life is a continual contradiction of what he knows to
be his duty. This contradiction prevails in every department of
life, in the economical, the political, and the international. As
though his intelligence were forgotten and his faith temporarily
eclipsed,--for he must have faith, else would his life have no
permanence,--he acts in direct opposition to the dictates of his
conscience and his common sense.
In our economical and international relations we are guided by
the fundamental principles of bygone ages,--principles quite
contradictory to our mental attitude and the conditions of our
present life.
It was right for a man who believed in the divine origin of
slavery, and in its necessity, to live in the relation of a master
to his slaves. But is such a life possible in these days? A man
of antiquity might believe himself justified in taking advantage
of his fellow-man, oppressing him for generations, merely because
he believed in diversity of origin, noble or base, descent from
Ham or Japheth. Not only have the greatest philosophers of ancient
times, the teachers of mankind, Plato and Aristotle, justified the
existence of slavery and adduced proofs of its legality, but no
longer than three centuries ago those who described an ideal state
of society could not picture it without slaves.
In ancient times, and even in the Middle Ages, it was honestly
thought that men were not born equal, that the men worthy of respect
were only Persians, only Greeks, only Romans, or only Frenchmen;
but no one believes it now. And the enthusiastic advocates of the
principles of aristocracy and patriotism at this present day cannot
believe in their own statements.
We all know, and cannot help knowing, even if we had never heard
it defined and never attempted to define it ourselves, that we all
possess an inherent conviction deep in our hearts of the truth of
that fundamental doctrine of Christianity, that we are all children
of one Father, yea, every one of us, wheresoever we may live,
whatsoever language we may speak; that we are all brothers, subject
only to the law of love implanted in our hearts by our common Father.
Whatever may be the habits of thought or the degree of education of
a man of our time, whether he be an educated liberal, whatsoever
his shade of opinion, a philosopher, whatsoever may be his system,
a scientist, an economist of any of the various schools, an
uneducated adherent of any religious faith,--every man in these
days knows that in the matter of life and worldly goods all men
have equal rights; that no man is either better or worse than his
fellow-men, but that all men are born free and equal. Every man
has an instinctive assurance of this fact, and yet he sees his
fellow-beings divided into two classes, the one in poverty and
distress, which labors and is oppressed, the other idle, tyrannical,
luxurious; and not only does he see all this, but, whether
voluntarily or otherwise, he falls in line with one or the other of
these divisions,--a course repugnant to his reason. Hence he must
suffer both from his sense of the incongruity and his own share in
it.
Whether he be master or slave, a man in these days is forever
haunted by this distressing inconsistency between his ideal and the
actual fact, nor can he fail to perceive the suffering that springs
therefrom.
The masses--that is to say, the majority of mankind, who suffer
and toil, their lives dull and uninteresting, never enlivened by a
ray of brightness, enduring numberless privations--are those who
recognize most clearly the sharp contrasts between what is and what
ought to be, between the professions of mankind and their actions.
They know that they work like slaves, that they are perishing in
want and in darkness, that they may minister to the pleasures of
the minority. And it is this very consciousness that enhances its
bitterness; indeed, it constitutes the essence of their suffering.
A slave in old times knew that he was a slave by birth, whereas the
working-man of our day, while he feels himself to be a slave, knows
that he ought not to be one, and suffers the tortures of Tantalus
from his unsatisfied yearning for that which not only could be
granted him, but which is really his due. The sufferings of the
working-classes that spring from the contradictions of their fate
are magnified tenfold by the envy and hatred which are the natural
fruits of the sense of these contradictions.
A working-man in our period, even though his work may be less
fatiguing than the labor of the ancient slave, and even were he to
succeed in obtaining the eight-hour system and twelve-and-sixpence
a day, still has the worst of it, because he manufactures objects
which he will never use or enjoy;--he is not working for himself;
he works in order to gratify the luxurious and idle, to increase
the wealth of the capitalist, the mill-owner, or manufacturer. He
knows that all this goes on in a world where men acknowledge certain
propositions such as the economic principle that labor is wealth,
that it is an act of injustice to employ another man's labor for
one's own benefit, that an illegal act is punishable by law, in a
world, moreover, where the doctrine of Christ is professed,--that
doctrine which teaches us that all men are brothers, and that it
is the duty of a man to serve his neighbor and to take no unfair
advantage of him.
He realizes all this, and must suffer keenly from the shocking
contradiction between the world as it should be and the world as
it is. "According to what I am told and what I hear men profess,"
says a working-man to himself, "I ought to be a free man equal to
any other man, and loved; I am a slave, hated and despised." Then
he in his turn is filled with hatred, and seeks to escape from his
position, to overthrow the enemy that oppresses him, and to get the
upper hand himself.
They say: "It is wrong for a workman to wish himself in the place
of a capitalist, or for a poor man to envy the rich." But this is
false. If this were a world where God had ordained masters and
slaves, rich and poor, it would be wrong for the working-man or the
poor man to wish himself in the place of the rich: but this is not
so; he wishes it in a world which professes the doctrine of the
gospel, whose first principle is embodied in the relation of the
son to the Father, and consequently of fraternity and equality.
And however reluctant men may be to acknowledge it, they cannot
deny that one of the first conditions of Christian life is love,
expressed, not in words, but in deeds.
The man of education suffers even more from these inconsistencies. If
he has any faith whatever he believes, perhaps, in fraternity,--at
least in the sentiment humanity; and if not in the sentiment
humanity, then in justice; and if not in justice, then surely
in science; and he cannot help knowing all the while that
the conditions of his life are opposed to every principle of
Christianity, humanity, justice, and science.
He knows that the habits of life in which he has been bred, and
whose abandonment would cause him much discomfort, can only be
supported by the weary and often suicidal labor of the down-trodden
working-class--that is, by the open infraction of those principles
of Christianity, humanity, justice, and even of science (political
science), in which he professes to believe. He affirms his faith
in the principles of fraternity, humanity, justice, and political
science, and yet the oppression of the working-class is an
indispensable factor in his daily life, and he constantly employs it
to attain his own ends in spite of his principles; and he not only
lives in this manner, but he devotes all his energies to maintain a
system which is directly opposed to all his beliefs.
We are brothers: but every morning my brother or my sister performs
for me the most menial offices. We are brothers: but I must have
my morning cigar, my sugar, my mirror, or what not,--objects whose
manufacture has often cost my brothers and sisters their health,
yet I do not for that reason forbear to use these things; on the
contrary, I even demand them. We are brothers: and yet I support
myself by working in some bank, commercial house, or shop, and am
always trying to raise the price of the necessities of life for
my brothers and sisters. We are brothers: I receive a salary for
judging, convicting, and punishing the thief or the prostitute,
whose existence is the natural outcome of my own system of life, and
I fully realize that I should neither condemn nor punish. We are all
brothers: yet I make my living by collecting taxes from the poor,
that the rich may live in luxury and idleness. We are brothers:
and yet I receive a salary for preaching a pseudo-Christian
doctrine, in which I do not myself believe, thus hindering men from
discovering the true one; I receive a salary as priest or bishop for
deceiving people in a matter which is of vital importance to them.
We are brothers: but I make my brother pay for all my services,
whether I write books for him, educate him, or prescribe for him
as a physician. We are all brothers: but I receive a salary for
fitting myself to be a murderer, for learning the art of war, or for
manufacturing arms and ammunition and building fortresses.
The whole existence of our upper classes is utterly contradictory,
and the more sensitive a man's nature the more painful is the
incongruity.
A man with a sensitive conscience can enjoy no peace of mind in such
a life. Even supposing that he succeeds in stifling the reproaches
of his conscience, he is still unable to conquer his fears.
Those men and women of the dominant classes who have hardened
themselves, and have succeeded in stifling their consciences,
must still suffer through their fear of the hatred they inspire.
They are quite well aware of its existence among the laboring
classes; they know that it can never die; they know, too, that
the working-men realize the deceits practised upon them, and the
abuses that they endure; that they have started organizations to
throw off the yoke, and to take vengeance on their oppressors. The
happiness of the upper classes is poisoned by fear of the impending
calamity, foreshadowed by the unions, the strikes, and First of
May demonstrations. Recognizing the calamity that threatens them,
their fear turns to defiance and hatred. They know that if they
relax for one moment in this conflict with the oppressed, they are
lost, because their slaves, already embittered, grow more and more
so with every day's oppression. The oppressors, though they may
see it, cannot cease to oppress. They realize that they themselves
are doomed from the moment they abate one jot of their severity.
So they go on in their career of oppression, notwithstanding their
affectation of interest in the welfare of the working-men, the
eight-hour system, the laws restricting the labor of women and
children, the pensions, and the rewards. All this is mere pretense,
or at best the natural anxiety of the master to keep his slave in
good condition; but the slave remains a slave all the while, and the
master, who cannot live without the slave, is less willing than ever
to set him free. The governing classes find themselves in regard to
the working-men very much in the position of one who has overthrown
his opponent, and who holds him down, not so much because he does
not choose to let him escape, but because he knows that should he
for one moment lose his hold on him, he would lose his own life, for
the vanquished man is infuriated, and holds a knife in his hand.
Hence our wealthy classes, whether their consciences be tender or
hardened, cannot enjoy the advantages they have wrung from the poor,
as did the ancients, who were convinced of the justice of their
position. All the pleasures of life are poisoned either by remorse
or fear.
Such is the economic inconsistency. Still more striking is that of
the civil power.
A man is trained first of all in habits of obedience to state laws.
At the present time every act of our lives is under the supervision
of the State, and in accordance with its dictates a man marries and
is divorced, rears his children, and in some countries accepts the
religion it prescribes. What is this law, then, that determines the
life of mankind? Do men believe in it? Do they consider it true? Not
at all. In most cases they recognize its injustice, they despise
it, and yet they obey it. It was fit that the ancients should obey
their law. It was chiefly religious, and they sincerely believed
it to be the only true law, to which all men owed obedience. Is
that the case with us? We cannot refuse to acknowledge that the
law of our State is not the eternal law, but only one of the many
laws of many states, all equally imperfect, and frequently wholly
false and unjust,--a law that has been openly discussed in all its
aspects by the public press. It was fit that the Hebrew should obey
his laws, since he never doubted that the finger of God Himself
had traced them; or for the Roman, who believed that he received
them from the nymph Egeria; or even for those peoples who believed
that the rulers who made the laws were anointed of God, or that
legislative assemblies have both the will and the ability to devise
laws as good as possible. But we know that laws are the offspring
of party conflicts, false dealing, and the greed of gain, that they
are not, and can never be, the depository of true justice; and
therefore it is impossible for people of the present day to believe
that obedience to civil or state laws can ever satisfy the rational
demands of human nature. Men have long since realized that there
is no sense in obeying a law whose honesty is more than doubtful,
and therefore they must suffer when, though privately denying its
prerogative, they still conform to it. When a man's whole life is
held in bondage by laws whose injustice, cruelty, and artificiality
he plainly discerns, and yet is compelled to obey these laws under
penalty of punishment, he must suffer; it cannot be otherwise.
We recognize the disadvantages of custom-houses and import duties,
but we are yet obliged to pay them; we see the folly of supporting
the court and its numerous officials, we admit the harmful influence
of church preaching, and still we are compelled to support both; we
also admit the cruel and iniquitous punishments inflicted by the
courts, and yet we play our part in them; we acknowledge that the
distribution of land is wrong and immoral, but we have to submit to
it; and despite the fact that we deny the necessity for armies or
warfare, we are made to bear the heavy burden of supporting armies
and waging war.
These contradictions, however, are but trifling in comparison with
the one which confronts us in the problem of our international
relations, and which cries aloud for solution, since both human
reason and human life are at stake, and this is the antagonism
between the Christian faith and war.
We, Christian nations, whose spiritual life is one and the same,
who welcome the birth of every wholesome and profitable thought
with joy and pride, from whatsoever quarter of the globe it may
spring, regardless of race or creed; we, who love not only the
philanthropists, the poets, the philosophers, and the scientists
of other lands; we, who take as much pride in the heroism of a
Father Damien as if it was our own; we, who love the French, the
Germans, the Americans, and the English, not only esteeming their
qualities, but ready to meet them with cordial friendship; we, who
not only would be shocked to consider war with them in the light of
an exploit,--when we picture to ourselves the possibility that at
some future day a difference may arise between us that can only be
reconciled by murder, and that any one of us may be called upon to
play his part in an inevitable tragedy,--we shudder at the thought.
It was well enough for a Hebrew, a Greek, or a Roman to maintain
the independence of his country by murder, and even to subdue other
nations by the same means, because he firmly believed himself a
member of the one favored people beloved by God, and that all the
others were Philistines and barbarians. Also, in the times of the
Middle Ages men might well have held these opinions, and even they
who lived toward the end of the last century and at the beginning
of this. But we, whatever provocation may be offered us, we cannot
possibly believe as they did; and this difficulty is so painful for
us in these times that it has become impossible to live without
trying to solve it.
"We live in a time replete with contradictions," writes Count
Komarovsky, the Professor of International Law, in his learned
treatise. "Everywhere the tone of the public press seems to indicate
a general desire for peace, and shows the need of it for all
nations. And the representatives of the government, in their private
as well as in their public capacity, in parliamentary speeches and
diplomatic negotiations, express themselves in the same temper.
Nevertheless, the governments increase the military force year after
year, impose new taxes, negotiate loans, and will leave as a legacy
to future generations the responsibilities of the present mistaken
policy. How are the word and the deed at variance!
"By way of justification the governments claim that all their
armaments and the consequent outlay are simply defensive in their
character, but to the uninitiated the question naturally suggests
itself: Whence is to come the attack if all the great powers are
devoting themselves _to a defensive policy_? It certainly looks as
if each one of them lived in hourly expectation of attack from his
neighbor, and the consequence is a strife between the different
governments to surpass each other in strength. The very existence of
this spirit of rivalry favors the chances of war: the nations, no
longer able to support the increased armament, will sooner or later
prefer open war to the tension in which they live and the ruin which
menaces them, so that the slightest pretext will avail to kindle
in Europe the conflagration of a general war. It is a mistake to
suppose that such a crisis will heal the political and economic ills
under which we groan. The experience of late wars shows us that each
one served only to exacerbate the animosity of the nations against
each other, to increase the unbearable burden of military despotism,
and has involved the political and economic situation of Europe in a
more melancholy and pitiable plight than ever."
"Contemporary Europe keeps under arms nine millions of men," says
Enrico Ferri, "and a reserve force of fifteen millions, at a cost
of four milliards of francs a year. By increasing its armament
it paralyzes more and more the springs of social and individual
welfare, and may be compared to a man who, in order to obtain
weapons, condemns himself to anæmia, thereby depriving himself of
the strength to use the weapons he is accumulating, whose weight
will eventually overpower him."
The same idea has been expressed by Charles Booth, in his address
delivered in London, July 26, 1887, before the Association for the
Reform and Codification of National Laws. Having mentioned the same
numbers,--over nine millions in active service and fifteen millions
in reserve, and the enormous sums required to support these armies
and armaments,--he says, in substance: "These numbers represent
but a small part of the actual expenditure, because outside of the
expenses enumerated in the budgets of the nations we must take
into consideration the great losses to society from the removal
of so many able-bodied men, lost to industry in all its branches,
and moreover, the interest on the enormous sums spent in military
preparations, which yield no returns. As might be expected, the
constantly increasing national debts are the inevitable result of
these outlays in preparation for war. By far the greater proportion
of the debt of Europe has been contracted for munitions of war.
The sum total is four milliards of pounds, or forty milliards of
roubles, and these debts are increasing every year."
Komarovsky, whom we lately quoted, says elsewhere: "We are living
in hard times. Everywhere we hear complaints of the stagnation of
commerce and industry, and of the wretched economical situation.
They tell us of the hard conditions of life among the laboring
classes and the general impoverishment of the people. But regardless
of this, governments, determined to maintain their independence, go
to the utmost limits of folly. Additional taxes are levied on every
side, and the financial oppression of the people knows no bounds.
If we glance at the budgets of European states for the last hundred
years, we shall be struck with their constantly increasing figures.
How can we explain this abnormal condition that sooner or later
threatens to overwhelm us with inevitable bankruptcy?
"Most assuredly it is caused by the expense of maintaining armies,
which absorbs one-third, or even one-half, of the budget of all
European nations. The saddest part of it, however, is that there is
no end to this increase of budgets and consequent impoverishment of
the masses. What is socialism but a protest against the abnormal
situation in which the majority of mankind of our continent finds
itself?"
"We are being ruined," says Frédéric Passy, in a paper read before
the last Peace Congress in London (1890), "to enable us to take part
in the senseless wars of the future, or to pay the interest of debts
left us by the criminal and insane wars and contests of the past. We
shall perish with hunger, to have success in murder."
Going on to speak of the opinion of France in regard to this
matter, he says: "We believe that now, a hundred years after the
proclamation formulating the belief in the rights of men and
citizens, the time has come to declare the rights of nations and
to repudiate once and for all time those undertakings of fraud and
violence, which, under the name of conquests, are actually crimes
against humanity, and which, however much the pride of nations or
the ambition of monarchs may seek to justify them, serve only to
enervate the conquerors."
"I am always very much surprised at the way religion is carried on
in this country," says Sir Wilfred Lawson before the same Congress.
"You send a boy to the Sunday-school, and you tell him: 'My dear
boy, you must love your enemies; if any boy strikes you, don't
strike him again; try to reform him by loving him.' Well, the boy
goes to the Sunday-school till he is fourteen or fifteen years of
age, and then his friends say, 'Put him in the army.' What has he to
do in the army? Why, not love his enemies, but whenever he sees an
enemy, to run him through the body with a bayonet is the nature of
all religious teaching in this country. I do not think that that is
a very good way of carrying out the precepts of religion. I think if
it is a good thing for the boy to love his enemy, it is a good thing
for the man to love his enemy."...
And later!
"In Europe great Christian nations keep among them 28,000,000 of
armed men to settle quarrels by killing one another, instead of
by arguing. This is what the Christian nations of the world are
doing at this moment. It is a very expensive way also; for in a
publication which I saw--I believe it was correct--it was made
out that since the year 1812 these nations had spent the almost
incredible amount of 1,500,000,000 of money in preparing and
settling their quarrels by killing one another. Now it seems to
me that with that state of things one of two positions must be
accepted,--either that Christianity is a failure, or that those
who profess to expound Christianity have failed in expounding it
properly."
"So long as our men-of-war are not disarmed and our army not
disbanded, we have no right to be called a Christian nation," said
Mr. F. L. Wilson.
In a conversation in regard to the duty of Christian ministers in
the matter of preaching against war, Mr. G. D. Bartlett remarked,
among other things:--
"If I understand the Scriptures, I say that men are only playing
with Christianity when they ignore this question.... I have lived
a long life, I have heard many sermons, and I can say without any
exaggeration that I never heard universal peace recommended from
the pulpit half a dozen times in my life.... Some twenty years
ago I happened to stand in a drawing-room where there were forty
or fifty people, and I dared to make the proposition that war was
incompatible with Christianity. They looked upon me as an arrant
fanatic. The idea that we could get on without war was regarded as
unmitigated weakness and folly."
A Catholic priest, the Abbé Defourny, has spoken in a similar
spirit. "One of the first commandments of the eternal law, engraved
in every man's conscience," says the Abbé Defourny, "forbids a man
to take his neighbor's life or shed his blood" (without sufficient
cause, being forced to it by stress of circumstance). "This is a
commandment more deeply engraved in the human heart than all the
others.... But as soon as it becomes a question of war, that is,
a question of the wholesale shedding of human blood, men in these
days do not wait for a sufficient cause. Those who are active in
war forget to ask themselves if there is any justification for the
numerous manslaughters that take place, whether they are just or
unjust, legal or illegal, innocent or criminal, or whether they
break the principal law that forbids us to commit murder" (without
just cause). "Their conscience is silent.... War has ceased to be a
matter connected with morality. The soldier, amid all the fatigues
and dangers he undergoes, knows no joy but conquest, no sorrow but
defeat. Don't tell me that they serve the country. A great genius
has long ago answered this statement in words that have since become
a proverb: 'Take away justice, and what is then a nation but a great
band of robbers? And is not a band of robbers in itself a small
state? They, too, have their laws. They, too, fight for booty, and
even honor.'
"The aim of this organization" (it was a question of establishing
international tribunals) "is to influence the European nations until
they cease to be nations of thieves, and their armies bands of
robbers. Yes, our armies are nothing less than a rabble of slaves
belonging to one or two monarchs and their ministers, who, as we all
know, rule them tyrannically and without any responsibility other
than nominal, as we know.
"It is the characteristic of a slave that he is a tool in the hands
of his master. Such are the soldiers, officers, and generals, who
at the beck of their sovereign go forth to slay or to be slain.
There is a military slavery, and it is the worst of all slaveries,
particularly now, when by means of conscription it forges chains for
the necks of all the free and strong men of the nation, in order to
use them as instruments of murder, to make them executioners and
butchers of human flesh, since that is the sole reason why they are
drafted and drilled....
"Two or three potentates in their cabinets make treaties, without
protocols, without publicity, and therefore without responsibility,
sending men to the slaughter.
"'Protests against increased armaments began before our time,' said
Signor E. G. Moneta. Listen to Montesquieu: 'France' (for France we
might now substitute Europe) 'is perishing from an overgrown army. A
new disease is spreading throughout Europe. It has affected kings,
and obliges them to maintain an incredible number of troops. It is
like a rash, and therefore contagious; for no sooner does one nation
increase its troops than all the others follow suit. Nothing can
result from this condition of affairs but general calamity.
"'Each government maintains as many troops as it would require if
its people were threatened with destruction, and this state of
tension is called peace. Europe is in truth ruined. If private
individuals were reduced to such straits as these, the richest man
among them would be practically destitute. The wealth of the world
and its commerce are in our hands, and yet we are poor.'
"This was written almost 150 years ago. It seems like a picture of
the present. One thing alone has changed--the form of government.
In the time of Montesquieu it was said that the reason for the
maintenance of large armies might be found in the unlimited power of
kings, who carried on war in the hope of increasing their private
property and their glory.
"Then it was said: 'Ah! if the people could but choose
representatives who would have a right to refuse the governments
when they called for soldiers and money--there would be an end of
a military policy.' Now, almost everywhere in Europe there are
representative governments, and still the military expenditure in
preparation for war has increased in frightful proportion.
"It looks as though the folly of the rulers had passed into the
ruling classes. Now they no longer fight because one king has
been rude to another king's mistress, as in the time of Louis
XIV., but by exaggerating the importance of national dignity
and patriotism,--emotions which are natural and honorable in
themselves,--and exciting the public opinion of one country against
the other, until they have arrived at such a pitch of sensitiveness
that it is enough to say, for instance (even were the report to
prove false), one country has refused to receive the ambassador
of another, to precipitate the most frightful and disastrous war.
Europe maintains under arms at the present time more soldiers than
were in the field during the great wars of Napoleon. Every citizen
on our continent, with a few exceptions, is forced to spend several
years in the barracks. Fortresses, arsenals, men-of-war are built,
new firearms are invented, which in a short time are replaced by
others, because science, which should always be devoted to the
promotion of human welfare, contributes, it must be regretfully
acknowledged, to human destruction, inventing ever new means of
killing greater numbers of men in the shortest possible time.
"In these stupendous preparations for slaughter, and in the
maintenance of these vast numbers of troops, hundreds of millions
are yearly expended--sums that would suffice to educate the masses,
and to carry on the most important works of public improvement,
thereby contributing toward a perfect solution of the social problem.
"Therefore, notwithstanding all our scientific victories, Europe
finds herself in this respect not one whit better off than she was
in the most barbarous times of the Middle Ages. Every one laments
a state of things which is neither war nor peace, and longs to be
delivered from it. The heads of governments emphatically affirm
that they desire peace, and eagerly emulate each other in their
pacific utterances, but almost immediately thereafter they propose
to the legislative assemblies measures for increasing the armament,
asserting that they take these precautions for the preservation of
peace.
"But this is not the sort of peace we care for, and the nations
are not deceived by it. True peace has for its foundation mutual
confidence, whereas these appalling armaments show, if not a
declared hostility, at least a secret distrust among the different
nations. What should we say of a man who, wishing to show his
friendly feelings to his neighbor, should invite him to consider a
certain scheme, holding a loaded pistol while he unfolds it before
him?
"It is this monstrous contradiction between the assurances of peace
and the military policy of the governments, that good citizens wish
to put an end to, at any cost."
One is amazed to learn that there are 60,000 suicides reported in
Europe, not including Turkey and Russia, every year, and these are
all well-substantiated cases; but it would be far more remarkable
if the number were less. Any man in these times who investigates the
antagonism between his convictions and his actions, finds himself
in a desperate plight. Setting aside the many other contradictions
between actual life and conviction which abound in the life of a
man of the present day, to view the military situation in Europe in
the light of its profession of Christianity is enough to make a man
doubt the existence of human reason, and drive him to escape from a
barbarous and insane world by putting an end to his own life. This
inconsistency, which is the very quintessence of all the others, is
so shocking, that one can only go on living and taking any part in
it, by dint of trying not to think about it,--to forget it all.
What can it mean? We are Christians, who not only profess to love
one another, but are actually leading one common life; our pulses
beat in harmony; we meet each other in love and sympathy, deriving
support and counsel from our mutual intercourse. Were it not for
this sympathy life would have no meaning. But at any moment some
demented ruler may utter a few rash words, to which another gives
reply, and lo! I am ordered to march at the risk of my life, to slay
those who have never injured me, whom I really love. And it is no
remote contingency, but an inevitable climax for which we are all
preparing ourselves.
Fully to realize this is enough to drive one to madness and to
suicide, and this is but too common an occurrence, especially among
soldiers.
A moment's reflection shows us why this seems an inevitable
conclusion.
It explains the frightful intensity with which men plunge into all
kinds of dissipation,--wine, tobacco, cards, newspaper reading,
travel, all manner of shows and pleasures. They pursue all these
amusements in deadly earnest, as if they were serious avocations,
as indeed they are. If men possessed none of these distractions,
half of them would kill themselves out of hand, for to live a life
that is made up of contradictions is simply unbearable, and such is
the life that most of us lead at the present day. We are living in
direct contradiction to our inmost convictions. This contradiction
is evident both in economic and in political relations; it
is manifested most unmistakably in the inconsistency of the
acknowledgment of the Christian law of brotherly love and military
conscription, which obliges men to hold themselves in readiness
to take each other's lives,--in short, every man to be at once a
Christian and a gladiator.
CHAPTER VI
ATTITUDE OF MEN OF THE PRESENT DAY TOWARD WAR
Men do not endeavor to destroy the contradiction between life
and consciousness by a change of life, but educated men use
all their power to stifle the demands of consciousness and to
justify their lives, and thus degrade society to a condition
worse than pagan, to a state of primeval savagery--Uncertainty
of the attitude of our leading men toward war, universal
armament, and general military conscription--Those who regard
war as an accidental political phenomenon easily to be remedied
by external measures--The Peace Congress--Article in the Revue
des Revues--Proposition of Maxime du Camp--Significance of
Courts of Arbitration and Disarmament--Relations of governments
to these, and the business they pursue--Those who regard war as
a cruel inevitable phenomenon--Maupassant--Rod--Those who regard
it as indispensable, even useful--Camille Doucet, Claretie,
Zola, Vogüé.
The contradictions of life and of consciousness may be solved in two
ways: by change of life, or by change of consciousness; and it would
seem as if there could be no hesitation in a choice between the two.
When a man acknowledges a deed to be evil he may refrain from the
deed itself, but he can never cease to regard it as evil. Indeed,
the whole world might cease from evil-doing, and yet have no power
to transform, or even to check for a season, the progress of
knowledge in regard to that which is evil, and which ought not to
exist. One would think that the alternative of a change of life to
accord with consciousness might be settled without question, and
that it would therefore seem unavoidable for the Christian world of
the present day to abandon those pagan forms which it condemns, and
regulate its life by the Christian precepts which it acknowledges.
Such would be the result were it not for the principle of inertia
(a principle no less unalterable in human life than in the world
of matter), which finds its expression in the psychological law
defined in the gospel by the words: "Men loved darkness rather than
light, because their deeds were evil" (John iii. 19). Most persons,
in conformity to this principle, do not use their reason in order
to ascertain the truth, but rather to persuade themselves that they
possess it, and that their daily life, which is pleasant for them,
is in harmony with the precepts of truth.
Slavery conflicted with all the moral principles taught by Plato
and Aristotle, and yet neither of them perceived this, because the
disavowal of slavery must have destroyed that life by which they
lived. And the same thing is repeated in our times.
The division of mankind into two classes, the existence of political
and military injustice, is opposed to all those moral principles
which our society professes, and yet the most progressive and
cultivated men of the age seem not to perceive this.
Almost every educated man at the present day is striving
unconsciously to preserve the old-time conception of society, which
justifies his attitude, and to conceal from others and from himself
its inconsistencies, chief among which is the necessity of adopting
the Christian ideal, which is subversive of the very structure of
our social existence. It is this antiquated social system, in which
they no longer believe, because it is really a thing of the past,
that men are trying to uphold.
Contemporary literature, philosophical, political, and
artistic,--all contemporary literature affords a striking proof
of the truth of my statement. What wealth of imagination, what
form and color, what erudition and art, but what a lack of serious
purpose, what reluctance to face any exact thought! Ambiguity of
expression, indirect allusion, witticisms, vague reflection, but no
straightforward or candid dealing with the subject they treat of,
namely, life.
Indeed, our writers treat of obscenities and improprieties; in the
guise of refined paradox they convey suggestions which thrust men
back to primeval savagery, to the lowest dregs, not only of pagan
life, but animal life, which we outlived 5000 years ago. Delivering
themselves from the Christian life-conception, which for some simply
interferes with the accustomed current of their lives, while for
others it interferes with certain advantages, men must of necessity
return to the pagan life-conception and to the doctrines to which it
gave rise. Not only are patriotism and the rights of the aristocracy
preached at the present time as they used to be 2000 years ago, but
also the coarsest epicureanism and sensuality, with this difference
only,--that the teachers of old believed in the doctrines they
taught, whereas those of the present day neither do nor can possess
any faith in what they utter, because there is no longer any sense
in it. When the ground is shifting under our feet, we cannot stand
still, we must either recede or advance. It sounds exaggerated to
say that the enlightened men of our time, the advanced thinkers, are
speciously degrading society, plunging it into a condition worse
than pagan,--into a state of primeval barbarism.
In no other matter has this tendency of the leading men of our
time been so plainly shown as in their attitude toward that
phenomenon in which at present all the inconsistency of social life
is concentrated,--toward war, universal armament, and military
conscription.
The equivocal, if not unscrupulous, attitude of the educated men
of our time toward this question is a striking one. It may be
stated from three points of view. Some regard this phenomenon as
an accidental state of affairs, which has sprung from the peculiar
political situation of Europe, and believe it to be susceptible
of adjustment by diplomatic and international mediation, without
injury to the structure of nations. Others look upon it as something
appalling and cruel, fatal yet unavoidable,--like disease or
death. Still others, in cold blood, calmly pronounce war to be an
indispensable, salutary, and therefore desirable event.
Men may differ in their views in regard to this matter, but all
discuss it as something with which the will of the individuals who
are to take part in it has nothing whatever to do; therefore they
do not even admit the natural question which presents itself to
most men; viz., "Is it my duty to take part in it?" In the opinion
of these judges there is no reason in such a question, and every
man, whatever may be his personal prejudices in regard to war, must
submit in this matter to the demands of the ruling powers.
The attitude of those in the first category, who expect deliverance
from war by means of diplomatic and international mediation, is
well defined in the results of the London Peace Congress, and in
an article, together with letters concerning war from prominent
writers, which may be found in the _Revue des Revues_ (No. 8, 1891).
These are the results of the Congress.
Having collected from all parts of the globe the opinions of
scientists, both written and oral, the Congress, opening with a _Te
Deum_ in the cathedral, and closing with a dinner and speeches,
listened for five days to numerous addresses, and arrived at the
following conclusions:--
Resolution I. The Congress affirms its belief that the brotherhood
of man involves as a necessary consequence a brotherhood of
nations, in which, the true interests of all are acknowledged to
be identical. The Congress is convinced that the true basis for an
enduring peace will be found in the application by nations of this
great principle in all their relations one to another.
II. The Congress recognizes the important influence which
Christianity exercises upon the moral and political progress of
mankind, and earnestly urges upon ministers of the gospel and other
teachers of religion and morality the duty of setting forth these
principles of Peace and Good-will, which occupy such a central
place in the teaching of Jesus Christ, of philosophers and of
moralists, and _it recommends that the third Sunday in December in
each year be set apart for that purpose_.
III. The Congress expresses its opinion that all teachers of history
should call the attention of the young to the grave evils inflicted
on mankind in all ages by war, and to the fact that such war has
been waged, as a rule, for most inadequate causes.
IV. The Congress protests against the use of military drill in
connection with the physical exercises of schools, and suggests
the formation of brigades for saving life rather than any of
quasi-military character; and it urges the desirability of
impressing on the Board of Examiners, who formulate the questions
for examination, the propriety of guiding the minds of children into
the principles of Peace.
V. The Congress holds that the doctrine of the universal rights
of man requires that aboriginal and weaker races shall be guarded
from injustice and fraud when brought into contact with civilized
peoples, alike as to their territories, their liberties, and their
property, and that they shall be shielded from the vices which are
so prevalent among the so-called advanced races of men. It further
expresses its conviction that there should be concert of action
among the nations for the accomplishment of these ends. The Congress
desires to express its hearty appreciation of the conclusions
arrived at by the late Anti-Slavery Conference, held in Brussels,
for the amelioration of the condition of the peoples of Africa.
VI. The Congress believes that the warlike prejudices and traditions
which are still fostered in the various nationalities, and the
misrepresentations by leaders of public opinion in legislative
assemblies, or through the press, are not infrequently indirect
causes of war. The Congress is therefore of opinion that these ends
should be counteracted by the publication of accurate statements
and information that would tend to the removal of misunderstanding
amongst nations, and recommends to the Inter-Parliamentary
Committee the importance of considering the question of starting an
international newspaper, which should have such a purpose as one of
its primary objects.
VII. The Congress proposes to the Inter-Parliamentary Conference
that the utmost support should be given to every project for the
unification of weights and measures, of coinage, tariffs, postal
and telegraphic arrangements, means of transport, etc., which would
assist in constituting a commercial, industrial, and scientific
union of the peoples.
VIII. In view of the vast moral and social influence of woman, the
Congress urges upon every woman throughout the world to sustain, as
wife, mother, sister, or citizen, the things that make for peace,
as otherwise she incurs grave responsibilities for the continuance
of the systems of war and militarism, which not only desolate
but corrupt the home-life of the nation. To concentrate and to
practically apply this influence, the Congress recommends that
women should unite themselves with societies for the promotion of
international peace.
IX. This Congress expresses the hope that the Financial Reform
Association and other similar societies in Europe and America should
unite in convoking at an early date a conference to consider the
best means of establishing equitable commercial relations between
States by the reduction of import duties as a step toward Free
Trade. The Congress feels that it can affirm that the whole of
Europe desires Peace, and is impatiently waiting for the moment when
it shall see the end of those crushing armaments which, under the
plea of defense, become in their turn a danger, by keeping alive
mutual distrust, and are, at the same time, the cause of the general
economic disturbance which stands in the way of settling in a
satisfactory manner the problems of labor and poverty, which should
take precedence of all others.
X. This Congress, recognizing that a general disarmament would be
the best guarantee of _Peace_, and would lead to the solution,
in the general interest, of those questions which now must divide
States, expresses the wish that a Congress of Representatives of
all the States of Europe may be assembled as soon as possible to
consider the means of effecting a gradual general disarmament, which
already seems feasible.
XI. This Congress, considering that the timidity of a single Power
or other cause might delay indefinitely the convocation of the
above-mentioned Congress, is of the opinion that the Government
which should first dismiss any considerable number of soldiers would
confer a signal benefit on Europe and mankind, because it would
oblige other Governments, urged on by public opinion, to follow its
example, and by the moral force of this accomplished fact would have
increased rather than diminished the conditions of its national
defense.
XII. This Congress, considering the question of disarmament, as
well as the Peace question generally, depends upon public opinion,
recommends the Peace Societies here represented, and all friends of
Peace, to carry on an active propaganda among the people, especially
at the time of Parliamentary elections, in order that the electors
should give their votes to those candidates who have included in
their programme Peace, Disarmament, and Arbitration.
XIII. This Congress congratulates the friends of Peace on the
resolution adopted by the International American Conference
(with the exception of the representatives of Chili and Mexico)
at Washington in April last, by which it was recommended that
arbitration should be obligatory in all controversies concerning
diplomatic and consular privileges, boundaries, territories,
indemnities, right of navigation, and the validity, construction,
and enforcement of treaties, and in all other causes, whatever
their origin, nature, or occasion, except only those which, in the
judgment of any of the nations involved in the controversy, may
imperil its independence.
XIV. This Congress respectfully recommends this resolution to the
statesmen of Europe, and expresses the ardent desire that treaties
in similar terms be speedily entered into between the other nations
of the world.
XV. This Congress expresses its satisfaction at the adoption
by the Spanish Senate, on June 18th last, of a project of law
authorizing the Government to negotiate general or special treaties
of arbitration for the settlement of all disputes, except those
relating to the independence and internal government of the States
affected; also at the adoption of resolutions to a like effect
by the Norwegian Storthing on March 6th last, and by the Italian
Chamber on July 11th.
XVI. That a committee of five be appointed to prepare and address
communications, in the name of the Congress, to the principal
religious, political, economical, labor, and peace organizations
in civilized countries, requesting them to send petitions to the
governmental authorities of their respective countries, praying that
measures be taken for the formation of suitable tribunals for the
adjudication of international questions, so as to avoid the resort
to war.
XVII. Seeing (1) that the object pursued by all Peace Societies is
the establishment of juridical order between nations:
(2) That neutralization by international treaties constitutes a step
toward this juridical state, and lessens the number of districts in
which war can be carried on:
This Congress recommends a larger extension of the rule of
neutralization, and expresses the wish:--
(1) That all treaties which at present assure to certain States
the benefit of neutrality remain in force, or, if necessary, be
amended in a manner to render the neutrality more effective, either
by extending neutralization to the whole of the State, of which
a part only may be neutralized, or by ordering the demolition of
fortresses, which constitute rather a peril than a guarantee for
neutrality.
(2) That new treaties, provided that they are in harmony with the
wishes of the populations concerned, be concluded for establishing
the neutralization of other States.
XVIII. The Committee Section proposes:--
(1) That the next Congress be held immediately before or immediately
after the next session of the Inter-Parliamentary Conference, and at
the same places.
(2) That the question of an international Peace Emblem be postponed
_sine die_.
(3) The adoption of the following resolutions:--
(_a_) Resolved, that we express our satisfaction at the formal and
official overtures of the Presbyterian Church in the United States
of America, addressed to the highest representatives of each church
organization in Christendom, inviting the same to unite with itself
in a general conference, the object of which shall be to promote the
substitution of international arbitration for war.
(_b_) That this Congress, assembled in London from the 14th to
the 19th July, desires to express its profound reverence for the
memory of Aurelio Salfi, the great Italian jurist, a member of the
Committee of the International League of Peace and Liberty.
(4) That the memorial to the various heads of the civilized States
adopted by this Congress, and signed by the President, should, so
far as practicable, be presented to each Power by an influential
deputation.
(5) That the Organization Committee be empowered to make the needful
verbal emendations in the papers and resolutions presented.
(6) That the following resolutions be adopted:--
(_a_) A resolution of thanks to the Presidents of the various
sittings of the Congress.
(_b_) A resolution of thanks to the chairman, the secretary, and the
members of the Bureau of this Congress.
(_c_) A resolution of thanks to the conveners and members of the
sectional committees.
(_d_) A resolution of thanks to Rev. Canon Scott Holland, Rev. Dr.
Reuan Thomas, and Rev. J. Morgan Gibbon, for their pulpit addresses
before the Congress, and that they be requested to furnish copies
of the same for publication; and also Stamford Hall Congregational
Church for the use of those buildings for public services.
(_e_) A letter of thanks to Her Majesty for permission to visit
Windsor Castle.
(_f_) And also a resolution of thanks to the Lord Mayor and Lady
Mayoress, to Mr. Passmore Edwards, and other friends who have
extended their hospitality to the members of the Congress.
XIX. This Congress places on record a heartfelt expression of
gratitude to Almighty God for the remarkable harmony and concord
which have characterized the meetings of the Assembly, in which so
many men and women of varied nations, creeds, tongues, and races
have gathered in closest coöperation; and in the conclusion of
the labors of this Congress, it expresses its firm and unshaken
belief in the ultimate triumph of the cause of _Peace_, and of the
principles which have been advocated at these meetings.
* * * * *
The fundamental idea of the Congress is--firstly, that it is
necessary to disseminate by all means among all men the belief that
war is not advantageous for mankind, and that peace is a great
benefit; and secondly, to influence governments, impressing upon
them the advantages and necessity of disarmament.
To accomplish the first end, the Congress advises teachers of
history, women, and ministers of the gospel, to teach people, every
third Sunday of December, the evils of war and the benefits of
peace; to accomplish the second, the Congress addresses itself to
governments, suggesting to them disarmament and arbitration.
To preach the evils of war and the benefits of peace! But the evils
of war are so well known to men, that from the earliest ages the
most welcome greeting was always: "Peace be unto you!"
Not only Christians but all pagans were fully aware of the benefits
of peace and of the evils of war thousands of years ago, so that the
advice to the ministers of the gospel to preach against the evils
of war and to advocate the benefits of peace every third Sunday in
December is quite superfluous.
A real Christian cannot do otherwise than preach thus, constantly,
as long as he lives. But if there are those who are called
Christians, or Christian preachers, who do not do this, there must
be a cause for it, and so long as this cause exists no advice will
avail. Still less effective will be the advice to governments
to disband armies and have recourse to International Courts of
Arbitration. Governments know very well all the difficulties and
burdens of conscription and of maintaining armies, and if in the
face of such difficulties and burdens they still continue to do
so, it is evident that they have no means of doing otherwise, and
the advice of a Congress could in no way bring about a change.
But scientists will not admit this, and still hope to find some
combination of influences by means of which those governments which
make war may be induced to restrain themselves.
"Is it possible to avoid war?" writes a scientist in the _Revue des
Revues_ (No. 8 of 1891). "All agree in recognizing the fact that
if war should ever break out in Europe, its consequences would be
similar to those of the great invasions. It would imperil the very
existence of nations; it would be bloody, atrocious, desperate. This
consideration, and the consideration of the terrible nature of the
engines of destruction at the command of modern science, retards
its declaration and temporarily maintains the present system,--a
system which might be continued indefinitely, if it were not for the
enormous expenses that burden the European nations and threaten to
culminate in disasters fully equal to those occasioned by war.
"Impressed with these thoughts, men of all nationalities have
sought for means to arrest, or at least to diminish, the shocking
consequences of the carnage that threatens us.
"Such are the questions which are to be debated by the next Congress
of Universal Peace to be held in Rome, which have already been
discussed in a recently published pamphlet on Disarmament.
"Unfortunately, it is quite certain that with the present
organization of the greater number of the European states, isolated
one from the other and controlled by different interests, the
absolute cessation of war is an illusion which it would be folly to
cherish. Still, the adoption of somewhat wiser rules and regulations
in regard to these international duels would at least tend to
limit their horrors. It is equally Utopian to build one's hope on
projects of disarmament, whose execution, owing to considerations of
a national character, which exist in the minds of all our readers,
is practically impossible." (This probably means that France cannot
disarm until she has retaliated.) "Public opinion is not prepared
to accept them, and, furthermore, the international relations make
it impossible to adopt them. Disarmament demanded by one nation
of another, under conditions imperiling its security, would be
equivalent to a declaration of war.
"Still, we must admit that an exchange of opinions between the
nations interested may to a certain extent aid in establishing an
international understanding, and also contribute to lessen the
military expenses that now crush European nations, to the great
detriment of the solution of social questions, the necessity of the
solution of which is realized by each nation individually, under the
penalty of being confronted by a civil war, due to the efforts made
to prevent a foreign one.
"One may at least hope for a decrease of the enormous expenses
necessary for the present military organization, which is maintained
for the purpose of invading a foreign territory in twenty-four
hours, or of a decisive battle a week after the declaration of war."
It ought not to be possible for one nation to attack another and
take possession of its territory within twenty-four hours. This
practical sentiment was expressed by Maxime du Camp, and is the
conclusion of his study of the subject.
Maxime du Camp offers the following propositions:--
"1st. A Diplomatic Congress, to assemble every year.
"2d. No war to be declared until two months after the incident
which gave rise to it." (Here the difficulty lies in determining
the nature of the incident that kindled the war--that is, every
declaration of war is caused by several circumstances, and it would
be necessary to determine from which one the two months are to be
reckoned.)
"3d. No war shall be declared until the vote of the people shall
have been taken.
"4th. Hostilities must not begin until a month after the declaration
of war."
"_No war shall be declared_ ..." etc. But who is to _prevent_
hostilities _beginning_? Who will compel men to do this or that?
Who will compel governments to wait a certain stated time? Other
nations. But all the other nations are in the very same position,
requiring to be restrained and kept within bounds, in other words,
_coerced_. And who will _coerce_ them? And how is it to be done?
By public opinion. But if public opinion has sufficient influence
to force a nation to postpone its action until a stated time, this
public opinion can prevent it from waging war at any time.
But, it is said, there might be a balance of power, which would
oblige nations to restrain themselves. This very experiment has been
and is still being tried; this was the object of the Holy Alliance,
the League of Peace, etc.
But all would agree to this, it is said. If all would agree to this,
then wars would cease, and there would be no need of Courts of
Appeal or of Arbitration.
"A Court of Arbitration would take the place of war. Disputes would
be decided by a Board of Arbitrators, like that which pronounced
on the Alabama claims. The Pope has been requested to decide the
question concerning the Caroline Islands: Switzerland, Belgium,
Denmark, and Holland have declared that they prefer the decision of
a Court of Arbitration to war."
I believe Monaco has expressed a similar wish. It is a pity that
Germany, Russia, Austria, and France have thus far shown no sign of
imitating their example.
It is astonishing how easily men can deceive themselves when they
feel inclined.
The governments will agree to allow their disputes to be decided
by a Board of Arbitration and to dismiss their armies. The trouble
between Russia and Poland, England and Ireland, Austria and the
Czechs, Turkey and the Slavs, France and Germany, will be settled
by mutual consent. This is very much like suggesting to merchants
and bankers that they shall sell at cost price, and devote their
services gratuitously to the distribution of property.
Of course the essence of commerce and banking consists in buying
cheap and selling dear, and therefore the suggestion to sell at cost
price and the consequent overthrow of money amounts to a proposal of
self-destruction.
The same is true in regard to governments.
The suggestion to governments to desist from violence, and to adjust
all differences by arbitration, would be to recommend a suicidal
policy, and no government would ever agree to that. Learned men
found societies (there are more than one hundred of them), they
assemble in Congresses (like those held in London and Paris and the
one which is to be held in Rome), they read essays, hold banquets,
make speeches, edit journals devoted to the subject, and by all
these means they endeavor to prove that the strain upon nations who
are obliged to support millions of soldiers has become so severe
that something must be done about it; that this armament is opposed
to the character, the aims, and the wishes of the populations;
but they seem to think that if they consume a good deal of paper,
and devote a good deal of eloquence to the subject, that they may
succeed in conciliating opposing parties and conflicting interests,
and at last effect the suppression of war.
When I was a child I was told that if I wished to catch a bird I
must put salt on its tail. I took a handful and went in pursuit of
the birds, but I saw at once that if I could sprinkle salt on their
tails I could catch them, and that what I had been told was only a
joke. Those who read essays and works on Courts of Arbitration and
the disarmament of nations must feel very much the same.
If it were possible to sprinkle salt on a bird's tail it would be
tantamount to saying that the bird could not fly, and therefore it
would be no effort to catch it. If a bird has wings and does not
wish to be caught, it will not allow any salt to be put on its tail,
for it is the nature of a bird to fly. Likewise it is the nature
of a government not to be ruled, but to rule its subjects. And a
government rightly is named such only when it is able to rule its
subjects, and not be ruled by them. This, therefore, is its constant
aim, and it will never voluntarily resign its power. And as it
derives its power from the army it will never give up the army, nor
will it ever renounce that for which the army is designed,--war.
The misapprehension springs from the fact that the learned jurists,
deceiving themselves as well as others, depict in their books an
ideal of government,--not as it really is, an assembly of men who
oppress their fellow-citizens, but in accordance with the scientific
postulate, as a body of men who act as the representatives of the
rest of the nation. They have gone on repeating this to others
so long that they have ended by believing it themselves, and
they really seem to think that justice is one of the duties of
governments. History, however, shows us that governments, as seen
from the reign of Cæsar to those of the two Napoleons and Prince
Bismarck, are in their very essence a violation of justice; a man or
a body of men having at command an army of trained soldiers, deluded
creatures who are ready for any violence, and through whose agency
they govern the State, will have no keen sense of the obligation of
justice. Therefore governments will never consent to diminish the
number of those well-trained and submissive servants, who constitute
their power and influence.
Such is the attitude of certain scientists toward that
self-contradiction under which the world groans, and such are their
expedients for its relief. Tell these scientists that the question
deals only with the personal relations of each individual toward
the moral and religious question, and then ask them what they think
of the lawfulness or unlawfulness of taking part in the general
conscription, and their sole reply will be a shrug of the shoulders;
they will not even deign to give a thought to your question. Their
way of solving the difficulty is to make speeches, write books,
choose their presidents, vice-presidents, and secretaries; assembled
in a body, to hold forth in one city or another. They think that
the result of their efforts will be to induce governments to
cease to recruit soldiers, on whom all their power depends; they
expect that their appeals will be heard, and that armies will be
disbanded, leaving governments defenseless, not only in the presence
of neighbors, but of their subjects; that they, like highwaymen
who, having bound their defenseless victims in order to rob them,
no sooner hear the outcries of pain than they loosen the rope that
causes it, and let their prisoners go free.
And there really are men who believe in this, who spend their time
in promoting Leagues of Peace, in delivering addresses, and in
writing books; and of course the governments sympathize with it all,
pretending that they approve of it; just as they pretend to support
temperance, while they actually derive the larger part of their
income from intemperance; just as they pretend to maintain liberty
of the constitution, when it is the absence of liberty to which they
owe their power; just as they pretend to care for the improvement
of the laboring classes, while on oppression of the workman rest
the very foundations of the State; just as they pretend to uphold
Christianity, when Christianity is subversive of every government.
In order to accomplish these ends they have long since instituted
laws in regard to intemperance that can never avail to destroy it;
educational projects that not only do not prevent the spread of
ignorance, but do everything to increase it; decrees in the name
of liberty that are no restraint upon despotism; measures for the
benefit of the working-man which will never liberate him from
slavery; they have established a Christianity which serves to prop
the government rather than destroy it. And now another interest
is added to their cares,--the promotion of peace. Governments,
or rather those rulers who are going about at present with their
ministers of state, making up their minds on such radical questions
as, for instance, whether the slaughter of millions shall begin
this year or next,--they are quite well assured that discussions on
peace are not going to prevent them from sending millions of men to
slaughter whenever they see fit to do so. They like to hear these
discussions, they encourage them, and even take part themselves.
It does no harm to the government; on the contrary, it is useful, by
way of diverting observation from that radical question: When a man
is drafted, ought he or ought he not to fulfil his military duty?
Thanks to all these unions and congresses, peace will presently be
established; meanwhile put on your uniforms, and be prepared to
worry and harass each other for our benefit, say the governments.
And the scientists, the essayists, and the promoters of congresses
take the same view.
This is one way of looking at it, and so advantageous for the State
that all prudent governments encourage it.
* * * * *
The way another class has of regarding it is more tragic. They
declare that although it is the fate of humanity to be forever
striving after love and peace, it is nevertheless abnormal and
inconsistent. Those who affirm this are mostly the sensitive men of
genius, who see and realize all the horror, folly, and cruelty of
war, but by some strange turn of mind never look about them for any
means of escape, but who seem to take a morbid delight in realizing
to the utmost the desperate condition of mankind. The view of the
famous French writer, Maupassant, on the subject of war, affords a
noteworthy example of this kind. Gazing from his yacht upon a drill
and target-practice of French soldiers, the following thoughts arise
in his mind:--
"I have but to think of the word 'war' and a paralyzing sense
of horror creeps over me, as though I were listening to stories
of witchcraft, or tales of the Inquisition, or of things
abominable, monstrous, unnatural, of ages past.
"When people talk of cannibals we smile contemptuously with a
sense of superiority to such savages. But who are the savages,
the true savages? Those who fight that they may drive off the
conquered, or those who fight for the pure pleasure of killing?
Those sharp-shooters running over yonder are destined to be
killed like a flock of sheep who are driven by the butcher to
the slaughter-house. Those men will fall on some battlefield
with a sabre-cut in the head, or with a ball through the heart.
Yet they are young men, who might have done useful work. Their
fathers are old and poor; their mothers, who have idolized them
for twenty years as only mothers can idolize, will learn after
six months, or perhaps a year, that the son, the baby, the
grown-up child on whom so much love and pains were lavished,
who was reared at such an expense, has been torn by a bullet,
trampled under foot, or crushed by a cavalry charge, and finally
flung like a dead dog into some ditch. Why must her boy, her
beautiful, her only boy, the hope and pride of her life, why
must he be killed? She knows not; she can but ask why.
"War!... The fighting!... The murdering!... The slaughter of
men!... And to-day, with all our wisdom, civilization, with the
advancement of science, the degree of philosophy to which the
human spirit has attained, we have schools where the art of
murder, of aiming with deadly accuracy and killing large numbers
of men at a distance, is actually taught, killing poor, harmless
devils who have families to support, killing them without even
the pretext of the law.
"_It is stupefying that the people do not rise up in arms
against the governments. What difference is there between
monarchies and republics? It is stupefying that society does not
revolt as a unit at the very sound of the word war._
"Alas! we shall never be free from oppression of the hateful,
hideous customs, the criminal prejudices, and the ferocious
impulses of our barbarous ancestors, for we are beasts; and
beasts we shall remain, moved by our instincts and susceptible
of no improvement.
"Any one but Victor Hugo would have been banished when he
uttered his sublime cry of freedom and truth:--
"'To-day force is called violence, and the nations condemn it;
they inveigh against war. Civilization, listening to the appeal
of humanity, undertakes the case and prepares the accusation
against the victors and the generals. The nations begin to
understand that the magnitude of a crime cannot lessen its
wickedness; that if it be criminal to kill one man, the killing
of numbers cannot be regarded in the light of extenuation; that
if it be shameful to steal, it cannot be glorious to lead an
invading army.
"'Let us proclaim these absolute truths, let us dishonor the
name of war!'
"But the wrath and indignation of the poet are all in vain,"
continues Maupassant. "War is more honored than ever.
"A clever expert in this business, a genius in the art of
murder, Von Moltke, once made to a peace-delegate the following
astonishing reply:--
"'War is sacred; it is a divine institution; it fosters
every lofty and noble sentiment in the human heart: honor,
self-sacrifice, virtue, courage, and saves men, so to speak,
from settling into the most shocking materialism.'
"Assembling in herds by the hundred thousand, marching night and
day without rest, with no time for thought or for study, never
to read, learning nothing, of no use whatsoever to any living
being, rotting with filth, sleeping in the mud, living like a
wild beast in a perennial state of stupidity, plundering cities,
burning villages, ruining whole nations; then to encounter
another mountain of human flesh, rush upon it, cause rivers
of blood to flow, and strew the fields with the dead and the
dying, all stained with the muddy and reddened soil, to have
one's limbs severed, one's brain scattered as wanton waste, and
to perish in the corner of a field while one's aged parents,
one's wife and children, are dying of hunger at home,--this
is what it means to be saved from falling into the grossest
materialism!
"Soldiers are the scourge of the world. We struggle against
nature, ignorance, all kinds of obstacles, in the effort to make
our wretched lives more endurable. There are men, scientists
and philanthropists, who devote their whole lives to benefit
their fellow-men, seeking to improve their condition. They
pursue their efforts tirelessly, adding discovery to discovery,
expanding the human intelligence, enriching science, opening
new fields of knowledge, day by day increasing the well-being,
comfort, and vigor of their country.
"Then war comes upon the scene, and in six months all the
results of twenty years of patient labor and of human genius are
gone forever, crushed by victorious generals.
"And this is what they mean when they speak of man's rescue from
materialism!
"We have seen war. We have seen men maddened; returned to the
condition of the brutes, we have seen them kill in wanton sport,
out of terror, or for mere bravado and show. Where right exists
no longer, and law is dead, where all sense of justice has
been lost, we have seen innocent men shot down on the highway,
because they were timid and thus excited suspicion. We have
seen dogs chained to their masters' doors killed by way of
target-practice, we have seen cows lying in a field fired at by
the mitrailleuses, just for the fun of shooting at something.
"And this is what they call saving men from the most shocking
materialism!
"To invade a country, to kill the man who defends his home
because he wears a blouse and does not wear a _kepi_, to burn
the dwellings of starving wretches, to ruin or plunder a man's
household goods, to drink the wine found in the cellars, to
violate the women found in the streets, consume millions of
francs in powder, and to leave misery and cholera in their track.
"This is what they mean by saving men from the most shocking
materialism!
"What have military men ever done to prove that they possess the
smallest degree of intelligence? Nothing whatever. What have
they invented? The cannon and the musket; nothing more.
"Has not the inventor of the wheelbarrow, by the simple and
practical contrivance of a wheel and a couple of boards,
accomplished more than the inventor of modern fortification?
"What has Greece bequeathed to the world? Its literature and its
marbles. Was she great because she conquered, or because she
produced? Was it the Persian invasion that saved Greece from
succumbing to the most shocking materialism?
"Did the invasions of the Barbarians save and regenerate Rome?
"Did Napoleon I. continue the great intellectual movement
started by the philosophers at the end of the last century?
"Very well, then; can it be a matter of surprise, since
governments usurp the rights of life and death over the people,
that the people from time to time assume the right of life and
death over their governments?
"They defend themselves, and they have the right. No man has an
inalienable right to govern others. It is allowable only when it
promotes the welfare of the governed. It is as much the duty of
those who govern to avoid war as it is that of a captain of a
ship to avoid shipwreck.
"When a captain has lost his ship he is indicted, and if he
is found to have been careless or even incompetent, he is
convicted. As soon as war has been declared why should not the
people sit in judgment upon the act of the government?
"If they could once be made to understand the power that would
be theirs, _if they were the judges of the rulers who lead them
on to slay their fellow-men, if they refused to allow themselves
to be needlessly slaughtered, if they were to turn their weapons
against the very men who have put them into their hands--that
day would see the last of war.... But never will that day
arrive."_--"Sur l'Eau."
The author perceives the full horror of war, realizes that the
government is its author, that government forces men to go slay, or
be slain, when there is no need for it; he realizes that the men who
make up the armies might turn their weapons against the government
and demand a reckoning. Still the author does not believe that this
will ever happen, or that there is any possible deliverance from the
existing condition of affairs.
He grants that the result of war is shocking, but he believes it
to be inevitable; assuming that the never ceasing requisition of
soldiers on the part of government is as inevitable as death, then
wars must follow as a matter of course.
These are the words of a writer of talent, endowed with a faculty of
vividly realizing his subject, which is the essence of the poetic
gift. He shows us all the cruel contradictions between creed and
deed; but since he fails to offer a solution, it is evident that
he feels that such a contradiction must exist, and regards it as a
contribution to the romantic tragedy of life. Another and an equally
gifted writer, Edouard Rod, paints with colors still more vivid the
cruelty and folly of the present situation, but he, like Maupassant,
feels the influence of the dramatic element, and neither suggests a
remedy nor anticipates any change.
"Why do we toil? Why do we plan and hope to execute? And how
can one even love one's neighbor in these troublous times,
when the morrow is nothing but a menace?... Everything that
we have begun, our ripening schemes, our plans for work, the
little good that we might accomplish, will it not all be swept
away by the storm that is gathering?... Everywhere the soil
quakes beneath our feet, and threatening clouds hang low on the
horizon. Ah! if we had nothing more to fear than the bugbear of
the Revolution!... Unable to conceive a society worse than our
own, I am more inclined to distrust than to fear the one that
may replace it, and if I should suffer in consequence of the
change, I should console myself with the reflection that the
executioners of the present were victims of the past, and the
hope of a change for the better would make me endure the worst.
But it is not this remote danger which alarms me. I see another
close at hand and far more cruel, since it is both unjustifiable
and irrational, and nothing good can come out of it. Day by day
the chances of war are weighed, and day by day they become more
pitiless.
"The human mind refuses to believe in the catastrophe which even
now looms up before us, and which the close of this century
must surely witness, a catastrophe which will put an end to all
the progress of our age, and yet we must try to realize it.
Science has devoted all her energy these twenty years to the
invention of destructive weapons, and soon a few cannon-balls
will suffice to destroy an army;[10] not the few thousands of
wretched mercenaries, whose life-blood has been bought and paid
for, but whole nations are about to exterminate each other;
during conscription their time is stolen from them in order to
steal their lives with more certainty. By way of stimulating a
thirst for blood mutual animosities are excited, and gentle,
kind-hearted men allow themselves to be deluded, and it will
not be long before they attack each other with all the ferocity
of wild beasts; multitudes of peace-loving citizens will obey
a foolish command, God only knows on what pretext,--some
stupid frontier quarrel, perhaps, or it may be some colonial
mercantile interest.... They will go like a flock of sheep to
the slaughter, yet knowing where they go, conscious that they
are leaving their wives and their children to suffer hunger;
anxious, but unable to resist the enticement of those plausible
and treacherous words that have been trumpeted into their ears.
_Unresistingly they go; although they form a mass and a force,
they fail to realize the extent of their power, and that if
they were all agreed they might establish the reign of reason
and fraternity_, instead of lending themselves to the barbarous
trickeries of diplomacy.
[10] The book was published a year ago, and since then dozens
of new weapons and smokeless powder have been invented for the
annihilation of mankind.--AUTHOR.
"So self-deceived are they that bloodshed takes on the aspect of
duty, and they implore the blessing of God upon their sanguinary
hopes. As they march, they trample underfoot the harvests which
they themselves have planted, burning the cities which they have
helped to build, with songs, shouts of enthusiasm, and music.
And their sons will raise a statue to those who have slain them
by the most approved methods.... The fate of a whole generation
hangs on the hour when some saturnine politician shall make the
sign, and the nations will rush upon each other. We know that
the noblest among us will be cut down, and that our affairs
will go to destruction. _We know this, we tremble in anger, yet
are powerless._ We have been caught in a snare of bureaucracy
and waste paper from which we can only escape by measures too
energetic for us. We belong to the laws which we have made for
our protection, and which oppress us. _We are nothing more
than the creatures of that antinomic abstraction, the State,
which makes of each individual a slave in the name of all, each
individual of which all, taken separately, would desire the
exact contrary of what he will be made to do._
"And if it were but the sacrifice of a single generation! But
many other interests are involved.
"Paid orators, demagogues, taking advantage of the passions
of the masses and of the simple-minded who are dazzled by
high-sounding phrases, have so embittered national hatreds
that to-morrow's war will decide the fate of a race: one of
the component parts of the modern world is threatened; the
vanquished nation will morally disappear; it matters not which
chances to be the victim, a power will disappear (as though
there had ever been one too many for the good). A new Europe
will then be established on a basis so unjust, so brutal, so
bloodstained, that it cannot fail to be worse than that of
to-day,--more iniquitous, more barbarous, and more aggressive....
"Thus a fearful depression hangs over us. We are like men
dashing up and down a narrow passageway, with muskets pointed at
us from all the roofs. We work like sailors executing their last
manœuver after the ship has begun to sink. Our pleasures are
those of the prisoner to whom a choice dish is offered a quarter
of an hour before his execution. Anxiety paralyzes our thought,
and the utmost we can do is to wonder, as we con the vague
utterances of ministers, or construe the meaning of the words
of monarchs, or turn over those ascribed to the diplomatists,
retailed at random by the newspapers, never sure of their
information, whether all this is to happen to-morrow or the day
after, whether it is this year or next that we are all to be
killed. In truth, one might seek in vain throughout the pages
of history for an epoch more unsettled or more pregnant with
anxiety."--"Le Sens de la Vie."
He shows us that the power is really in the hands of those who allow
themselves to be destroyed, in the hands of separate individuals who
compose the mass; that the root of all evil is the State. It would
seem as if the contradiction between one's faith and one's actual
life had reached its utmost limit, and that the solution could not
be far to seek.
But the author is of a different opinion. All that he sees in
this is the tragedy of human life, and having given us a detailed
description of the horror of this state of things, he perceives
no reason why human life should not be spent in the midst of this
horror. Such are the views of the second class of writers, who
consider only the fatalistic and tragic side of war.
There is still another view, and this is the one held by men who
have lost all conscience, and are consequently dead to common sense
and human feeling.
To this class belong Moltke, whose opinions are quoted by
Maupassant, and nearly all military men who have been taught to
believe this cruel superstition, who are supported by it, and who
naturally regard war not only as an inevitable evil, but as a
necessary and even profitable occupation. And there are civilians
too, scientists, men of refinement and education, who hold very much
the same views.
The famous academician Doucet, in reply to a query of the editor of
the _Revue des Revues_ in regard to his opinions on war, replies as
follows in the number containing letters concerning war:[11]--
"DEAR SIR,--When you ask of the least belligerent of all the
academicians if he is a partizan of war, his reply is already
given. Unfortunately you yourself classify the peaceful
contemplations which inspire your fellow-countrymen at the
present hour as idle visions.
"Ever since I was born I have always heard good men protesting
against this shocking custom of international carnage. All
recognize this evil and lament it. But where is its remedy?
"The effort to suppress duelling has often been made. It seems
to be so easy. Far from it. All that has been accomplished
toward achieving this noble purpose amounts to nothing, nor
will it ever amount to more. Against war and duelling the
congresses of the two hemispheres vote in vain. Superior to all
arbitrations, conventions, and legislations will ever remain
human honor, which has always demanded the duel, and national
interests, which have always called for war. Nevertheless, I
wish with all my heart that the Universal Peace Congress may
succeed at last in its difficult and honorable task.--Accept the
assurance, etc.,
"CAMILLE DOUCET."
[11] _La Revue des Revues_, "La guerre, état de la question, jugé
par nos grands hommes contemporains."--TR.
It amounts to this, that honor obliges men to fight, that it is for
the interest of nations that they should attack and destroy one
another, and that all endeavors to abolish war can but excite a
smile.
Jules Claretie expresses himself in similar terms:--
"DEAR SIR,--A sensible man can have but one opinion on the
question of war and peace. Humanity was created to live--to
live for the purpose of perfecting its existence by peaceful
labor. The mutual relations of cordiality which are promoted and
preached by the Universal Congress of Peace may be but a dream
perhaps, yet certainly is the most delightful of dreams. The
vision of the land of promise is ever before the eyes, and upon
the soil of the future the harvest will ripen, secure from the
plowing of the projectile, or the crushing of cannon-wheels.
But, alas!... Since philosophers and philanthropists are not the
rulers of mankind, it is fit that our soldiers should guard our
frontiers and our homes, and their weapons, skilfully wielded,
are perhaps the surest guarantees of the peace we love so well.
Peace is given only to the strong and the courageous.--Accept
the assurances of, etc.,
"JULES CLARETIE."
The substance of this is, that there is no harm in talking about
what no one intends to do, and what ought not in any event to be
done. When fighting is in order, there is no alternative but to
fight.
Émile Zola, the most popular novelist in Europe, gives utterance to
his views on the subject of war in the following terms:--
"I look upon war as a fatal necessity which seems to us
indispensable because of its close connection with human nature
and all creation. Would that it might be postponed as long as
possible! Nevertheless a time will come when we shall be forced
to fight. At this moment I am regarding the subject from the
universal standpoint, and am not hinting at our unfriendly
relations with Germany, which are but a trifling incident in the
world's history. I affirm that war is useful and necessary,
since it is one of the conditions of human existence. The
fighting instinct is to be found not only among the different
tribes and peoples, but in domestic and private life as
well. It is one of the chief elements of progress, and every
advancing step taken by mankind up to the present time has been
accompanied by bloodshed.
"Men have talked, and still do talk, of disarmament; and yet
disarmament is utterly impossible, for even though it were
possible, we should be compelled to renounce it. It is only an
armed nation that can be powerful and great. I believe that a
general disarmament would be followed by a moral degradation,
assuming the form of a widespread effeminacy which would impede
the progress of humanity. Warlike nations have always been
vigorous. The military art has contributed to the development
of other arts. History shows us this. In Athens and Rome, for
instance, commerce, industry, and literature reached their
highest development when these cities ruled the world by the
force of arms. And nearer to our own time we found an example
in the reign of Louis XIV. The wars of the great king, so far
from impeding the advance of arts and sciences, seemed rather to
promote and to favor their progress."
War is useful!
But chief among the advocates of these views, and the most talented
of all the writers of this tendency, is the academician Vogüé, who,
in an article on the military section of the Exhibition of 1889,
writes as follows:--
"On the Esplanade des Invalides, the center of exotic and
colonial structures, a building of a more severe order stands
out from the midst of the picturesque bazaar; these various
fragments of our terrestrial globe adjoin the palace of war. A
magnificent theme and antithesis for humanitarian rhetoric which
never loses a chance to lament a juxtaposition of this kind, and
to utter its 'this will kill that' [_ceci tuera cela_[12]];
that the confederacy of nations brought about by science and
labor will overpower the military instinct. Let it cherish this
vision of a golden age, caressing it with fond hopes. We have
no objection; but should it ever be realized, it would very
soon become an age of corruption. History teaches us that the
former has been accomplished by the means of the latter, that
blood is necessary to hasten and to seal the confederacy of
nations. In our own time the natural sciences have strengthened
the mysterious law which revealed itself to Joseph de Maistre
through the inspiration of his genius and meditation on
primordial dogmas; he saw how the world would redeem its
hereditary fall by offering a sacrifice. Science shows us that
the world is made better by struggle and violent selection;
this affirmation of the same law, with varied utterance, comes
from two sources. It is by no means a pleasant one. The laws
of the world, however, are not established for our pleasure,
but for our perfection. Let us then enter this necessary and
indispensable palace of war, and we shall have the opportunity
to observe how our most inveterate instinct, losing nothing
of its power, is transformed in its adaptation to the various
demands of historical moments."
[12] Words taken from Victor Hugo's "Notre Dame," where he says that
printing will kill architecture.--AUTHOR.
This idea, namely, that the proof of the necessity of war may
be found in the writings of De Maistre and of Darwin, two great
thinkers, as he calls them, pleases Vogüé so much that he repeats it.
"Sir," he writes to the editor of the _Revue des Revues_, "you ask
my opinion in regard to the possible success of the Universal Peace
Congress. I believe, with Darwin, that vehement struggle is the
law governing all being, and I believe, with Joseph de Maistre,
that it is a divine law,--two different modes of characterizing
the same principle. If, contrary to all expectations, a certain
fraction of humanity--for example, all the civilized West--should
succeed in arresting the issue of this law, the more primitive races
would execute it against us; in these races the voice of nature
would prevail over human intellect. And they would succeed, because
the certainty of _peace_--I do not say peace, but the absolute
_certainty of peace_--would in less than half a century produce a
corruption and a decadence in men more destructive than the worst of
wars. I believe that one should act in regard to war--that criminal
law of humanity--as in regard to all criminal laws: modify it, or
endeavor to make its execution as rare as possible, and use every
means in our power to render it superfluous. But experience of all
history teaches us that it cannot be suppressed, so long as there
shall be found on earth two men, bread, money, and a woman between
them. I should be very glad if the Congress could prove to me the
contrary; but I doubt if it can disprove history, and the law of God
and of nature.--Accept my assurance, etc.,
"E. M. DE VOGÜÉ."
This may be summed up as follows: History and nature, God and man,
show us that so long as there are two men left on earth, and the
stakes are bread, money, and woman, just so long there will be war.
That is, that no amount of civilization will ever destroy that
abnormal concept of life which makes it impossible for men to divide
bread, money (of all absurdities), and woman without a fight. It is
odd that people meet in congresses and hold forth as to the best
method of catching birds by putting salt on their tails, although
they must know that this can never be done! It is astonishing that
men like Rod, Maupassant, and others, clearly realizing all the
horrors of war, and all the contradictions that ensue from men not
doing what they ought to do, and what it would be to their advantage
to do, who bemoan the tragedy of life, and yet fail to see that
this tragic element would vanish as soon as men ceased to discuss a
subject which should not be discussed, and ceased to do that which
is both painful and repulsive for them to do!
One may wonder at them; but men who, like Vogüé and others, believe
in the law of evolution, and look upon war as not only unavoidable,
but even useful, and therefore desirable,--such men are fairly
shocking, horrible in their moral aberration. The former at least
declare that they hate evil and love good, but the latter believe
there is neither good nor evil.
All this discussion of the possibility of establishing peace instead
of continual warfare is but the mischievous sentimentalism of idle
talkers. There is a law of evolution which seems to prove that I
must live and do wrong. What, then, can I do? I am an educated
man,--I am familiar with the doctrine of evolution; hence it follows
that I shall work evil. "Entrons au palais de la guerre." There is a
law of evolution, and therefore there can be no real evil; and one
must live one's life and leave the rest to the law of evolution.
This is the last expression of refined civilization; it is with
this idea that the educated classes at the present day deaden their
conscience.
The desire of these classes to preserve their favorite theories and
the life that they have built up on them can go no further. They
lie, and by their specious arguments deceive themselves as well as
others, obscuring and deadening their intuitive perceptions.
Rather than adapt their lives to their consciousness, they try by
every means to befog and to silence it. But the light shines in the
darkness, and even now it begins to dawn.
CHAPTER VII
SIGNIFICANCE OF THE MILITARY CONSCRIPTION
General military conscription is not a political accident, but
the extreme limit of contradiction contained in the social
life-conception--Rise of power in society--The basis of power
is personal violence--The organization of armed men, an army,
is required by power to enable it to accomplish violence--The
rise of power in society, that is, of violence, destroys by
degrees the social life-conception--Attitude of power toward
the masses, that is to say, the oppressed--Governments endeavor
to make workmen believe in the necessity of State violence for
their preservation from external foes--But the army is needed
principally to defend government from its own subjects, the
oppressed working-men--Address of Caprivi--All the privileges of
the ruling classes are assured by violence--Increase of armies
leads to a general military conscription--General military
conscription destroys all the advantages of social life which it
is the duty of the State to guard--General military conscription
is the extreme limit of obedience, as it demands in the name of
the State the abnegation of all that may be dear to man--Is the
State needed?--The sacrifices which it requires from citizens
through the general military conscription have no longer any
basis--Hence it is more advantageous for man to rebel against
the demands of the State than to submit to them.
The efforts which the educated men of the upper classes are making
to silence the growing consciousness that the present system of
life must be changed, are constantly on the increase, while life
itself, continuing to develop and to become more complex without
changing its direction, as it increases the incongruities and
suffering of human existence, brings men to the extreme limit of
this contradiction. An example of this uttermost limit is found in
the general military conscription.
It is usually supposed that this conscription, together with the
increasing armaments and the consequent increase of the taxes and
national debts of all countries, are the accidental results of a
certain crisis in European affairs, which might be obviated by
certain political combinations, without change of the interior life.
This is utterly erroneous. The general conscription is nothing
but an internal contradiction which has crept into the social
life-conception, and which has only become evident because it has
arrived at its utmost limits at a period when men have attained a
certain degree of material development.
The social life-conception transfers the significance of life
from the individual to mankind in general, through the unbroken
continuity of the family, the tribe, and the State.
According to the social life-conception it is supposed that as the
significance of life is comprised in the sum total of mankind, each
individual will of his own accord sacrifice his interests to those
of the whole. This in fact has always been the case with certain
aggregates, like the family or the tribe.
In consequence of custom, transmitted by education and confirmed by
religious suggestion, and without compulsion, the individual merges
his interests in those of the group, and sacrifices himself for the
benefit of the whole.
But the more complex became societies, the larger they
grew,--conquest especially contributing to unite men in social
organizations,--the more individuals would be found striving to
attain their ends at the expense of their fellow-men; and thus the
necessity for subjugation by power, or, in other words, by violence,
became more and more frequent.
The advocates of the social life-conception usually attempt to
combine the idea of authority, otherwise violence, with that of
moral influence; but such a union is utterly impossible.
The result of moral influence upon man is to change his desires,
so that he willingly complies with what is required of him. A man
who yields to moral influence takes pleasure in conforming his
actions to its laws; whereas authority, as the word is commonly
understood, is a means of coercion, by which a man is forced to act
in opposition to his wishes. A man who submits to authority does not
do as he pleases, he yields to compulsion, and in order to force
a man to do something for which he has an aversion, the threat of
physical violence, or violence itself, must be employed: he may be
deprived of his liberty, flogged, mutilated, or he may be threatened
with these punishments. And this is what constitutes power both in
the past and in the present.
Despite the unremitting efforts of rulers to conceal these facts,
and to attribute a different significance to authority, it simply
means the rope and chain wherewith a man is bound and dragged, the
lash wherewith he is flogged, the knife or ax wherewith his limbs,
nose, ears, and head are hewed off. Authority is either the menace
or the perpetration of these acts. This was the practice in the
times of Nero and Genghis Khan, and is still in force even in the
most liberal governments, like the republics of France and America.
If men submit to authority, it is only because they fear that if
they were to resist, they would be subjected to violence. All the
requisitions of the State, such as the payment of taxes and the
fulfilment of public duties, the submission to penalties in the form
of exile, fines, etc., to which men seem to yield voluntarily, are
always enforced by the physical threat or the reality of physical
punishment.
Physical violence is the basis of authority.
It is the military organization that makes it possible to inflict
physical violence, that organization wherein the entire armed force
acts as one man, obeying a single will. This assemblage of armed
men, submitting to one will, forms what is called an army. The army
has ever been and still is the basis of an authority, vested in
the commanding generals; and the most engrossing interest of every
sovereign, from the Roman Cæsars to the Russian and German emperors,
has always been to protect and flatter the army, for they realize
that when the army is on their side, power is also in their hands.
It is the drilling and the increase of the troops required for
the maintenance of authority which has brought into the social
life-conception an element of dissolution.
The aim of authority, and its consequent justification, is to
restrain those men who are endeavoring, by methods which are
detrimental to those of mankind in general, to promote their own
interests. But whether authority has been acquired by force of arms,
or by hereditary succession, or by election, men who have gained
authority are in no way different from their fellow-men; they are
just like all others, not inclined to waive their own interests in
favor of the many, but, since they hold power in their hands, are
more likely to make the interests of the many give way to their
own. Whatever measures may have been devised by way of restraining
those in authority who might seek their own ends at the expense of
the public, or to vest authority in the hands of infallible men, no
satisfactory results have as yet been attained.
Attributing divine right to kings, hereditary succession, election;
congresses, parliaments, and senates;--none of these have ever
yet proved effectual. Everybody knows that no expedient has
ever succeeded either in committing authority into the hands of
infallible men, or of preventing its abuses. On the contrary, we
know that men who have the authority, be they emperors, ministers of
State, chiefs of police, or even policemen, always are more liable,
because of their position, to become immoral,--that is, to put their
own private interests before those of the public,--than men who do
not possess such an authority; and this is inevitable.
The social life-conception could be justified only while all
men voluntarily sacrificed their private interests to those of
the public in general; but no sooner did men appear who refused
to sacrifice their interests, than authority, in other words,
violence, was required to restrain these men. Thus there entered
into the social life-conception, and the organization based on it,
a principle containing within itself the germs of dissolution,--the
principle of authority, or the tyranny of the few over the many.
In order that the authority held by certain men might fulfil its
object, which is to restrain those who are trying to further their
own interests to the detriment of society in general, it would be
necessary to have it in the hands of infallible men, as is supposed
to be the case in China, or as it was believed to be in the Middle
Ages, and is even at the present time by those who have faith in
consecration by unction. It is only under such conditions that the
social organization can be justified.
But as no such conditions exist, and, furthermore, as men who are
in authority, from the very fact of its possession, must ever be
far from being saints, the social organization that is based upon
authority cannot possibly have any justification.
If there ever was a time when a low standard of morality, and the
general tendency of men toward violence, called for an authority
possessing the power to restrict this violence, an authority whose
existence may have been an advantage,--that is, when the violence
of the State was less than the violence of individuals toward
each other,--we cannot help seeing now that this prerogative of
the State, when violence no longer exists, cannot go on forever.
Morals improved in proportion to the gradual decrease of individual
violence, while the prerogative of authority lost ground in measure
as it became corrupted by the possession of unbridled power.
The entire history of the last 2000 years will have been told
when we have described this change in the relations between the
moral development of man and the demoralization of governments.
In its simplest form it runs thus: men lived together in tribes,
in families, and in races, and were at enmity one with another;
they employed violence, they spread desolation, they murdered one
another. Thus devastation was on a scale both great and small: man
fought with man, tribe with tribe, family with family, race with
race, nation with nation. The larger and more powerful communities
absorbed the weaker ones; and the greater and more vigorous became
the aggregation of men, the more seldom did one hear of acts
of violence within these communities, and the more secure the
continuity of their existence appeared.
When the members of a tribe or a family unite together to form one
community, they are naturally less hostile to each other, and the
tribes and families are not so likely to die out; while among the
citizens of a State subjected to one authority the contentions seem
even less frequent, and hence is the life of the State on a basis
still more assured.
These fusions into larger and larger aggregates took place, not
because men realized that it would be to their advantage, as is
illustrated by the fable that tells of the falling of the Varegs in
Russia, but are due rather to natural growth on the one hand, and
struggle and conquest on the other.
When conquest was achieved, the authority of the conqueror put
an end to internal strife, and the social life-conception was
justified. But this justification is only temporary. Internal feuds
cease only when the pressure of authority is brought to bear with
greater weight upon individuals formerly inimical to one another.
The violence of the internal struggle, not annihilated by authority,
is the offspring of authority itself. Authority is in the hands
of men who, like all the rest, are ever ready to sacrifice the
common weal if their own personal interests are at stake; with the
sole difference that these men, encountering no resistance from
the oppressed, are wholly subject to the corrupting influence of
authority itself.
Therefore it is that the evil principle of violence relegated
to authority is ever increasing, and the evil becomes in time
worse than that which it is supposed to control: whereas, in the
individual members of society, the inclination to violence is always
diminishing, and the violence of authority becomes less and less
necessary.
As its power increases in measure of its duration, State authority,
though it may eradicate internal violence, introduces into life
other and new forms of violence, always increasing in intensity.
And though the violence of authority in the State is less striking
than that of individual members of society toward each other, its
principal manifestation being not that of strife, but of oppression,
it exists none the less, and in the highest degree.
It cannot be otherwise; for not only does the possession of
authority corrupt men, but, either from design or unconsciously,
rulers are always striving to reduce their subjects to the lowest
degree of weakness,--for the more feeble the subject, the less the
effort required to subdue him.
Therefore violence employed against the oppressed is pushed to its
utmost limit, just stopping short of killing the hen that lays the
golden egg. But if the hen has ceased to lay, like the American
Indians, the Fiji Islanders, or the Negroes, then it is killed,
despite the sincere protests of the philanthropists against that
mode of procedure.
The most conclusive proof of this assertion, at the present time, is
the position of the working-men, who are in truth simply vanquished
men.
Despite all the pretended efforts of the upper classes to lighten
their position, all the working-men of the world are subjected to an
immutable iron rule, which prescribes that they shall have scarcely
enough to live upon, in order that their necessities may urge them
to unremitting toil, the fruits of which are to be enjoyed by their
masters, in other words, their conquerors.
It has always been the case that, after the long continuance and
growth of power, the advantages accruing to those who have submitted
to it have failed, while the disadvantages have multiplied.
Thus it is and thus it always has been, under whatsoever form of
government the nation may have lived; only that where despotism
prevails authority is confined to a limited number of oppressors,
and violence takes on a ruder form, while in the constitutional
monarchies, and in the republics of France and America, authority
is distributed among a greater number of oppressors, and its
manifestations are less rude; but the result, in which the
disadvantages of dominion are greater than the advantages, and the
method--reduction of the oppressed to the lowest possible degree of
abjection, for the benefit of the oppressors, remain ever the same.
Such has been the position of all the oppressed, but until lately
they have been unaware of the fact, and for the most part have
innocently believed that governments were instituted for their
benefit, to preserve them from destruction, and that to permit the
idea that men might live without governments would be a thought
sacrilegious beyond expression; it would be the doctrine of anarchy,
with all its attendant horrors.
Men believed, as in something so thoroughly proved that it needed no
further testimony, that as all nations had hitherto developed into
the State form, this was to remain the indispensable condition for
the development of mankind forever.
And so it has gone on for hundreds, nay, thousands of years, and the
governments, that is to say, their representatives, have endeavored,
and still go on endeavoring, to preserve this delusion among the
people.
As it was during the time of the Roman emperors, so it is now.
Although the idea of the uselessness, and even of the detriment,
of power enters more and more into the consciousness of men, it
might endure forever, if governments did not think it necessary to
increase the armies in order to support their authority.
It is the popular belief that governments increase armies as a
means of defense against other nations, forgetting that troops are
principally needed by governments to protect them against their own
enslaved subjects.
This has always been necessary, and has grown more so with the
spread of education, the increase of intercourse among different
nationalities; and at the present time, in view of the communist,
socialist, anarchist, and labor movements, it is a more urgent
necessity than ever. Governments realize this fact, and increase
their principal means of defense,--the disciplined army.[13]
[13] That the abuse of authority exists in America, despite the
small number of troops, by no means refutes our argument; on the
contrary, it serves rather as a testimony in its favor. In America
there are fewer troops than in other States, and nowhere do we find
less oppression of the downtrodden classes, and nowhere have men
come so near to the abolition of governmental abuses, and even of
government itself. However, it is in America that, owing to the
growing unity among the working-men, voices have been heard, more
and more frequently of late, calling for an increase of troops,
and this when no foreign invasion threatens the States. The ruling
classes are fully aware that an army of 50,000 men is insufficient,
and, having lost confidence in Pinkerton's forces, they believe that
their salvation can only be secured by the increase of the army.
It was but recently that in the German Reichstag, in giving the
reason why more money was needed to increase the pay of the
subaltern officers, the German Chancellor answered candidly that
trusty subaltern officers are needed in order to fight against
socialism. Caprivi put into words what every one knows, although
it has been carefully concealed from the people. The reason why
the Swiss and Scottish Guards were hired to protect the popes and
the French kings, and why the Russian regiments are so carefully
shuffled, is in order that those which are posted in the interior
may be recruited by men from the borders, and those on the borders
by men from the interior. The meaning of Caprivi's reply, translated
into simple, everyday language, means that money is needed, not to
repel a foreign enemy, but to bribe the subaltern officers to hold
themselves in readiness to act against the oppressed working-men.
Caprivi incidentally expressed what every man knows--or if he does
not know it he feels it--namely, that the existing system of life is
such as it is, not because it is natural for it to be so, or that
the people are content to have it so, but because violence on the
part of governments, the army, with its bribed subaltern officers,
its captains and generals, sustains it.
If a working-man has no land, if he is not allowed to enjoy the
natural right possessed by every man, to draw from the soil the
means of subsistence for himself and his family, it is not so
because the people oppose it, but because the right to grant or
to withhold this privilege from working-men is given to certain
individuals--namely, to the landed proprietors. And this unnatural
order of things is maintained by the troops. If the enormous wealth
earned and saved by working-men is not regarded as common property,
but as something to be enjoyed by the chosen few; if certain men
are invested with the power of levying taxes on labor, and with
the right of using that money for whatsoever purposes they deem
necessary; if the strikes of the working-men are suppressed, and
the trusts of the capitalists are encouraged; if certain men are
allowed to choose in the matter of religious and civil education
and the instruction of children; if to certain others the right
is given to frame laws which all men must obey, and if they are
to enjoy the control of human life and property,--all this is not
because the people wish it, or because it has come about in the
course of nature, but because the governments will have it so for
their own advantage and that of the ruling classes; and all this is
accomplished by means of physical violence.
If every man is not yet aware of this, he will find it out whenever
attempts are made to change the present order of things.
And therefore all the governments and the ruling classes stand in
need of troops above all things, in order to maintain a system of
life which, far from having developed from the needs of the people,
is often detrimental to them, and is only advantageous for the
government and the ruling classes.
Every government requires troops to enforce obedience, that it may
profit by the labor of its subjects. But no government exists alone:
side by side with it stands the government of the adjacent country,
which is also profiting by the enforced labor of its subjects, and
ever ready to pounce upon its neighbor and take possession of the
goods which it has won from the labor of its own subjects. Hence it
is that every government needs an army, not only for home use, but
to guard its plunder from foreign depredations. Thus each government
finds itself obliged to outdo its neighbor in the increase of its
army, and, as Montesquieu said one hundred and fifty years ago, the
expansion of armies is a veritable contagion.
One State makes additions to its army in order to overawe its own
subjects; its neighbor takes alarm, and straightway follows the
example.
Armies have reached the millions which they now number not only
from the fear of foreign invasion; the increase was first caused
by the necessity for putting down all attempts at rebellion on the
part of the subjects of the State. The causes for the expansion of
armies are contemporary, the one depending on the other; armies
are needed against internal attempts at revolt, as well as for
external defense. The one depends upon the other. The despotism of
governments increases exactly in proportion to the increase of their
strength and their internal successes, and their foreign aggression
with the increase of internal despotism.
European governments try to outdo one another, ever increasing their
armaments, and compelled at last to adopt the expedient of a general
conscription as a means of enrolling the greatest number of troops
at the smallest possible expense.
Germany was the first to whom this plan suggested itself. And no
sooner was it done by one nation than all the others were forced
to do likewise. Thus all the citizens took up arms to assist in
upholding the wrongs that were committed against them; in fact, they
became their own oppressors.
General military conscription was the inevitable and logical
consummation at which it was but natural to arrive; at the same
time it is the last expression of the innate contradiction of the
social life-conception which sprang into existence when violence was
required for its support.
General military conscription made this contradiction a conspicuous
fact. Indeed, the very significance of the social life-conception
consists in this,--that a man, realizing the cruelty of the struggle
of individuals among themselves, and the peril that the individual
incurs, seeks protection by transferring his private interests to a
social community; whereas the result of the system of conscription
is that men, after having made every sacrifice to escape from the
cruel struggle and uncertainties of life, are once more called upon
to undergo all the dangers they had hoped to escape, and moreover,
the community--the State for which the individuals gave up their
previous advantages--is now exposed to the same risk of destruction
from which the individual himself formerly suffered. Governments
should have set men free from the cruelty of the personal struggle,
and given them confidence in the inviolable structure of State life;
but instead of doing this they impose on individuals a repetition
of the same dangers, with this difference, that in the place of
struggle between individuals of the same group, it is a case of
struggle between groups.
The establishment of a general military conscription is like the
work of a man who props a crumbling house. The walls have settled,
sloping inward--he braces them; the ceiling begins to hang down--he
supports that; and when the boards between give way, other braces
are supplied. At last it reaches the point when, although the braces
hold the house together, they actually make it uninhabitable.
The same may be said of the general conscription system. The general
military conscription nullifies all those advantages of social life
which it is expected to protect.
The advantages of social life are those guarantees which it offers
for the protection of property and labor, as well as coöperation for
the purposes of mutual advantage; the general military conscription
destroys all this.
The taxes collected from the people for purposes of war absorb the
greater part of the productions of their labor, which the army ought
to protect.
When men are taken from the ordinary avocations of daily life, labor
is practically destroyed. Where war is ever threatening to break
forth, it does not seem worth while to improve social conditions.
If a man had formerly been told that unless he submitted to the
civil authority he would run the risk of being assaulted by wicked
men, that he would be in danger from domestic as well as from
foreign foes, against whom he would be forced to defend himself,
that he might be murdered, and therefore he would find it for
his advantage to suffer certain privations if by that means he
succeeded in escaping all these perils, he might have believed this,
especially as the sacrifices required by the State promised him the
hope of a peaceful existence within the well-established community
in whose name he had made them. But now, when these sacrifices are
not only multiplied, but the promised advantages are not realized,
it is quite natural for men to think that their subjection to
authority is utterly useless.
But the fatal significance of the general conscription, as the
manifestation of that contradiction which dwells in the social
life-conception, lies not in this. Wherever military conscription
exists, every citizen who becomes a soldier likewise becomes a
supporter of the State system, and a participant in whatsoever the
State may do, at the same time that he does not acknowledge its
validity; and this may be called its chief manifestation.
Governments declare that armies are principally required for
external defense; but this is untrue. They are, in the first place,
needed to overawe their own subjects, and every man who yields to
military conscription becomes an involuntary participator in all the
oppressive acts of government toward its subjects. It is necessary
to remember what goes on in every State in the name of order and
the welfare of the community, all the while enforced by military
authority, to be convinced that every man who fulfils military
duty becomes a participant in acts of the State of which he cannot
approve. Every dynastic and political feud, all the executions
resulting from such feuds, the crushing of rebellions, the use
of the military in dispersing mobs, in putting down strikes, all
extortionate taxation, the injustice of land ownership and the
limitations of freedom of labor,--all this is done, if not directly
by the troops, then by the police supported by the troops. He who
performs his military duty becomes a participant in all these acts,
about which he often feels more than dubious, and which are in most
cases directly opposed to his conscience. Men do not wish to leave
the land which they have tilled for generations; they do not wish to
disperse on the bidding of the government; they do not wish to pay
the taxes which are extorted from them; neither do they willingly
submit to laws which they have not helped to make; they do not wish
to give up their nationality. And I, if I am performing military
duty, must come forward and strike these men down. I cannot take
part in such proceedings without asking myself if they be right. And
ought I to coöperate in carrying them out?
General military conscription is the last step in the process of
coercion required by governments for the support of the whole
structure; for subjects it is the extreme limit of obedience. It is
the keystone of the arch that supports the walls, the abstraction
of which would destroy the whole fabric. The time has come when
the ever growing abuses of governments, and their mutual contests,
have required from all their subjects not only material but moral
sacrifices, till each man pauses and asks himself, Can I make these
sacrifices? And for whose sake am I to make them? These sacrifices
are demanded in the name of the State. In the name of the State I am
asked to give up all that makes life dear to a man,--peace, family,
safety, and personal dignity. What, then, is this State in whose
name such appalling sacrifices are demanded? And of what use is it?
We are told that the State is necessary, in the first place, because
were it not for that no man would be safe from violence and the
attacks of wicked men; in the second place, without the State
we should be like savages, possessing neither religion, morals,
education, instruction, commerce, means of communication, nor any
other social institutions; and, in the third place, because without
the State we should be subject to the invasion of the neighboring
nations.
"Were it not for the State," we are told, "we should be subjected to
violence and to the attacks of evil men in our own land."
But who are these evil men from whose violence and attacks the
government and the army saves us? If such men existed three or
four centuries ago, when men prided themselves on their military
skill and strength of arm, when a man proved his valor by killing
his fellow-men, we find none such at the present time: men of
our time neither use nor carry weapons, and, believing in the
precepts of humanity and pity for their neighbors, they are as
desirous for peace and a quiet life as we are ourselves. Hence this
extraordinary class of marauders, against whom the State might
defend us, no longer exists. But if, when they speak of the men
from whose attacks the government defends us, we understand that
they mean the criminal classes, in that case we know that they are
not extraordinary beings, like beasts of prey among sheep, but are
men very much like ourselves, who are naturally just as reluctant
to commit crimes as those against whom they commit them. We know
now that threats and punishments are powerless to decrease the
numbers of such men, but that their numbers may be decreased by
change of environment and by moral influence. Hence the theory of
the necessity of State violence in order to protect mankind against
evil-doers, if it had any foundation three or four centuries ago,
has none whatever at the present time. One might say quite the
reverse nowadays, for the activity of governments, with their
antiquated and merciless methods of punishment, their galleys,
prisons, gallows, and guillotines, so far below the general plane
of morality, tends rather to lower the standard of morals than to
elevate it, and therefore rather to increase than to lessen the
number of criminals.
It is said that "without the State there would be no institutions,
educational, moral, religious, or international; there would be no
means of communication. Were it not for the State, we should be
without organizations necessary to all of us."
An argument like this could only have had a basis several centuries
ago. If there ever was a time when men had so little international
communication, and were so unused to intercourse or interchange
of thought that they could not come to an agreement on matters of
general interest--commercial, industrial, or economical--without
the assistance of the State, such is not the case at present. The
widely diffused means of communication and transmission of thought
have achieved this result,--that when the modern man desires to
found societies, assemblies, corporations, congresses, scientific,
economical, or political institutions, not only can he easily
dispense with the assistance of governments, but in the majority
of cases governments are more of a hindrance than a help in the
pursuit of such objects.
Since the end of the last century almost every progressive movement
on the part of mankind has been not only discouraged, but invariably
hampered, by governments. Such was the case with the abolition of
corporal punishment, torture, and slavery; with the establishment
of freedom of the press and liberty of meeting. Furthermore, State
authorities and governments nowadays not only do not coöperate,
but they directly hinder the activity by means of which men work
out new forms of life. The solution of labor and land questions,
of political and religious problems, is not only unencouraged, but
distinctly opposed, by the government authority.
"If there were no State and government authority, nations would be
subjugated by their neighbors."
It is not worth while to answer this last argument. It refutes
itself.
We are told that the government and its armies are necessary for our
defense against the neighboring States which might subject us. But
all the governments say this of one another; and yet we know that
every European nation professes the same principles of liberty and
fraternity, and therefore needs no defense against its neighbor.
But if one speaks of defense against barbarians, then one per cent
of the troops under arms at the present time would suffice. It is
not only that the increase of armed force fails to protect us from
danger of attack from our neighbors, it actually provokes the very
attack which it deprecates.
Hence no man who reflects on the significance of the State, in
whose name he is required to sacrifice his peace, his safety, and
his life, can escape the conviction that there is no longer any
reasonable ground for such sacrifices.
Even regarding the subject theoretically, a man must realize that
the sacrifices demanded by the State are without sufficient reason;
and when he considers the matter from a practical point of view,
weighing all the different conditions in which he has been placed
by the State, every man must see that so far as he himself is
concerned, the fulfilment of the requirements of the State and his
own subjection to military conscription is indubitably and in every
case less advantageous for him than if he refused to comply with it.
If the majority of people prefer obedience to insubordination, it is
not because they have given the subject dispassionate consideration,
weighing the advantages and disadvantages, but because they are,
so to speak, under the influence of hypnotic suggestion. Men
submit to demands like this without using their reason or making
the least effort of the will. It requires independent reasoning,
as well as effort, to refuse submission,--effort which some men
are incapable of making. But supposing we exclude the moral
significance of submission and non-submission, and consider only
their advantages, then non-submission will always prove more
advantageous than submission. Whoever I may be, whether I belong to
the well-to-do--the oppressing class--or to the oppressed laboring
class, in either case the disadvantages of non-submission are less
numerous than the disadvantages of submission, and the advantages of
non-submission greater than those of submission.
If I belong to the oppressive, which is the smallest class, and
refuse to submit to the demands of the government, I shall be tried
as one who refuses to fulfil his obligations,--I shall be tried, and
in case my trial terminates favorably, I shall either be declared
not guilty, or I may be dealt with as they treat the Mennonites
in Russia--that is, be compelled to serve my term of military
service by performing some non-military work; if, on the contrary,
an unfavorable verdict is rendered, I shall be condemned to exile
or imprisonment for two or three years (I am speaking of cases in
Russia); or possibly my term of imprisonment may be longer. And I
may even be condemned to suffer the penalty of death, although that
is not at all probable. Such are the disadvantages of non-submission.
The disadvantages of submission are as follows:--If I am fortunate
I shall not be sent to murder men, neither shall I run the risk
myself of being disabled or killed; they will simply make a military
slave of me. I shall be arrayed in the garments of a clown; my
superior officers, from the corporal to the field-marshal, will
order me about. At their word of command I shall be put through
a series of gymnastic contortions, and after being detained from
one to five years I shall be released, but still obliged for ten
years longer to hold myself in readiness at any moment I may be
summoned to execute the orders these people give me. And if I am
less fortunate I shall be sent to the wars, still in the same
condition of slavery, and there I shall be forced to slay fellow-men
of other countries who never did me any harm. Or I may be sent to a
place where I may be mutilated or killed; perhaps find myself, as
at Sevastopol, sent to certain death; these things happen in every
war. Worse than all things else, I may be sent to fight against my
fellow-countrymen, and compelled to kill my own brethren for some
matter dynastic or governmental, and to me of foreign interest. Such
are the comparative disadvantages.
The comparative advantages of submission and non-submission are as
follows:--For him who has submitted the advantages are these: after
he has subjected himself to all the degradations and committed all
the cruel deeds required of him, he may, provided he be not killed,
receive some scarlet or golden bauble to decorate his clown's
attire; or if he be especially favored, hundreds of thousands of
just such brutal men like himself may be put under his command, and
he be called field-marshal, and receive large sums of money.
By refusing to submit he will possess the advantages of preserving
his manly dignity, of winning the respect of good men, and, above
all, he will enjoy the assurance that he is doing God's business,
and therefore an unquestionable benefit to mankind.
Such are the advantages and disadvantages, on either side, for
the oppressor, a member of the wealthy class. For a man of the
working-class--a poor man--the advantages and disadvantages
are about the same, if we include one important addition to
the disadvantages. The special disadvantage for a man of the
working-class who has not refused to perform military service is
that, when he enters the service, his participation and his tacit
consent go toward confirming the oppression in which he finds
himself.
But the question concerning the State, whether its continued
existence is a necessity, or whether it would be wiser to abolish
it, cannot be decided by discussion on its usefulness for the men
who are required to support it by taking part in the military
service, and still less by weighing the comparative advantages and
disadvantages of submission or non-submission for the individual
himself. It is decided irrevocably and without appeal by the
religious consciousness, by the conscience of each individual, to
whom no sooner does military conscription become a question than it
is followed by that of the necessity or non-necessity of the State.
CHAPTER VIII
CERTAINTY OF THE ACCEPTANCE OF THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF
NON-RESISTANCE TO EVIL BY VIOLENCE BY THE MEN OF OUR WORLD
Christianity is not a legislation but a new life-conception;
hence it was not obligatory, nor has it been accepted by all men
in its full meaning, but only by a few; the rest have accepted
it in a corrupted form--Moreover, Christianity is a prophecy
of the disappearance of the pagan life, and therefore of the
necessity of accepting the Christian doctrine--Non-resistance
of evil by violence is one of the principles of the Christian
doctrine which must inevitably be accepted by men at the present
day--Two methods of solving every struggle--The first method
consists in believing the general definitions of evil to be
binding upon all, and to resist this evil by violence--The
second, the Christian method, consists in not resisting evil
by violence--Although the failure of the first method was
recognized in the first centuries of Christianity, it is still
employed; but as humanity advanced it has become more evident
that there is not, nor can there be, a general definition of
evil--Now this has become evident to all, and if the violence
which is destined to combat evil exists, it is not because it
is considered necessary, but because men do not know how to
dispense with it--The difficulty of dispensing with it is due
to the skilfulness and complexity of political violence--This
violence is supported by four methods: by threats, bribes,
hypnotism, and the employment of military force--Deliverance
from State violence cannot be accomplished by overthrowing
the State--Through experience of the misery of pagan life men
are compelled to acknowledge the doctrine of Christ, with its
non-resistance to evil,--a doctrine which they have hitherto
ignored--To this same necessity of acknowledging the Christian
doctrine we are brought by the consciousness of its truth--This
consciousness is in utter contradiction to our life, and is
especially evident in regard to general military conscription;
but, in consequence of habit and the four methods of State
violence, men do not see this inconsistency of Christianity
with the duties of a soldier--Men do not see it even when the
authorities themselves show them plainly all the immorality of
the duties of a soldier--The call of the general conscription is
the extreme trial for every man,--the command to choose between
the Christian doctrine of non-resistance or servile submission
to the existing organization of the State--Men generally submit
to the demands of the State organization, renouncing all that
is sacred, as though there were no other issue--For men of the
pagan life-conception, indeed, no other issue does exist; they
are compelled to acknowledge it, regardless of all the dreadful
calamities of war--Society composed of such men must inevitably
perish, and no social changes can save it--The pagan life has
reached its last limits; it works its own destruction.
It is frequently said that if Christianity be a truth, it would
have been accepted by all men on its first appearance, and would
straightway have changed and improved the lives of men. One might
as well say that if the seed is alive it must instantly sprout and
produce its flower or its fruit.
The Christian doctrine is not a law which, being introduced by
violence, can forthwith change the life of mankind. Christianity
is a life-conception more lofty and excellent than the ancient;
and such a new conception of life cannot be enforced; it must be
adopted voluntarily, and by two processes, the spiritual or interior
process, and the experimental or external process.
Some men there are--but the smaller proportion--who instantly,
and as though by prophetic intuition, divine the truth, surrender
themselves to its influence, and live up to its precepts;
others--and they are the majority--are brought to the knowledge of
the truth, and the necessity for its adoption, by a long series of
errors, by experience and suffering.
It is to this necessity of adopting the doctrine by the external
process of experience that Christendom has at last arrived.
Now and then one wonders why the mistaken presentment of
Christianity, which even at the present time prevents men from
accepting it in its true significance, could have been necessary.
And yet the very errors, having brought men to their present
position, have been the medium through which it has become possible
for the majority to accept Christianity in its true meaning.
If instead of that corrupted form of Christianity which was given
to the people, it had been offered to them in its purity, the
greater portion of mankind would have refused it, like the Asiatic
peoples to whom it is yet unknown. But having once accepted it in
its corrupted form, the nations embracing it were subjected to its
slow but sure influence, and by a long succession of errors, and
the suffering that ensued therefrom, have now been brought to the
necessity of adopting it in its true meaning.
The erroneous presentation of Christianity, and its acceptance by
the majority of mankind, with all its errors, was then a necessity,
just as the seed, if it is to sprout, must for a time be buried in
the soil.
The Christian doctrine is the doctrine of truth as well as of
prophecy.
Eighteen hundred years ago the Christian doctrine revealed to men
the true conduct of life, and at the same time foretold the result
of disobeying its injunctions and of continuing to pursue their
former course, guided only by the precepts which were taught before
the dawn of Christianity; and it also showed them what life may
become if they accept the Christian doctrine and obey its dictates.
Having taught in the Sermon on the Mount those precepts by which men
should order their daily lives, Christ said: "Therefore whosoever
heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him
unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock: and the rain
descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon
that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock. And
every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not,
shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the
sand: and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds
blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall
of it" (Matthew vii. 24-27).
And thus, after eighteen centuries, the prophecy has been fulfilled.
As the result of the abandonment of Christ's teachings, having
disregarded the principle of non-resistance to evil, men have
unwittingly fallen into the condition of imminent peril foretold by
Christ to those who refused to follow His precepts.
Men often think that the question of resistance or non-resistance to
evil by violence is an artificial question, which may be evaded. And
yet this is the question that life presents to mankind in general,
and to each thinking man in particular, and it is one that must be
solved. In social life, ever since Christianity was first preached,
this question has been like the doubt that confronts the traveler
when he comes to a place where the road which he has followed
divides, and he knows not which branch to choose. He must pursue
his way, and he can no longer go on without pausing to deliberate,
because there are now two roads from which to choose, whereas before
there was but one; he must make up his mind which he will take.
In like manner, since the doctrine of Christ has been made known to
men, they can no longer say, I will go on living as I did before,
without deciding the question of resistance or non-resistance to
evil by violence. One must decide at the beginning of every fresh
struggle whether one ought or ought not to resist by violence that
which one believes to be evil.
The question of resistance or non-resistance of evil by violence
arose with the first contest among men, for every contest is simply
the resistance by violence of something which each combatant
believes to be an evil. But before the time of Christ men did not
understand that resistance by violence of whatever the individual
believed to be evil--only the same action which seems evil to one
man may seem good to another--is simply one mode of settling the
difficulty, and that the other method consists in not resisting evil
by violence.
Before the appearance of the doctrine of Christ men believed
that there could be but one way of deciding the contest, that of
resisting evil by violence, and acted accordingly, while each
combatant strove to persuade himself and others that what he
regarded as evil was in fact the actual and absolute evil. For this
purpose, dating from the oldest times, men began to invent certain
definitions of evil which should be obligatory for all, and for the
purpose of establishing definitions which should be thus binding,
were issued, either certain laws supposed to have been received in a
supernatural manner, or commands of individuals or of bodies of men
to whom an infallible wisdom was ascribed. Men used violence against
their fellow-men and assured themselves and others that they were
but using such violence against an evil acknowledged by all.
This was the custom from the most ancient times, particularly among
men who had usurped authority, and men have been long in seeing its
baselessness.
But the longer mankind existed the more complex grew its mutual
relations, and the more evident it became that to resist by violence
everything that is considered evil is unwise; that the struggle is
not diminished thereby, and that no human wisdom can ever define an
infallible standard of evil.
When Christianity first appeared in the Roman Empire it had already
become evident to most men that whatever Nero or Caligula called
evil, and sought to overcome by violence, was not necessarily an
evil for the rest of mankind. Even then men had already begun to
realize that the human laws for which a divine origin was claimed
were really written by men; that men cannot be infallible, no
matter with what external authority they may be invested; and that
fallible men will not become infallible because they meet together
and call themselves a Senate, or any other similar name. Even then
this had been perceived and understood by many. And it was then
that Christ preached His doctrine, which not only embodied the
principle of non-resistance, but which revealed a new conception
of life, of which the application to social life would lead to the
suppression of strife among men, not by obliging one class to yield
to whatsoever authority shall ordain, but by forbidding all men, and
especially those in power, to employ violence against others.
The doctrine was at that time embraced by a very limited number
of disciples, while the majority of men, particularly those who
were in authority, although they nominally accepted Christianity,
continued to follow the practice of resisting by violence whatever
they regarded as evil. So it was during the times of the Roman and
Byzantine emperors, and so it went on in later times.
The inconsistency of an authoritative definition of evil and its
resistance by violence, already apparent in the first centuries
of Christianity, had grown still more evident at the time of the
dissolution of the Roman Empire and its subdivision into numerous
independent states hostile to one another and torn by internal
dissensions.
But men were not yet ready to accept the law of Christ, and
the former method of defining an evil to be resisted by the
establishment of laws, enforced by coercion and binding upon all
men, continued to be employed. The arbiter, whose office it was
to decide upon the nature of the evil to be resisted by violence,
was alternately the Emperor, the Pope, the elected body, or the
nation at large. But both within and without the State men were
always to be found who refused to hold themselves bound, either by
those laws which were supposed to be the expression of the divine
will, or by the human laws which claimed to manifest the will of
the people;--men whose views on the subject of evil were quite at
variance with those of the existing authorities, men who resisted
the authorities, employing the same methods of violence that had
been directed against themselves.
Men invested with religious authority would condemn as evil a
matter which to men and institutions invested with a temporal
authority commended itself as desirable, and _vice versa_, and more
and more furious grew the struggle. And the oftener men had recourse
to violence in settling the difficulty, the more evident it became
that it was ill chosen, because there is not, nor can there ever be,
a standard authority of evil to which all mankind would agree.
Thus matters went on for eighteen centuries, and at last arrived at
their present condition, which is, that no man can dispute the fact
that an infallible definition of evil will never be made. We have
reached the point when men have ceased not only to believe in the
possibility of finding a universal definition which all men will
admit, but they have even ceased to believe in the necessity of
such a definition. We have reached the point when men in authority
no longer seek to prove that that which they consider evil is evil,
but candidly acknowledge that they consider that to be evil which
does not please them, and those who are subject to authority obey,
not because they believe that the definitions of evil made by
authority are just, but only because they have no power to resist.
The annexation of Nice to France, Lorraine to Germany, the Czechs
to Austria, the partition of Poland, the subjection of Ireland and
India to the English rule, the waging of war against China, the
slaughter of Africans, the expulsion of the Chinese, the persecution
of the Jews in Russia, or the derivation of profits by landowners
from land which they do not cultivate, and by capitalists from the
results of labor performed by others,--none of all this is done
because it is virtuous, or because it will benefit mankind and is
essentially opposed to evil, but because those who hold authority
will have it so. The result at the present time is this: certain
men use violence, no longer in the name of resistance to evil, but
from caprice, or because it is for their advantage; while certain
other men submit to violence, not because they believe, like those
of former ages, that violence is used to defend them from evil, but
simply because they cannot escape it.
If a Roman, or a man of the Middle Ages, or a Russian, such
a man as I can remember fifty years ago, believed implicitly
that the existing violence of authority was needed to save him
from evil,--that taxes, duties, serfdom, prisons, the lash, the
knout, galleys, executions, military conscription, and wars were
unavoidable,--it would be difficult to find a man at the present
time who believes that all the violences committed saves a single
man from evil; on the contrary, not one could be found who had not
a distinct assurance that most of the violations to which he is
subjected, and in which he himself participates, are in themselves a
great and unprofitable calamity.
There is hardly a man to be found at the present time who fails
to realize all the uselessness and absurdity of collecting taxes
from the laboring classes for the purpose of enriching idle
officials; or the folly of punishing weak and immoral men by exile
or imprisonment, where, supported as they are, and living in
idleness, they become still weaker and more depraved; or, again, the
unspeakable folly and cruelty of those preparations for war, which
can neither be explained nor justified, and which ruin and imperil
the safety of nations. Nevertheless these violations continue, and
the very men who realize and even suffer from their uselessness,
absurdity, and cruelty, contribute to their encouragement.
If fifty years ago it was possible that the wealthy man of leisure
and the illiterate laborer should both believe that their positions,
the one a continual holiday, the other a life of incessant labor,
were ordained by God--in these days, not only throughout Europe, and
even in Russia, owing to the activity of the people, the growth of
education, and the art of printing, it is hardly possible to find
a man, either rich or poor, who in one way or another would not
question the justice of such an order of things. Not only do the
rich realize that the possession of wealth is in itself a fault,
for which they strive to atone by donations to science and art,
as formerly they redeemed their sins by endowing churches; but
even the majority of the laboring class now understand that the
existing order is false, and should be altered, if not abolished.
Men who profess religion, of whom we have millions in Russia, the
so-called sectarians, acknowledge, because they interpret the gospel
doctrine correctly, that this order of things is false and should
be destroyed. The working-men consider it false because of the
socialistic, communistic, or anarchical theories that have already
found way into their ranks. In these days the principle of violence
is maintained, not because it is considered necessary, but simply
because it has been so long in existence, and is so thoroughly
organized by those who profit by it--that is to say, by the
governments and ruling classes--that those who are in their power
find it impossible to escape.
Nowadays every government, the despotic as well as the most
liberal, has become what Herzen has so cleverly termed a Genghis
Khan with a telegraphic equipment, that is, with an organization
of violence, having for basis nothing less than the most brutal
tyranny, and converting all the means invented by science for the
inter-communication and peaceful activities of free and equal men to
its own tyrannous and oppressive ends.
The existing governments and the ruling classes no longer care
to present even the semblance of justice, but rely, thanks to
scientific progress, on an organization so ingenious that it is able
to inclose all men within a circle of violence through which it is
impossible to break. This circle is made up of four expedients, each
connected with and supporting the other like the rings of a chain.
The first and the oldest expedient is intimidation. It consists
in representing the actual organization of the State, whether it
be that of a liberal republic or of an arbitrary despotism, as
something sacred and immutable, which therefore punishes by the most
cruel penalties any attempt at revolution. This expedient has been
put into practice recently wherever a government exists: in Russia
against the so-called nihilists, in America against the anarchists,
in France against the imperialists, monarchists, communists, and
anarchists. Railroads, telegraphs, telephones, photography, the
improved method of disposing of criminals by imprisoning them in
solitary confinement for the remainder of their lives in cells,
where, hidden from human view, they die forgotten, as well as
numerous other modern inventions upon which governments have the
prior claim, give them such power, that if once the authority
fell into certain hands, and the regular and secret police,
administrative officials, and all kinds of procureurs, jailers, and
executioners labored zealously to support it, there would be no
possibility whatsoever of overthrowing the government, however cruel
or senseless it might be.
The second expedient is bribery. This consists in taking the
property of the laboring classes by means of taxation and
distributing it among the officials, who, in consideration of this,
are bound to maintain and increase the bondage of the people. The
bribed officials, from the prime ministers to the lowest scribes,
form one unbroken chain of individuals, united by a common interest,
supported by the labor of the people, fulfilling the will of the
government with a submission proportionate to their gains, never
hesitating to use any means in any department of business to promote
the action of that governmental violence on which their well-being
rests.
The third expedient I can call by no other name than hypnotism.
It consists in retarding the spiritual development of men, and,
by means of various suggestions, influencing them to cling to the
theory of life which mankind has already left behind, and upon
which rests the foundation of governmental authority. We have at
the present time a hypnotizing system, organized in a most complex
manner, beginning in childhood and continued until the hour of
death. This hypnotism begins during the early years of a man's life
in a system of compulsory education. Children receive in school
the same ideas in regard to the universe which their ancestors
entertained, and which are in direct contradiction to contemporary
knowledge. In countries where a State religion exists, children
are taught the senseless and sacrilegious utterances of church
catechisms, with the duty of obedience to authorities; in the
republics they are taught the absurd superstition of patriotism,
and the same obligation of obedience to the government. In maturer
years this hypnotizing process is continued by the encouragement
of religious and patriotic superstition. Religious superstition is
encouraged by the erection of churches built from money collected
from the people, by holidays, processions, painting, architecture,
music, by incense that stupefies the brain, and, above all, by
the maintenance of the so-called clergy, whose duty consists in
befogging the minds of men and keeping them in a continual state
of imbecility, what with the solemnity of their services, their
sermons, their intervention with the private lives of men in time
of marriage, birth, and death. The patriotic superstition is
encouraged by the governments and the ruling classes by instituting
national festivals, spectacles, and holidays, by erecting monuments
with money collected from the people, which will influence men to
believe in the exclusive importance and greatness of their own State
or country and its rulers, and encourage a feeling of hostility
and even of hatred toward other nations. Furthermore, autocratic
governments directly forbid the printing and circulation of books
and the delivery of speeches that might enlighten men; and those
teachers who have the power to rouse the people from its torpor
are either banished or imprisoned. And every government, without
exception, conceals from the masses all that would tend to set them
free, and encourages all that would demoralize them,--all those
writings, for instance, that tend to confirm them in the crudeness
of their religious and patriotic superstition; all kinds of sensual
pleasures, shows, circuses, theaters; and all means for producing
physical stupor, especially those, like tobacco or brandy, which are
among the principal sources of national income. Even prostitution is
encouraged; it is not only recognized, but organized by the majority
of governments. Such is the third expedient.
The fourth expedient consists in this: certain individuals are
selected from among the mass of enslaved and stupefied beings,
and these, after having been subjected to a still more vigorous
process of brutalization, are made the passive instruments of the
cruelties and brutalities indispensable to the government. This
state of brutality and imbecility is produced by taking men in their
youth, before they have yet had time to gain any clear conception
of morality; and then, having removed them from all the natural
conditions of human life, from home, family, birthplace, and the
possibility of intelligent labor, by shutting them up together in
barracks, where, dressed in a peculiar uniform, to the accompaniment
of shouts, drums, music, and the display of glittering gewgaws, they
are daily forced to perform certain prescribed evolutions. By these
methods they are reduced to that hypnotic condition when they cease
to be men and become imbecile and docile machines in the hands of
the hypnotizer. These physically strong young men thus hypnotized
(and at the present time, with the general conscription system,
all young men answer to this description), supplied with murderous
weapons, ever obedient to the authority of the government, and ready
at its command to commit any violence whatsoever, constitute the
fourth and the principal means for subjugating men. So the circle of
violence is completed.
Intimidation, bribery, and hypnotism force men to become soldiers;
soldiers give power and make it possible to execute and to rob
mankind (with the aid of bribed officials), as well as to hypnotize
and to recruit men who are in their turn to become soldiers.
The circle is complete, and there is no possibility of escape from
it.
If some men believe that deliverance from violence, or even a
certain abatement of its energy, may be the result of its overthrow
by the oppressed, who will then replace it by a system which will
require no such violence and subjugation, and if, so believing,
they attempt to bring this about, they only deceive themselves and
others. So far from improving the position, these attempts will only
render things worse.
The activity of such men only strengthens the despotism of
governments by giving the latter a convenient pretext for increasing
their defenses. For even when, following a train of circumstances
highly demoralizing to the government,--take the case of France
in 1870, for example,--a government is overthrown by violence
and the authority passes into other hands, this new authority
is by no means likely to be less oppressive than the former. On
the contrary, obliged to defend itself from its exasperated and
overthrown enemies, it will be even more cruel and despotic than its
predecessor, as has ever been the case in periods of revolution.
If socialists and communists believe that the possession of
individual capital is a pernicious influence in society, and
anarchists regard government itself as an evil, there are, on the
other hand, monarchists, conservatives, and capitalists who look
upon the social and communal state as an evil order of society,
no less than anarchy itself; and all these parties have nothing
better to offer by way of reconciling mankind than violence. Thus,
whichever party gains the upper hand, it will be forced, in order
to introduce and maintain its own system, not only to avail itself
of all former methods of violence, but to invent new ones as well.
It simply means a change of slavery with new victims and a new
organization; but the violence will remain,--nay, increase,--because
human hatred, intensified by the struggle, will devise new means
for reducing the conquered to subjection. This has always been the
result of every revolution and violent overthrow of government. Each
struggle serves but to increase the power of those in authority at
the time to enslave their fellow-men.
One domain of human activity, and only one, has hitherto escaped
the encroachments of the governments--the domain of the family,
the economical domain of private life and domestic labor. But now
even this domain, in consequence of the struggle of socialists and
communists, is gradually passing into the hands of the governments,
so that labor and recreation, the dwellings, clothes, and food of
the people will by degrees, if the desires of the reformers are
accomplished, be determined and regulated by the government.
The long experiment of Christian life by nation after nation, during
eighteen centuries, has inevitably brought men to the necessity
of deciding whether the doctrine of Christ is to be accepted or
refused, and of deciding, too, the question of social life dependent
thereupon,--the resistance or non-resistance of evil by violence.
But there is this difference,--that formerly men could either accept
or reject the decision given by Christianity, whereas now it has
become imperative, because it affords the sole means of deliverance
from that condition of slavery in which, as in a net, men find
themselves entangled.
Nor is it alone this sad plight that brings them to this necessity.
Parallel with the negative proof of the falsehood of the pagan
order of things there has been positive proof of the truth of the
Christian doctrine.
Indeed, in the course of the eighteen centuries, the best men in all
Christendom, through an inner spiritual medium, having recognized
the truths of the doctrine, have borne witness of it, regardless of
threats, privations, miseries, and torture. These nobler men, by
their martyrdom, have sealed the truth of the doctrine.
Christianity penetrated into human consciousness, not alone by the
method of negative proof, that, namely, it had become impossible to
go on with the pagan life; but by its simplifying process, by its
explanation of, and its deliverance from, superstition, and by its
consequent spread among all classes of society.
Eighteen centuries of the profession of Christianity have not
passed in vain for those who accepted it, even if it were but in
outward form. These eighteen centuries have made men realize all
the miseries of the pagan state, even though they have continued
to lead a pagan existence, out of harmony with an age of humanity;
and at the bottom of their hearts they believe now (and herein
lies the only reason for living at all) that salvation from such
an existence can be found in the fulfilment of the Christian
doctrine in its true sense. As to when and where this salvation is
to be accomplished, opinions differ, according to the intellectual
development of men and the prejudices among which they live; but
every educated man recognizes that our salvation is to be found
in the fulfilment of the Christian doctrine. Certain believers,
those who consider the Christian doctrine divine, affirm that this
salvation will be accomplished when all men believe in Christ and
the time of the second advent approaches; others, who also have
faith in the divinity of Christ's doctrine, believe that this
salvation will come through the churches, which, having got all
men within the fold, will implant in their hearts those Christian
virtues which will transform their lives. Others, again, who do
not accept the divinity of Christ, believe that the salvation of
men will be accomplished by means of a slow, continuous progress,
during which the groundwork of pagan life will be gradually replaced
by the groundwork of liberty, equality, and fraternity--that is,
by the basis of Christianity. Still others there are who preach a
new social organization, and who believe that this salvation will
be brought about when, by means of a violent revolution, men are
forced to a community of goods, to the abolition of governments, to
collective rather than individual labor--that is, by the realization
of one of the aspects of Christianity. Thus, after one fashion
or another, all men of our epoch not only renounce the existing
order of life as no longer suited to the times, but acknowledge,
often without realizing it, and regarding themselves as enemies of
Christianity, that our salvation lies only in the adaptation to life
of a whole or a part of the Christian doctrine in its true sense.
For the majority of men Christianity, as its Teacher has expressed
it, could not be comprehended at once, but was to grow, like unto a
huge tree, from the tiniest seed. "The kingdom of heaven is like to
a grain of mustard seed, ... which indeed is the least of all seeds:
but when it is grown, it is the greatest among herbs, and becometh
a tree." And thus it has grown and continues to grow, if not in
manifestation, then in human consciousness.
It is no longer reserved for the minority of men, who have
always understood Christianity by its veritable truth; but it is
acknowledged by the great majority, who, if we are to judge by their
social life, are far removed from it.
Look at the private life of individuals, listen to their estimation
of human actions as they pronounce judgment on each other; listen
not only to public sermons and orations, but to the precepts which
parents and teachers offer to their charges, and you will see that,
however far removed from the practice of Christian truths may be the
political or social existence of men who are in bonds to violence,
yet Christian virtues are admired and exalted by all; while, on the
contrary, the anti-Christian vices are unhesitatingly condemned
as harmful to all mankind. Those who sacrifice their lives in the
service of humanity are looked upon as the better men; while those
who take advantage of the misfortune of their neighbors to further
their own selfish interests are universally condemned.
There may still be men who, insensible to Christian ideals, have set
up for themselves other ideals, such as power, courage, or wealth;
but these ideals are passing away; they are not accepted by all, nor
by the men of the better class. Indeed, the Christian ideals are the
only ones which are recognized as obligatory for all.
The position of our Christian world, looked at from without, with
its cruelty and slavery, is indeed appalling. But if we consider
it from the standpoint of human consciousness, it presents a very
different aspect. All the evil of our life seems to exist only
because it always has existed from all ages, and the men whose
actions are evil have had neither the time nor the experience to
overcome their evil habits, although all are willing to abandon
them. Evil seems to exist by reason of some cause apparently
independent of the consciousness of men.
Strange and contradictory as it may seem, modern men hate the very
order of things which they themselves support.
I believe it is Max Müller who describes the astonishment of an
Indian converted to Christianity, who, having apprehended the
essence of the Christian doctrine, came to Europe and beheld the
life of Christians. He could not recover from his astonishment in
the presence of the reality, so different from the state of things
he had expected to find among Christian nations.
If we are not surprised at the contradiction between our convictions
and our actions, it is only because the influences which obscure
this contradiction act upon us. We have but to look at our life
from the standpoint of the Indian, who understood Christianity in
its true significance, without any concessions or adaptations, and
to behold the barbarous cruelties with which our life is filled, in
order to be horrified at the contradictions in the midst of which we
live, without noticing them.
One has but to remember the preparations for war, the
cartridge-boxes, the silver-plated bullets, the torpedoes, and--the
Red Cross; the establishment of prisons for solitary confinement,
experiments with _electrocution_, and--the care for the welfare of
the prisoners; the philanthropic activity of the rich, and--their
daily life, which brings about the existence of the poor, whom they
seek to benefit. And these contradictions arise, not, as it might
seem, because men pretend to be Christians while they are actually
heathens, but because they lack something, or because there is some
power which prevents them from being what they really desire to
be, and what they even conscientiously believe themselves to be.
It is not that modern men merely pretend to hate oppression, the
inequality of class distinctions, and all kinds of cruelty, whether
practised against their fellow-men or against animals. They _are_
sincere in their hatred of these abuses; but they do not know how
to abolish them, or they lack the courage to alter their own mode
of life, which depends upon all this, and which seems to them so
important.
Ask, indeed, any individual if he considers it praiseworthy or
even honorable for a man to fill a position for which he receives
a salary so high as to be out of all proportion to the amount of
his labor, as, for instance, that of collecting from the people,
often from beggars, taxes which are to be devoted to the purchase
of cannon, torpedoes, and other instruments for murdering the men
with whom we wish to live in peace, and who wish to live in peace
with us; or, to receive a salary for spending his life either
in perfecting these instruments of murder, or in the military
exercises by which men are trained for slaughter? Ask whether it
be praiseworthy or compatible with the dignity of man, or becoming
to a Christian, to undertake, also for money, to arrest some
unfortunate man, some illiterate drunkard, for some petty theft not
to be compared with the magnitude of our own appropriation, or for
manslaughter not conducted by our advanced methods; and for such
offenses to throw people into prison, or put them to death? Ask
whether it be laudable and becoming in a man and a Christian, also
for money, to teach the people foolish and injurious superstitions
instead of the doctrine of Christ? Whether, again, it be laudable
and worthy of a man to wrench from his neighbor, in order to
gratify his own caprice, the very necessaries of life, as the great
landowners do; or to exact from his fellow-man an excessive and
exhausting toil for the purpose of increasing his own wealth, as
the mill-owners and manufacturers do; or to take advantage of human
necessities to build up colossal fortunes, as the merchants do?
Every individual would reply not, especially if the question
regarded his neighbor. And at the same time the very man who
acknowledges all the ignominy of such deeds, when the case is
presented to him, will often, of his own accord, and for no
advantage of a salary, but moved by childish vanity, the desire to
possess a trinket of enamel, a decoration, a stripe, voluntarily
enter the military service, or become an examining magistrate, a
justice of the peace, a minister of state, an _uriadnik_, a bishop,
accepting an office whose duties will oblige him to do things, the
shame and ignominy of which he cannot help realizing.
Many of these men will, I am sure, defend themselves on the ground
of the lawfulness and necessity of their position; they will argue
that the authorities are of God, that the functions of State are
indispensable for the good of mankind, that Christianity is not
opposed to wealth, that the rich youth was bidden to give up his
goods only if he wished to be perfect, that the present distribution
of wealth and commerce is beneficial to all men, and that it
is right and lawful. But however much they may try to deceive
themselves and others, they all know that what they do is opposed to
the highest interests of life, and at the bottom of their hearts,
when they listen only to their consciences, they are ashamed and
pained to think of what they are doing, especially when the baseness
of their deeds has been pointed out to them. A man in modern life,
whether he does or does not profess to believe in the divinity
of Christ, must know that to be instrumental either as a czar,
minister, governor, or policeman, as in selling a poor family's last
cow to pay taxes to the treasury, the money of which is devoted to
the purchase of cannon or to pay the salaries or pensions of idle
and luxurious officials, is to do more harm than good; or to be
a party to the imprisonment of the father of a family, for whose
demoralization we are ourselves responsible, and to bring his family
to beggary; or to take part in piratical and murderous warfare;
or to teach absurd superstitions of idol-worship instead of the
doctrine of Christ; or to impound a stray cow belonging to a man
who has no land; or to deduct the value of an accidentally injured
article from the wages of a mechanic; or to sell something to a poor
man for double its value, only because he is in dire necessity;--the
men of our modern life cannot but know that all such deeds are
wrong, shameful, and that they ought not to commit them. They do all
know it. They know that they are doing wrong, and would abstain from
it, had they but the strength to oppose those forces which blind
them to the criminality of their actions while drawing them on to do
wrong.
But there is nothing that demonstrates so vividly the degree of
contradiction to which human life has attained as the system that
embodies both the method and the expression of violence,--the
general conscription system. It is only because a general armament
and military conscription have come imperceptibly and by slow
degrees, and that governments employ for their support all the means
of intimidation at their disposal,--bribery, bewilderment, and
violence,--that we do not realize the glaring contradiction between
this state of affairs and those Christian feelings and ideas with
which all modern men are penetrated.
This contradiction has become so common that we fail to see the
shocking imbecility and immorality of the actions, not only of
those men who, of their own accord, choose the profession of murder
as something honorable, but of those unfortunates who consent to
serve in the army, and of those who, in countries where military
conscription has not yet been introduced, give of their own free
will the fruits of their labor to be used for the payment of
mercenaries and for the organization for murder. All these men are
either Christians or men professing humanitarianism and liberalism,
who know that they participate in the most imbecile, aimless, and
cruel murders; yet still they go on committing them. But this
is not all. In Germany, where the system of general military
conscription originated, Caprivi has revealed something that has
always been carefully hidden: that the men who run the risk of
being killed are not only foreigners, but are quite as likely to
be fellow-countrymen,--working-men,--from which class most of the
soldiers are obtained. Nevertheless, this admission neither opened
men's eyes nor shocked their sensibilities. They continue just as
they did before, to go like sheep, and submit to anything that
is demanded of them. And this is not all. The German Emperor has
recently explained with minute precision the character and vocation
of a soldier, having distinguished, thanked, and rewarded a private
for killing a defenseless prisoner who attempted to escape. In
thanking and rewarding a man for an act which is looked upon even
by men of the lowest type of morality as base and cowardly, Wilhelm
pointed out that the principal duty of a soldier, and one most
highly prized by the authorities, is that of an executioner,--not
like the professional executioners who put to death condemned
prisoners only, but an executioner of the innocent men whom his
superiors order him to kill.
Yet more. In 1891 this same Wilhelm, the _enfant terrible_ of State
authority, who expresses what other men only venture to think, in a
talk with certain soldiers, uttered publicly the following words,
which were repeated the next day in thousands of papers:--
"Recruits! You have given _me_ the oath of allegiance before the
altar and the servant of the Lord. You are still too young to
comprehend the true meaning of what has been said here, but first of
all take care ever to follow the orders and instructions that are
given to you. You have taken the oath of allegiance to _me_; this
means, children of my guards, that you are now _my_ soldiers, that
you have given yourselves up to me, body and soul.
"But one enemy exists for you--_my_ enemy. With the present
socialistic intrigues _it may happen that I shall command you to
shoot your own relatives, your brothers, even your parents_ (from
which may God preserve us!), _and then you are in duty bound to obey
my orders unhesitatingly_."
This man expresses what is known, but carefully concealed, by all
wise rulers. He says outright that the men who serve in the army
serve _him_and _his_ advantage, and should be ready for that purpose
to kill their brothers and fathers.
Roughly but distinctly he lays bare all the horror of the crime
for which men who become soldiers prepare themselves,--all that
abyss of self-abasement into which they fling themselves when they
promise obedience. Like a bold hypnotizer, he tests the depth of the
slumber; he applies red-hot iron to the sleeper's body; it smokes
and shrivels, but the sleeper does not awaken.
Poor, sick, miserable man, intoxicated with power, who by these
words insults all that is sacred to men of modern civilization!
And we, Christians, liberals, men of culture, so far from feeling
indignant at this insult, pass it over in silence. Men are put to
the final test in its rudest form; but they hardly observe that a
test is in question, that a choice is put before them. It seems
to them as if there were no choice, but only the one necessity
of slavish submission. It would seem as if these insane words,
offensive to all that a civilized human being holds sacred, ought
to rouse indignation,--but nothing of the kind happens. Year after
year every young man in Europe is subjected to the same test, and
with very few exceptions they all forswear what is and should be
sacred to every man; all manifest a readiness to kill their brothers
and even their fathers, at the order of the first misguided man who
wears a red and gold livery, asking only when and whom they are to
be ordered to kill--for they are ready to do it.
Even by savages certain objects are held sacred, for whose sake
they are ready to suffer rather than submit. But what is sacred for
the man of the modern world? He is told: Be my slave, in a bondage
where you may have to murder your own father; and he, oftentimes a
man of learning, who has studied all the sciences in the university,
submissively offers his neck to the halter. He is dressed in a
clown's garments, ordered to leap, to make contortions, to salute,
to kill--and he submissively obeys; and when at last allowed to
return to his former life, he continues to hold forth on the dignity
of man, freedom, equality, and brotherhood.
"But what is to be done?" we often hear men ask in perplexity. "If
every man were to refuse, it would be a different matter; but, as it
is, I should suffer alone without benefiting any one." And they are
right; for a man who holds the social life-conception cannot refuse.
Life has no significance for him except as it concerns his personal
welfare; it is for his advantage to submit, therefore he does so.
To whatever torture or injury he may be subjected he will submit,
because he can do nothing alone; he lacks the foundation which
alone would enable him to resist violence, and those who are in
authority over him will never give him the chance of uniting with
others.
It has often been said that the invention of the terrible military
instruments of murder will put an end to war, and that war will
exhaust itself. This is not true. As it is possible to increase the
means for killing men, so it is possible to increase the means for
subjecting those who hold the social life-conception. Let them be
exterminated by thousands and millions, let them be torn to pieces,
men will still continue like stupid cattle to go to the slaughter,
some because they are driven thither under the lash, others that
they may win the decorations and ribbons which fill their hearts
with pride.
And it is with material like this that the public
leaders--conservatives, liberals, socialists, anarchists--discuss
the ways and means of organizing an intelligent and moral society,
with men who have been so thoroughly confused and bewildered
that they will promise to murder their own parents. What kind of
intelligence and morality can there be in a society organized from
material like this? Just as it is impossible to build a house
from bent and rotten timber, however manipulated, so also is it
impossible with such materials to organize an intelligent and moral
society. They can only be governed like a drove of cattle, by the
shouts and lash of the herdsman. And so, indeed, they are governed.
Again, while on the one hand we find men, Christians in name,
professing the principles of liberty, equality, and fraternity, on
the other hand we see these same men ready, in the name of liberty,
to yield the most abject and slavish obedience; in the name of
equality, to approve of the most rigid and senseless subdivision of
men into classes; and in the name of fraternity, ready to slay their
own brothers.[14]
[14] The fact that some nations, like the English and American, have
no general conscription system (although one hears already voices in
its favor), but a system of recruiting and hiring soldiers, nowise
alters the case as regards the slavery of the citizens under the
government. In the former system every man must go himself to kill
or be killed; in the latter, he must give the proceeds of his labor
to employ and drill murderers.
The contradiction of the moral consciousness, and hence the misery
of life, has reached its utmost limit, beyond which it can go no
further. Life, based on principles of violence, has culminated in
the negation of the basis on which it was founded. The organization,
on principles of violence, of a society whose object was to insure
the happiness of the individual and the family, and the social
welfare of humanity, has brought men to such a pass that these
benefits are practically annulled.
The first part of the prophecy in regard to those men and their
descendants who adopted this doctrine has been fulfilled, and now
their descendants are forced to realize the justice of its second
part.
CHAPTER IX
THE ACCEPTANCE OF THE CHRISTIAN LIFE-CONCEPTION DELIVERS MEN FROM
THE MISERIES OF OUR PAGAN LIFE
The external life of Christian nations remains pagan, but they
are already penetrated by the Christian life-conception--The
issue from this contradiction is in the acceptance of the
Christian life-conception--In it alone is every man free, and
it alone frees him from all human authority--This deliverance
is brought about, not by a change of external conditions,
but only by a change in the conception of one's life--The
Christian life-conception demands the renunciation of violence,
and, in delivering the man who accepts it, it frees the world
from all external authority--The issue from the present
apparently hopeless position consists in every man accepting
the Christian life-conception and living accordingly--But
men consider this method too slow, and see their salvation
in change of the material conditions of life made with the
aid of the authority of the State--This method will have no
issue, because men themselves cause the evil from which they
suffer--This is especially evident in regard to the submissive
acceptance of military duty, for it is more advantageous for
a man to refuse than accept--Human freedom will be brought
about only through the liberation of each individual man, and
already there are signs of this liberation, which threatens to
destroy State organization--The repudiation of the un-Christian
demands of governments undermines their authority and makes
men free--Therefore instances of such refusals are feared by
governments more than conspiracies or violence--Instances, in
Russia, of refusals to take the oath of allegiance, to pay
taxes, to accept passports or positions in the police, to take
part in courts of law, or to be drafted as soldiers--Similar
instances in other countries--Governments know not how to
dispose of men who refuse to obey their requirements because of
the Christian doctrine--These men destroy without a struggle
the foundations of governments from the inside--To punish them
would mean for governments to deny Christianity themselves, and
to contribute to the diffusion of that consciousness from which
such refusals spring--Hence the position of governments is a
desperate one, and men who preach the uselessness of personal
deliverance only arrest the destruction of the existing system
of government founded on violence.
The Christian nations of the present day are in a position no less
cruel than that of pagan times. In many respects, especially in the
matter of oppression, their position has grown worse.
A contrast like that of modern and ancient times may be seen in the
vegetation of the last days of autumn as compared with that of the
early days of spring. In the autumn the outward decay and death
correspond to the interior process, which is the suspension of life;
in the spring the apparent lifelessness is in direct contradiction
to the real vitality within, and the approaching transition to new
forms of life.
And thus it is as regards the apparent resemblance between pagan
life and that of the present day. It exists only in appearance. The
inner lives of men in the times of paganism were quite unlike those
of the men of our days.
In the former the external aspect of cruelty and slavery
corresponded with the inner consciousness of men, a conformity which
only increased as time went on; in the latter the external condition
of cruelty and slavery is in utter contradiction to the Christian
consciousness of men, a contradiction which grows more and more
striking every year.
The misery and suffering resulting therefrom seem so useless. It is
like prolonged suffering in child-labor. Everything is ready for the
coming life, and yet no life appears.
Apparently the situation is without deliverance. It would indeed
be so were it not that to men, and therefore to the world, there
has been vouchsafed the capacity for a loftier conception of life,
which has the power to set free, and at once, from all fetters,
however firmly riveted.
And this is the Christian life-conception presented to men 1800
years ago.
A man has but to assimilate this life-conception and he will be set
free, as a matter of course, from the fetters that now restrain him,
and feel free as a bird who spreads his wings and flies over the
wall that has kept him a prisoner.
They talk of setting the Christian Church free from the State, of
granting freedom to or withholding it from Christians. Such thoughts
and expressions are strangely misleading. Liberty can neither be
granted to nor withheld from a Christian or Christians.
But if there is a question of granting or withholding liberty, then
evidently it is not the true Christians who are meant, but only men
who call themselves by that name. A Christian cannot help being
free, because in the pursuit and attainment of his object no one can
either hinder or retard him.
A man has but to understand his life as Christianity teaches him to
understand it; that is, he must realize that it does not belong to
himself, nor to his family, nor to the State, but to Him who sent
him into the world; he must therefore know that it is his duty to
live, not in accordance with the law of his own personality, nor of
that of his family or State, but to fulfil the infinite law of Him
who gave him life, in order to feel himself so entirely free from
all human authority that he will cease to regard it as a possible
obstacle.
A man needs but to realize that the object of his life is the
fulfilment of God's law; then the preëminence of that law, claiming
as it does his entire allegiance, will of necessity invalidate the
authority and restrictions of all human laws.
The Christian who contemplates that law of love implanted in every
human soul, and quickened by Christ, the only guide for all mankind,
is set free from human authority.
A Christian may suffer from external violence, may be deprived of
his personal freedom, may be a slave to his passions,--the man who
commits sin is the slave of the sin,--but he cannot be controlled
or coerced by threats into committing an act contrary to his
consciousness. He cannot be forced to this, because the privations
and sufferings that are so powerful an influence over men who hold
the social life-conception have no influence whatever over him. The
privations and sufferings that destroy the material welfare which is
the object of the social life-conception produce no effect upon the
welfare of the Christian's life, which rests on the consciousness
that he is doing God's will--nay, they may even serve to promote
that welfare when they are visited upon him for fulfilling that will.
A Christian, therefore, who submits to the inner, the divine law,
is not only unable to execute the biddings of the outward law when
they are at variance with his consciousness of God's law of love,
as in the case of the demands made upon him by the government; but
he cannot acknowledge the obligation of obeying any individual
whomsoever, cannot acknowledge himself to be what is called a
subject. For a Christian to promise to subject himself to any
government whatsoever--a subjection which may be considered the
foundation of State life--is a direct negation of Christianity;
since an individual who promises beforehand to obey implicitly every
law that men may enact, by that promise utters an emphatic denial of
Christianity, whose very essence is obedience in all contingencies
to the law which he feels to be within him--the law of love.
With the pagan life-conception it was possible to promise to obey
the will of temporal authorities without violating the laws of
God, which were supposed to consist in carrying out such customs
as circumcision, the observance of the Sabbath, the utterance of
prayer at certain periods, abstinence from certain kinds of food,
etc. The one did not contradict the other. But Christianity differs
from paganism inasmuch as its requirements are not of an external
or negative character; on the contrary, they are such as reverse
man's former relations toward his fellow-men, and may call for
acts on his part which could not be anticipated, and consequently
are not defined. Hence it is that a Christian can neither promise
to obey nor to disobey the will of another, ignorant as he must
be of the nature of its requirements; not only must he refuse to
obey human laws, but he cannot promise to do or abstain from doing
anything definite at any given time, because he can never tell at
what hour or in what manner the Christian law of love, on which his
life-conception is based, will demand his coöperation. A Christian,
promising in advance to obey unconditionally the laws of men, admits
by that promise that the inner law of God does not constitute for
him the sole law of his life.
When a Christian promises to obey the commands or laws of men, he
is like a craftsman who, having hired himself out to one master,
promises at the same time to execute the orders of other persons. No
man can serve two masters.
A Christian is freed from human authority by acknowledging
the supremacy of one authority alone, that of God, whose law,
revealed to him through Christ, he recognizes within himself, and
obeys,--that and no other.
And this deliverance is accomplished neither by means of a struggle,
nor by the destruction of previous customs of life, but only through
a change in his life-conception. The deliverance proceeds, in the
first place, from the Christian's acknowledgment of the law of love,
as revealed to him by his Teacher, which suffices to determine the
relations of men, and according to which every act of violence seems
superfluous and unlawful. Secondly, because those privations and
miseries, or the anticipations of such, which influence a man who
holds the social life-conception and reduces him to obedience, seem
to him no more than the inevitable consequences of existence, which
he would never dream of opposing by violence, but bears patiently,
as he would bear disease, hunger, or any other misery; which,
indeed, have no possible influence over his actions. The Christian's
only guide must be the divine indwelling element, subject neither to
restriction nor to control.
A Christian lives in accordance with the words spoken by the Master:
"He shall not strive, nor cry; neither shall any man hear his voice
in the streets. A bruised reed shall he not break, and smoking flax
shall he not quench, _till he send forth judgment unto victory_."[15]
[15] Matthew xii. 19, 20.
A Christian enters into no dispute with his neighbor, he neither
attacks nor uses violence; on the contrary, he suffers violence
himself without resistance, and by his very attitude toward evil not
only sets himself free, but helps to free the world at large from
all outward authority.
"And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you
free."[16] If there were any doubt of the truth of Christianity
there could be no more indubitable proof of its authenticity than
the complete freedom, recognizing no fetters, which a man feels as
soon as he assimilates the Christian life-conception.
[16] John viii. 32.
Human beings in their present condition may be likened to bees in
the act of swarming, as we see them clinging in a mass to a single
bough. Their position is a temporary one, and must inevitably be
changed. They must rise and find themselves a new abode. Every bee
knows this, and is eager to shift its own position, as well as that
of the others, but not one of them will do so until the whole swarm
rises. The swarm cannot rise, because one bee clings to the other
and prevents it from separating itself from the swarm, and so they
all continue to hang. It might seem as if there were no deliverance
from this position, precisely as it seems to men of the world who
have become entangled in the social net. Indeed, there would be no
outlet for the bees if each one were not a living creature possessed
of a pair of wings. Neither would there be any issue for men if
each one were not a living individual, being gifted with a capacity
for assimilating the Christian life-conception.
If among these bees who are able to fly not one could be found
willing to start, the swarm would never change its position. And it
is the same among men. If the man who has assimilated the Christian
life-conception waits for others before he proceeds to live in
accordance with it, mankind will never change its attitude. And as
all that is needed to change a solid mass of bees into a flying
swarm is for one bee to spread its wings and fly away, when the
second, the third, the tenth, and the hundredth will follow suit; so
all that is needed to break through the magic circle of social life,
deliverance from which seems so hopeless, is, that one man should
view life from a Christian standpoint and begin to frame his own
life accordingly, whereupon others will follow in his footsteps.
But men think that the deliverance of mankind by this method is
too slow a process, and that a simultaneous deliverance might be
effected by some other method. Just as if bees, when the swarm was
ready to rise, were to decide that it would be too long a process if
they waited for each bee to spread its wings and rise separately,
and that some means must be devised whereby the swarm may rise all
at once, whenever it pleases. But that is impossible. Not until the
first, second, third, and hundredth bee has unfolded its wings and
flown away can the swarm take flight and find for itself a new home.
Not until each individual man adopts the Christian life-conception,
and begins to live in conformity with its precepts, will the
contradictions of human life be solved, and new forms of life become
established.
One of the most striking events of our time is the propaganda
of slavery which is spread among the masses, not only by the
government, to whom it is of use, but by those exponents of
socialistic theories who consider themselves the champions of
freedom.
These men preach that the amelioration in the conditions of life,
the reconciliation between actuality and consciousness, will not be
brought about by the personal efforts of individual men, but that it
will evolve itself out of a certain forced reorganization of society
by some unknown influence. Their theory is that men should not
proceed of their own accord to the place where they wish to go, but
that they should have a platform built under their feet, upon which
they may be carried to the spot they desire to reach. Hence they
must not move as far as their strength will permit, but all their
efforts must be directed toward building this imaginary platform
without stirring from their position.
There is a theory in economics preached in these days of which the
essential principle is this: the worse the condition of affairs,
the better the prospect; the greater the accumulation of capital
and oppression of the working-man resulting therefrom, the nearer
the day of deliverance; and therefore any effort on the part of
the individual to free himself from the oppression of capital is
useless. In regard to the government it is declared that the greater
its authority, which, according to this theory, should include the
domain of private life, hitherto uninvaded, the better it will be,
and hence one should solicit the interference of governments with
private life. In regard to international politics, it is declared
that the increase of armies and modes of extermination will lead
to the necessity of a general disarmament through the agency of
congresses, arbitration, etc. And the most surprising part of all is
that human lethargy is so profound that men credit these theories,
although the whole structure of life, and every stage in human
progress, demonstrate their fallacy.
Men suffer from oppression, and by way of deliverance certain
expedients are suggested for the improvement of their condition,
these means of relief to be administered by authority, to which they
continue to submit. This will naturally tend to augment authority
and to increase the consequent oppression of government.
Of all the errors of humanity there is none that so retards its
progress as this. Men will do anything in the world to achieve their
purpose save the one simple deed, which it is every man's duty to
perform. Men will invent the most ingenious devices for changing the
position which is burdensome to them, but never dream of the simple
remedy of abstaining from the acts which cause it.
I was told of an incident which happened to an intrepid _stanovoy_,
who, on arriving in a village where the peasants had revolted, and
whither troops had been sent, undertook, like the Emperor Nicholas
I., to quell the disturbance by his personal influence. He ordered
several loads of rods to be brought, and having gathered all the
peasants into the barn, he entered himself, shut himself in with
them, and so terrified them by his shouts and threats that in
compliance with his commands they began to flog each other. And so
they went on flogging one another until some fool revolted, and,
shouting to his comrades, bade them leave off. It was not until then
that the flogging ceased, and the _stanovoy_ escaped from the barn.
It is this very advice of the fool that men who believe in the
necessity of civil government seem unable to follow. They are unable
to stop punishing themselves, and setting an absurd example for
others to imitate. Such is the consummation of merely human wisdom.
Is it possible, indeed, to imagine a more striking imitation of
those men flogging one another than the meekness with which the
men of these days fulfil those social duties that lead them into
bondage, especially the military conscription? It is clear that men
enslave themselves; they suffer from this slavery, and yet they
believe it inevitable; they also believe that it will not affect
the ultimate emancipation of mankind, which they declare the final
outcome, in spite of the fact that slavery is ever increasing.
The man of modern times, whoever he may be (I do not mean a true
Christian), educated or ignorant, a believer or an unbeliever, rich
or poor, married or single, does his work, takes his pleasures, and
dreads all restrictions and privations, all enmity and suffering.
Thus he is living, peaceably. Suddenly men come to him and say:
"First, promise on your oath that you will obey us like a slave
in all that we command; believe that whatever we tell you is
unquestionably true, and submit to all that we shall call laws. Or,
secondly, give us a share in the product of your labor, that we
may use it to keep you in bondage, and prevent you from revolting
against our commands. Or, thirdly, choose, or be chosen among, the
so-called officials of the government, knowing that the government
will go on quite regardless of the foolish speeches which you, or
others like you, may utter; that it will be carried on in accordance
with our wishes and the wishes of those who control the army.
Or, fourthly, come to the law-courts, and take part in all the
senseless cruelties which we commit against men, who are erring and
depraved men, and who have become so through our fault,--in the
form of imprisonment, exile, solitary confinement, and execution.
Or, lastly, although you may be on the most friendly terms with
men who belong to other nations, you must be ready at a moment's
notice, whenever the command is issued, to look upon such of them
as we shall indicate as your enemies, and either personally or by
substitute contribute to the ruin, robbery, and murder of these men,
of old men, women, and children--even, if we require it, of your
fellow-countrymen and your parents."
One would think that in these days there could be but one reply from
any man in his senses.
"Why must I do all this? Why must I promise to obey all the orders
of Salisbury to-day, those of Gladstone to-morrow; Boulanger to-day,
and to-morrow the orders of an assembly composed of men like
Boulanger; Peter III. to-day, Catharine to-morrow, and the next day
Pugatchov; to-day the insane King of Bavaria, to-morrow the Emperor
William? Why should I promise this to men whom I know to be wicked
or foolish, or men whom I know nothing at all about? Why should I,
in the form of taxes, hand over to them the fruits of my labor,
knowing that this money will be used to bribe officials, to support
prisons, churches, and armies, to pay for the execution of evil acts
destined for my oppression? In other words, why should I apply the
rod to my own back? Why should I go on wasting my time, averting
my eyes, helping to give a semblance of legality to the acts of
wrong-doers, play a part in elections, and pretend to participate
in the government, when I know perfectly well that the country is
ruled by those who control the army? Why should I go into the courts
and be a party to the infliction of tortures and executions upon
my erring fellow-beings, knowing, if I am a Christian, that the
law of love has been substituted for the law of vengeance, and if
I am an educated man, that punishment, so far from reforming its
victims, serves only to demoralize them? Why should I, in person or
in substitute, go and kill and despoil, and expose myself to the
dangers of war, simply because the key of the temple of Jerusalem
happens to be in the keeping of one bishop rather than in that
of another; because Bulgaria is to be ruled by one German prince
instead of another; or because the privileges of the seal fishery
are reserved for the English to the exclusion of the American
merchants. Why should I regard as my enemies the inhabitants of a
neighboring country, with whom up to the present day I have lived,
and still wish to live, in peace and amity,--why should I go myself,
or pay for soldiers, to murder and ruin them?
"And, above all, why should I contribute, whether in person or by
paying for military service, to the enslavement and destruction of
my brothers and parents? Why should I scourge myself? All this is
of no use to me; on the contrary, it does me harm. It is altogether
degrading, immoral, mean, and contemptible. Why, then, should I do
all this? If I am told that I shall be made to suffer in any event,
I reply that in the first place, there can be no possible suffering
greater than that which would befall me were I to execute your
commands. And in the second place, it is perfectly evident to me
that if we refuse to scourge ourselves, no one else will do it for
us. Governments are but sovereigns, statesmen, officials, who can
no more force me against my will, than the _stanovoy_ could force
the peasants; I should be brought before the court, or thrown into
prison, or executed, not by the sovereign, or the high officials,
but by men in the same position as myself; and as it would be
equally injurious and disagreeable for them to be scourged as for
me, I should probably open their eyes, and they would not only
refrain from injuring me, but would doubtless follow my example.
And in the third place, though I were made to suffer for this, it
would still be better for me to be exiled or imprisoned, doing
battle in the cause of common sense and truth, which must eventually
triumph, if not to-day, then to-morrow, or before many days, than
to suffer in the cause of folly and evil. It would rather be to my
advantage to risk being exiled, imprisoned, or even executed, than
remain, through my own fault, a life-long slave of evil men, to be
ruined by an invading enemy, or mutilated like an idiot, or killed
while defending a cannon, a useless territory, or a senseless piece
of cloth called a flag. I have no inclination to scourge myself,
it would be of no use. You may do it yourselves if you choose--I
refuse."
It would seem as though not only the religious and moral element
in human nature, but ordinary common sense and wise counsel, would
influence every man of the present day thus to make reply, and
to suit the action to the word. But no. Men who hold the social
life-conception consider such a course not only useless, but even
prejudicial to the object in view,--the deliverance of mankind from
slavery. They advise us to go on, like the peasants, punishing
one another, comforting ourselves with the reflection that our
chatter in parliaments and assemblies, our trade unions, our First
of May demonstrations, our conspiracies and covert threats to the
governments that scourge us, must result in our final deliverance,
even though we go on strengthening our fetters. Nothing so hampers
human liberty as this wonderful delusion. Instead of making
individual efforts to achieve freedom, every man for himself
devoting all his energies to that object, through the attainment of
a new life-conception, men are looking for a universal scheme of
deliverance, and are in the meanwhile sinking deeper and deeper into
slavery. It is as if a man were to declare that in order to obtain
heat one must merely place every lump of coal in a certain position,
never minding whether it kindled or not. And yet that the liberation
of mankind can only be accomplished by means of the deliverance of
the individual grows more and more evident.
The liberation of individuals from the dominion of the State, in
the name of the Christian life-conception, which was formerly an
exceptional occurrence and one that attracted but little attention,
has attained in these days a menacing significance for the authority
of State.
If in the days of ancient Rome it happened that a Christian,
professing his faith, refused to take a part in sacrifices, or in
the worship of the emperors or the gods, or in the Middle Ages
refused to worship ikons or to acknowledge the temporal authority of
the Pope, such refusals were the exception; a man might be obliged
to confess to his faith, but he might perhaps live all his life
without being forced to do so. But now all men, without exception,
are subjected to trial of faith. Every man of modern times is
obliged, either to participate in the cruelties of pagan life, or
to repudiate them. And secondly, in those days any refusal to bow
before the gods, the ikons, or the Pope was of no consequence to the
State. Whether those who bowed before the gods, the ikons, or the
Pope were many or few, the State lost none of its power. Whereas
at the present time every refusal to execute the un-Christian
demands of the government undermines the authority of the State,
because the authority of the State rests on the fulfilment of these
anti-Christian requirements.
Temporal authority, in order to maintain itself, has been forced by
the conditions of life to demand from its subjects certain actions
which it is impossible for men who profess true Christianity to
perform. Therefore at the present time every man who professes
it helps to undermine the authority of the government, and will
eventually pave the way for the liberation of mankind.
Of what apparent importance are such acts as the refusal of a score
or two of fools, as they are called,--men who decline to take the
oath of allegiance, to pay taxes, or to take part in courts of law,
or to serve in the army? Such men are tried and condemned, and life
remains unchanged. These occurrences may seem unimportant, and
yet these are precisely the factors that undermine the authority
of the government more than any others, and thus prepare the way
for the liberation of mankind. These are the bees who are the
first to separate themselves from the swarm, and, still hovering
near, they wait for the whole swarm to rise and follow them. The
governments are aware of this, and look upon such occurrences with
more apprehension than upon all the socialists, anarchists, and
communists, with their conspiracies and their dynamite bombs.
A new _régime_ is inaugurated. Each subject, according to custom,
is required to take the oath of allegiance to the new government.
A proclamation is issued, and all are bidden to assemble in the
cathedral to take the oath. Suddenly one man in Perm, another in
Tula, a third in Moscow, a fourth in Kaluga, refuse to take the
oath and (without preconcerted action) justify their refusal by
the same argument,--that the Christian law forbids the oath; but,
even were the oath not forbidden, they could not, according to the
spirit of this law, promise to perform such evil deeds as the oath
requires,--such as reporting those antagonistic to the interests
of the government, defending that government by armed force, or
attacking its enemies. They are summoned to appear before the
_stanovoys_, _spravniks_, priests, governors; they are reasoned
with, coaxed, threatened, and punished; yet they adhere to their
determination, and refuse to take the oath. They are asked, "Is it
true that you never took the oath?"
"It is."
"And what was done to you?"
"Nothing."
Every subject is required to pay his taxes, and the taxes are paid.
But one man in Charkov, another in Iver, and a third in Samara,
refuse to comply, and, as by one accord, each man alleges the same
reason. One of them says that he will pay after he has learned the
object for which his money is to be used. "If it is to be used for
charity, he will give of his own free will, and even more than is
demanded of him. But if it is to be applied to evil purposes, he
will give nothing of his own free will, because, according to the
law of Christ, which he obeys, he can take no part in doing evil."
And the others who refuse to pay taxes, except on compulsion,
express the same idea, perhaps in other words. Those who have
property are forced to pay, and those who have none are simply let
alone.
"Then you have not paid your tax?"
"No."
"And what was done to you?"
"Nothing."
The passport system is instituted. Every man who leaves his home
must apply for one, and pay a tax for it. Suddenly, in different
places, are to be found those who declare that passports should
not be used, that a man should not acknowledge his dependence upon
the State, which is supported by violence; and these men take no
passports, consequently they pay no tax for them. And again, there
are no means of coercing them to comply with the demand. They are
imprisoned, but when after a time they find themselves at liberty
again, they go on living without passports.
Every peasant is expected to perform police duty as _sotsky_ or
_dessiatsky_,[17] etc.; but some peasant in Charkov refuses to
fulfil this duty, because, as he says in explanation of his refusal,
the law of Christ, which he professes, forbids him to arrest,
imprison, or transport his fellow-men. Another peasant in Iver or
in Tambov makes the same statement. The peasants are threatened,
beaten, and imprisoned, but they adhere to their resolution, and
refuse to perform actions contrary to their religious belief. And
they cease to be elected _sotsky_, and are gradually left in peace.
[17] Petty rural police.--TR.
It is the duty of every citizen to serve on the jury. All at once
men of widely different classes,--carriage-makers, professors,
merchants, peasants, nobles,--as if moved by a single impulse,
refuse to fulfil this duty, not for reasons valid in the eyes of
the law, but because the tribunal itself is, in their opinion,
illegal and un-Christian, and ought not to exist. These men are
fined, and false reasons are ascribed for their refusal, the true
ones meanwhile remaining hidden from the public. The same treatment
is employed in regard to those who, for similar reasons, refuse to
appear as witnesses in courts of law. These, too, are finally left
undisturbed.
Every man at the age of twenty-one must draw lots. Suddenly there
is found a man in Moscow, another in Iver, another in Charkov, and
still another in Kiev, who, as it were by agreement, go to the
department and declare that they will neither take the oath of
allegiance nor serve in the army, because they are Christians. Here
are the details of an affair which was among the earlier cases,--of
late these refusals have begun to multiply,--a case with which I am
myself familiar,[18] which is but one example among many.
[18] The details of this case are authentic.
In the City Hall of Moscow a young man of average education gives
his reasons for refusing to comply. His words are not heeded, and
he is bidden to repeat the words of the oath with the other men.
He still persists in his refusal, and quotes a certain passage in
the Bible that forbids men to take an oath. No attention is paid
to his arguments, and again he is ordered to take the oath, which
he declines to do. Whereupon it is taken for granted that he is
a sectarian, and therefore misunderstands Christianity; in other
words, that he differs from the priests paid by the State. He is
then sent under guard to the priests that they may convince him,
which they endeavor to do; but the arguments uttered in the name
of Christ, by which they strive to persuade him to deny Christ,
evidently have no effect on the young man. So they declare him
incorrigible, and send him back to the army. Still he openly refuses
to take the oath and to fulfil his military duties.
It is a case not anticipated by the law. A refusal to comply
with the demands of the government cannot be overlooked, neither
can this case be called one of ordinary insubordination. After
conferring, the military authorities decide that, in order to rid
themselves of this objectionable youth, the better way will be
to consider him as a rebel and forward him under military escort
to the Department of the Secret Police. The police officials and
the gendarmes question the young man, but his replies will not
serve to classify his offense under the heading of any crime that
comes within their jurisdiction; they cannot either accuse him of
revolutionary motives, or of conspiracy, because he declares that
he has no desire to destroy anything whatsoever; on the contrary,
he opposes all violence. He says that he has nothing to conceal;
he desires only an opportunity for saying and doing all things in
the most open manner. And as it resulted with the clergy, so also
with the gendarmes, who, though rarely embarrassed as to how to put
the law in operation, can find no pretext for an accusation against
the young man, and send him back to the ranks. Once more there is a
conference, and his superiors decide that, although he has not taken
the oath of allegiance, he is to be regarded as a soldier. He is put
into uniform, his name is entered on the lists, and he is sent under
convoy to his post. Here his immediate superiors once more order
him to perform his military duty, and still he refuses to obey, and
in the presence of the other soldiers he states his reasons, saying
that, as a Christian, he cannot of his own free will prepare himself
to commit murder, which was forbidden even by the law of Moses.
All this takes place in a provincial city. The occurrence excites
the interest and the sympathy, not only of outsiders, but even of
the officers, and therefore there is hesitation about employing
the usual punishment for contumacy. However, for the sake of
appearances, he is thrown into jail, and a request is sent to the
higher military authorities for further instructions in the case.
From an official standpoint this refusal to take part in a military
organization, in which the Czar himself serves, and which is
blessed by the Church, must be regarded as insanity, and therefore
the message is received from St. Petersburg that the young man is
probably insane, and that before any violent measures are used
against him he must be sent to the insane hospital. Thither he is
sent in the hope that he will remain there, as happened some ten
years ago in the case of a young man from Iver, who also refused
to serve, and who was tortured in the hospital until at last he
was subdued. But in the present instance even this measure fails
to relieve the military authorities from this troublesome young
man. The doctors examine him, become interested in him, and,
discovering no symptoms of insanity, they return him to his post.
He is received, and pretending that his refusal and its causes are
forgotten, he is once more invited to join the drill, and again he
refuses, in the presence of other soldiers, stating his reasons
for his refusal. The affair attracts more and more notice from
soldiers as well as from civilians. Again the question is referred
to St. Petersburg, and thence comes the order to transfer the young
man to the frontier, where the troops are in active service, and
where, if he refuses to obey orders, he may be shot without exciting
attention, as there are but few Russians and Christians in that
far-away territory, the majority being foreigners and Mohammedans.
This is done. The young man is ordered to join the Trans-Caspian
troops, and with other criminals he is delivered into the hands of
commanders noted for their severity and determination.
Meanwhile, during all these transportations from place to place,
the young man has suffered from harsh treatment, from cold, hunger,
and filth, and his life has been made miserable. Yet all these
trials do not weaken his resolution. In the Trans-Caspian province,
where he is once more ordered to serve as a sentry under arms, he
refuses to obey. He consents to stand where he is sent, beside the
hayricks, but declines to take a weapon in his hand, declaring that
on no account will he use violence against any one whomsoever.
All this occurs in the presence of the soldiers. Such contumacy
cannot go unpunished; consequently he is court-martialed for an
infringement of military discipline, convicted, and sentenced to two
years' confinement in a military prison. And once again, with the
criminals, he is sent by _étape_ to the Caucasus and then thrown
into prison, his fate being left to the discretionary power of the
jailer. There he is tortured for a year and a half, but still his
resolution to avoid the use of weapons remains unchanged, and he
continues to explain to every one whom he meets the reasons for his
refusal. Toward the end of the second year, before his term has
really expired, he is set at liberty; and although not in accordance
with the law, they are so anxious to rid themselves of him, that his
imprisonment is accepted as an equivalent of further active service.
And in various parts of Russia others are found who, as if by a
concerted plan, imitate his example, and in every case the action
of the government is undecided, vacillating, and underhanded.
Some of these men are confined in the insane hospitals, some are
appointed military clerks and sent to serve in Siberia, some are
made foresters, others are thrown into prison, others are fined.
At the present time several of these men are imprisoned, not for
their substantial offense, denying the legality of the acts of
the government, but for disobeying the particular orders of their
superiors. For instance, an officer of the reserve recently failed
to give information of the place of his residence, and declined
to serve further in the army; he was fined thirty roubles for
disobeying the orders of the authorities,--and this he declined to
pay, except under compulsion. Several peasants and soldiers who
refused to take part in a drill and to use weapons were put under
arrest for disobedience and contention.
Such instances of a refusal to comply with the demands of the
State when opposed to Christianity, especially refusals to perform
military service, occur not only in Russia, but everywhere. I
know that in Servia, men from the so-called sect of Nazarenes
steadily refuse to enter the army, and the Austrian government has
for several years made futile attempts to convert them by means
of imprisonment. In 1885 there were 130 refusals of this kind. I
know that in Switzerland, in 1890, there were men in confinement in
the castle of Chillon for refusing to perform military duty whose
determination was not to be influenced by punishment. Such refusals
have occurred in Sweden; the men there also were imprisoned, and the
government carefully concealed the affairs from the people. Similar
instances occurred in Prussia. I know of one subaltern officer in
the guards who, in 1891, in Berlin, announced to his superiors that
he, as a Christian, could not continue his military service, and in
spite of all remonstrances and threats he adhered to his resolution.
In the south of France a community of men called the Hinschist has
recently been established (my information is derived from the _Peace
Herald_ of July, 1891), who, as professing the Christian doctrine,
refuse to perform military duty. At first they were told off to
serve in hospitals, but now, with the increase of the sect, they are
punished for insubordination, while they still refuse to bear arms.
Socialists, communists, and anarchists, with their bombs and their
revolutions, are far less dangerous to governments than these men,
who from different places proclaim their refusals, all based upon
the same doctrine, familiar to all. Every government knows how to
defend itself from revolutionists; it holds the means in its own
hands, and therefore does not fear these external foes. But what can
a government do to protect itself from men who declaim against all
authority as useless, superfluous, and injurious, offering, however,
no opposition to authority, merely rejecting its offices, dispensing
with its services, and therefore refusing to participate in it?
The revolutionists say: "State organization is bad, either for one
reason or for another; it should be destroyed, and replaced by such
and such a system." But a Christian says: "I know nothing of State
organization, whether it be good or bad, and it is for this very
reason that I do not wish to support it. And I cannot undertake
submission, because such submission is contrary to my conscience."
All the institutions of the State are opposed to the conscience of a
Christian: the oath of allegiance, taxation, courts of law, armies;
while the whole authority of government is dependent upon them.
Revolutionary foes struggle against the government, but Christianity
enters not into this contest; internally, it destroys the principles
on which government is based.
With the Russian people, in whose midst, particularly since the
time of Peter I., the protest of Christianity against the State has
never ceased; in the midst of this people, where the conditions
of life are such that whole communes emigrate to Turkey, China,
and uninhabited portions of the globe, who, so far from needing
the government, always consider it an unnecessary burden, and
only endure it as a calamity, whether it be Russian, Chinese, or
Turkish,--the cases of isolated individuals who, from Christian
motives, have liberated themselves from the control of government
have grown more and more frequent in these latter days. Such
manifestations are particularly dreaded by the government at the
present time, because the men who protest often belong not to the
so-called lower, the uneducated classes, but are men of average
and even superior education, and because these men explain their
refusals, not by some mystical belief peculiar to the individual,
as in olden times, nor do they complicate them with superstition
and fanaticism, like the sects of the Self-burners or Bieguni, but
assign as the reason for their refusals the simplest, most obvious
of truths, patent to and admitted by all the world.
Thus men refuse to pay taxes of their own free will, because the
money is used to promote violence; in other words, to pay the wages
of the violators in the army, for building prisons and fortresses,
or for manufacturing cannon,--in all of which, as Christians, they
consider it wrong and immoral to take a part.
They refuse to take the oath of allegiance, for were they to promise
to obey the authorities,--that is, men who use violence,--they must
contradict the sense of the Christian doctrine.
They refuse to swear in court, because an oath is distinctly
forbidden by the gospel.
They decline police duties, because in that office they would be
compelled to use violence against their brethren and to distress
them, and a Christian cannot do this.
They refuse to take part in courts of law, because they look upon
every tribunal as a vehicle for the law of vengeance, and therefore
incompatible with the Christian law of forgiveness and love.
They decline to have anything to do with military preparations, or
to enter the ranks of the army, because they neither can nor will be
executioners, nor prepare themselves for such an office.
And the reasons alleged for these refusals are of such a nature
that, however arbitrary the governments may be, they cannot punish
openly those who refuse.
Were the governments to punish men for such refusals, they would be
forced to abjure forever both justice and virtue, those principles
by which, as they assure us, all their authority is supported.
What are governments to do with these men? Of course they have the
power to execute, to imprison, and to condemn to transportation
and penal servitude all enemies who attempt to overthrow them by
violence; they can obtain by bribery half the men they need, and
have at their command millions of armed soldiers, who are ready to
put to death all the enemies of authority. But what can be done with
men who wish neither to destroy nor to establish anything, whose
sole desire is to avoid in their own private lives any act that
may be opposed to the Christian law, and who consequently refuse
to perform duties which are regarded by the government as the most
natural and obligatory of all?
If they were revolutionists, preaching violence and practising it,
it would be an easy matter to oppose them. Some might be bribed,
some deceived, others intimidated, and those who could neither be
bought, deceived, nor intimidated would be manifestly criminals,
enemies of society who, as such, could be executed or beaten to
death; and the people would approve the acts of the government. If
they were fanatics belonging to some particular sect, one might, in
view of the superstitions inherent in their doctrine, refute at the
same time what truth their arguments contained. But what is to be
done with men who neither preach rebellion nor any special dogmas,
who wish to live in peace with all mankind, who refuse to take the
oath of allegiance or to pay taxes, or to take part in tribunals,
to perform military service, and the various duties of a similar
nature, on which the whole organization of the State is founded?
What is to be done with them? They cannot be bribed. The very risk
they are willing to take shows their integrity. Neither can they be
deceived when these things are represented as the commands of God,
because their refusal is based on the indubitable law of God, by
which the very men who are trying to coerce them to disobey this law
profess to hold themselves bound. It is vain to hope to intimidate
them by threats, because the very suffering and privations which
they endure for righteousness' sake serve but to strengthen their
devotion to their faith, whose law distinctly commands them first of
all to obey God, to fear not them that kill the body, but to fear
those who can kill both body and soul. Neither can they be executed
or imprisoned for life. Their past lives, their thoughts and
actions, their friends, speak for them; every one knows them to be
gentle, kindly, and harmless men, and it is impossible to represent
them in the light of criminals whose suppression is needed for the
salvation of society. Moreover, the execution of men acknowledged
by all to be virtuous would arouse defenders who would endeavor to
explain the causes for their disobedience. And when all men are
made to recognize the reasons why these Christians refuse to obey
the demands of the State, they cannot fail to acknowledge the same
obligation, and to admit that all men should long since have refused
obedience.
Confronted with these insubordinations, governments find themselves
in a desperate plight. They realize that the prophecies of
Christianity are about to be fulfilled, that it is loosening the
fetters of them that are in bonds and setting men free; they realize
that such freedom will inevitably destroy those who have held
mankind in bondage. Governments realize this; they know that their
hours are counted, that they are helpless to resist. All that they
are able to do is to retard the hour of dissolution. And this they
try to do; but their position is still a desperate one.
It is like the predicament of a conqueror who wishes to preserve the
town set on fire by the inhabitants. No sooner does he put the fire
out in one place than two other fires break out; when he separates
the burning portion from the main body of a large building the
flames burst out at both extremities. These outbreaks are not, as
yet, of frequent occurrence, but the spark has been kindled, and the
fire will burn steadily until all is consumed.
The position of governments in the presence of men who profess
Christianity is so precarious that very little is needed to shake
to pieces their power, built up through so many centuries, and
apparently so solid in structure. And it is now that the sociologist
comes forward, preaching that it is useless, and even hurtful and
immoral, for the individual to emancipate himself alone.
Let us suppose that men have been working for a long time to divert
the course of a river; they have at last succeeded in digging a
canal, and all that remains now is to make an opening and let the
water flow through it into the canal; suppose now certain other men
arrive upon the scene and suggest that, instead of letting the water
flow into the canal, it would be much better to erect over the river
some form of machinery, by means of which the water would be poured
from one side to the other.
But things have gone too far. Governments are aware of their
weakness and helplessness, and men of the Christian faith are
awakening from their torpor, beginning already to realize their
power.
"I am come to send fire on the earth," said Christ.
And this is the fire that begins to burn.
CHAPTER X
USELESSNESS OF VIOLENCE FOR THE DESTRUCTION OF EVIL. THE MORAL
ADVANCE OF MANKIND IS ACCOMPLISHED, NOT ONLY THROUGH THE KNOWLEDGE
OF TRUTH, BUT ALSO THROUGH THE ESTABLISHMENT OF PUBLIC OPINION
Christianity destroys the State--Which is more necessary,
Christianity or the State?--There are men who defend the
necessity of the State, and others who, on the same grounds,
deny this necessity--Neither can be proved by abstract
reasoning--The question decides the character of a man's
consciousness, which either allows or forbids him to participate
in the organization of the State--Realization of the uselessness
and immorality of taking part in the organization of the
State, which is contradictory to Christian doctrine, decides
this question for each one, regardless of the destiny of the
State--Argument of the defenders of the State, as a form of
social life indispensable for the defense of the good from the
wicked, until all nations, and all members of each nation,
shall have become Christians--The more wicked are always those
in power--History is but a recital of the usurpation of power
by the bad over the good--The acknowledgment by authority of
the necessity of struggle with evil by violence is equivalent
to self-destruction--The annihilation of violence is not
only possible, but is going on before our eyes--However, it
is not destroyed by State violence, but through those men
who, obtaining power by violence, and recognizing its vanity
and futility, benefit by experience and become incapable of
using violence--This is the process through which individual
men, as well as whole nations, have passed--It is in that
way that Christianity penetrates into the consciousness of
men, and not only is this accomplished despite the violence
used by authority, but through its agency, and therefore the
abolition of authority is not only without danger, but it goes
on continually as life itself--Objection of the defenders
of the State system that the diffusion of Christianity is
improbable--Diffusion of Christian truth interdicting violence
accomplished not only slowly and gradually, by the internal
method, by individual recognition of the truth, by prophetic
intuition, by the realizing of the emptiness of power and
abandonment of it by individual men, but accomplished also by
the external method, by which large numbers of men, inferior in
intellectual development, at once, in view of their confidence
in the others, adopt the new truth--The diffusion of truth at
a certain stage creates a public opinion, which compels the
majority of men who have previously opposed it to recognize
the new truth at once--Therefore a universal renunciation of
violence may very soon come to pass; namely, when a Christian
public opinion shall be established--The conviction of the
necessity of violence prevents the establishment of Christian
public opinion--Violence compels men to discredit the moral
force which can alone exalt them--Neither nations nor individual
men have been conquered by violence, but by public opinion,
which no violence can resist--It is possible to conquer savage
men and nations only by the diffusion of Christian public
opinion among them, whereas the Christian nations, in order
to conquer them, do everything in their power to destroy the
establishment of a Christian public opinion--These unsuccessful
experiments cannot be cited as a proof of the impossibility of
conquering men by Christianity--Violence which corrupts public
opinion only prevents the social organization from becoming
what it should be, and with the abolition of violence Christian
public opinion will be established--Whatever may take place
when violence has been abolished, the unknown future can be no
worse than the present, and therefore one need not fear it--To
penetrate to the unknown and move toward it is the essence of
life.
Christianity, faithfully interpreted, saps the foundations of the
civil law, and this was always understood from the very outset.
It was for this that Christ was crucified; and until men felt the
necessity for justifying the establishment of the Christian state,
they always accepted that interpretation. The cleverly constructed
theories intended to reconcile the doctrines of Christianity with
that of the State date back to the time when rulers of nations
adopted a nominal external Christianity. But in these times it
is impossible for a sincere and earnest man not to perceive the
incompatibility of the Christian doctrine of love, meekness of
spirit, and forgiveness of injuries, with the despotism, the
violence, and the wars of the State. The profession of true
Christianity not only forbids the recognition of the State, but
strikes at its very foundations.
But if it be true that Christianity is incompatible with the State,
one naturally asks which is the better adapted to promote the
well-being of mankind, the system prescribed by the State, or the
precepts of Christianity?
There are those who affirm that the State organization is the more
indispensable; they declare that its overthrow would check all
human progress, that no development is possible save through the
channels of civil government, and that all those evils which we
find prevailing among nations who live under State laws are not
the result of the organization, which permits progress and the
attainment of the highest degree of civilization.
They who hold these views quote, in support of their position,
certain historical, philosophical, and even religious arguments,
which seem to them irrefutable. But there are others who entertain
views diametrically opposed to these. For instance, they say
that the fact of the world having existed at one time without a
government, might be taken to prove the State to be only a temporary
condition; that the time was sure to come when men would require
a change, which time had now arrived. To support their theory,
these men in turn adduce historical, philosophical, and religious
arguments which seem to them irrefutable.
Volumes may be and have been written in defense of the former
position, and of late years a great deal has been written, and ably
written too, from the opposite standpoint.
It can neither be proved on the one hand, as the partizans of the
State claim, that its destruction would be followed by a general
upheaval, by robberies and murders, and by the nullification of all
social laws, and the return of man to a condition of barbarism; nor
on the other, as the enemies of the State affirm, that man has grown
so virtuous and well disposed that, preferring peace to enmity, he
will no longer rob and murder his neighbor; that he is quite able,
without State assistance, to establish a community, and conduct
his own affairs; and that the State itself, while assuming an air
of protection, is really exerting a demoralizing influence. It is
impossible to prove either one or the other by abstract arguments.
And naturally neither point can be proved by experience, as it is a
question first of all of getting the requisite experience.
Whether or not the time has arrived for abolishing the State is a
question which could not be answered were it not that we possess
other means that will assist us to settle it beyond dispute.
It needs no one to tell the young birds when it is time to burst the
shell; they know very well when there is no longer room for them
in the eggs, and begin of their own accord to break the shell and
leave it behind. So it is with this question of a change in human
affairs. Has the time come for men to cast aside the customs of the
State and establish a new order? When a man's inner consciousness
has so developed that he feels himself hampered by the requirements
of the State, and can no longer submit to the restraint, realizing
at the same time that he has ceased to need its protecting care,
the question whether or no men have matured sufficiently to enable
them to dispense with the State is disposed of without reference to
former arguments. A man who has outgrown the State can no more be
coerced into submission to its laws than can the fledgling be made
to reënter its shell.
"The State may have been necessary at one time, and for aught that
I know it may even now serve the purposes you mention," says the
man who holds the Christian life-conception. "I can only say that
_I_ have no need of it, nor can _I_ conform to its requirements.
You must decide for yourself whether it be advantageous or no. I
shall not attempt to generalize on the subject with the expectation
of proving my point. I only recognize what I need and what I don't
need; what I can, and what I cannot do. I know, as far as I am
myself concerned, that _I_ do not need to separate from the men of
other nations, and therefore I can neither recognize an exclusive
affiliation to this or that one, nor acknowledge myself the subject
of any one government. I need none of the institutions established
by the State, and therefore I am not willing to surrender the fruits
of my labor in the form of taxes to support institutions which I
believe to be not only unnecessary but positively injurious. I know
that _I_ need neither magistrates, nor tribunals founded on and
supported by violence, and therefore I can have nothing to do with
them; I know that _I_ feel no inclination to attack other nations
and put their citizens to death, neither do I wish to defend myself
against them by force of arms, and therefore I can take no part
in wars nor in preparations for wars. Doubtless there are men who
believe that all these things are an indispensable part of human
life,--I cannot argue with them,--but I know that for me they have
no meaning, and that I will have nothing to do with them.
"And this is not a matter of personal selection, but because I must
obey the commands of Him who has sent me into the world, and has
given me an unmistakable law by which I am to be guided through
life."
Whatever arguments may be advanced to prove that harm and probably
disaster will accrue from abolishing the authority of the State,
the man who has already outgrown the State ideal cannot possibly
be bound by it. And whatever arguments may be adduced to prove its
necessity, he can never return to it. He is like the young bird who
can never return to its outgrown shell.
"But granting this to be true," say the partizans of the existing
order, "we cannot dispense with the supremacy of the State until all
men are Christians, because even among those who claim the title
there are many who are very far from being Christians--evil-doers,
who seek their own gratification at the expense of their fellow-men,
and if the governments were overthrown, so far from improving the
condition of the people, it would greatly add to their miseries. The
subversion of the State would be a misfortune, not only where the
minority are true Christians, but even supposing the whole people to
be so; while the neighboring nations are still non-Christian, these
latter would make their lives a martyrdom by rapine and murder and
all manner of violence. It would serve only to provide the vicious
and unprincipled with an opportunity to oppress the innocent.
Therefore the State should not be abolished until all the wicked
have ceased from troubling, which will not happen just at present.
Hence, however much certain individual Christians may wish to escape
from the authority of the State, the greater good of the greater
number demands its preservation." So say the defenders of the State
principle. "If it were not," they say, "for State authority there
would be no protection against the malice and injustice of the
oppressor; that authority alone makes it possible to restrain the
wicked."
But in uttering these sentiments the partizans of the existing order
take it for granted that they have proved the truth of what they
assert. When they declare that the evil-doers would ride roughshod
over the defenseless and the innocent were it not for the authority
of the State, they imply that the governing power is vested at
the present time in a body of virtuous men, who control all the
wrong-doers. But this is a proposition which must be proved. It
could only be a correct statement if we happened to resemble the
inhabitants of China, where it is popularly believed, although
the belief is not justified by fact, that the good are always in
authority, because should it become known that the rulers are
no better than those over whom they rule, it is the duty of the
citizens to overthrow the government. But although this is supposed
to be one of the customs of China, it is not, nor would it be
possible for it to be so, since, in order to overthrow a criminal
government, one needs the power as well as the right. Even in China
this is a mere supposition, and in our own Christian land we have
never so much as dreamed of it. As far as we are concerned, there
is no reason to believe that power is in the hands of the virtuous
and high-minded, rather than in those of men who took it by violence
and have held it for themselves and their descendants. For surely
it would be impossible for a high-minded man to usurp authority by
violence and to continue to hold it.
In order to gain possession of power, and to retain it, one
must have a love for it, and the love of power is incompatible
with goodness; it accords with the opposite qualities of pride,
duplicity, and cruelty.
Both the origin and the maintenance of power depend upon the
exaltation of the individual, and the degradation of the people by
means of hypocrisy and fraud, by prisons, fortresses, and murders.
"If State authority were to be abolished, then would the more wicked
people dominate over the less wicked," say the upholders of State
organization. But if the Egyptians conquered the Hebrews, and the
Persians the Egyptians, and the Macedonians the Persians, and the
Romans the Greeks, and the barbarians the Romans, is it really
possible that the conquerors are always better than the conquered?
And so with political changes in the State; is the power always
transferred to the better men? When Louis XVI. was deposed, and
control passed into the hands of Robespierre, and when, later, he
was in turn succeeded by Napoleon, was it the better or the worse
man who held the power? Again, were they of Versailles or the
communists the better men? Charles the First or Cromwell? When Peter
III. reigned, or, after his murder, when Catharine ruled over one
part of Russia, and Pugatchov over the other--who then was good and
who was wicked?
All those in authority affirm that their office is required in
order that the unprincipled may be hindered from oppressing the
innocent, implying thereby that they themselves, being virtuous,
are protecting other virtuous men from the malice of the evil-doer.
To possess power and to do violence are synonymous terms; to do
violence means doing something to which the victim of violence
objects, and which the aggressor would resent were it directed
against himself. Therefore the possession of power really means
doing unto others what we should not like if it were done to
ourselves,--that is, harm.
Obedience signifies that a man holds patience to be better than
violence, and to choose patience rather than violence means to be
good, or, at least, not so wicked as those who do unto others what
they would not wish to have done to themselves.
Therefore all the probabilities are that those in authority were
in past times, as they are in present, worse men than those they
ruled over. Doubtless there are wicked men among those who submit
to authority, but it is impossible that the better men should rule
over the worse.
This might be thought in pagan times, when the definition of
goodness was inaccurate; but with the clear and exact conception of
the qualities of good and evil presented by Christianity before us
we cannot imagine it. If in the pagan world they who were more or
less good, and they who were more or less bad, might not be easily
distinguished, the characteristics of goodness and wickedness have
been so clearly defined by the Christian conception that it is
impossible to mistake them. According to the doctrine of Christ, the
good are those who submit and are long-suffering, who do not resist
evil by violence, who forgive injuries, and love their enemies; the
wicked are the vainglorious, who tyrannize, who are arrogant and
violent with others. Therefore, if we are guided by the doctrine of
Christ, we shall have no difficulty in deciding where to seek the
good and the wicked among rulers and subjects. It is even absurd to
speak of Christians as sovereigns or rulers.
The non-Christians--that is, those to whom life is but a matter of
temporal welfare--must always rule over the Christians, for whom
life means self-denial and disregard of temporal things.
And thus it has always been, and it has been manifested more and
more plainly as the Christian doctrine has become more clearly
defined and widespread.
The farther true Christianity extended, the firmer the hold it
gained on the consciousness of men, the less possible it became
for Christians to belong to the dominant class, and the easier for
non-Christians to gain the ascendancy.
"To abolish the supremacy of the State before all men have become
true Christians would only afford the wicked a chance to tyrannize
over the good and maltreat them with impunity," say the upholders of
the existing order.
It has always been the same from the beginning of the world until
this present time, and it always will be. _The wicked always
rule over the good and do violence to them_. Cain did violence
to Abel, the astute Jacob betrayed the trusting Esau, and was
himself deceived by Laban; Caiaphas and Pilate sat in judgment on
Christ; the Roman emperors ruled over Seneca, Epictetus, and other
high-minded Romans of those times; Ivan IV. with his Opritchniks,
the tipsy syphilitic Peter with his clowns, the prostitute Catharine
with her lovers, ruled over the industrious, God-fearing Russian
people of those times, and trampled upon them. William rules the
Germans, Stambulov the Bulgarians, and the Russian officials rule
over the Russian people; the Germans ruled over the Italians, and
now they rule over the Hungarians and the Slavs. The Turks ruled
over the Greeks and now rule over the Slavs, the English over the
Hindoos, the Mongolians over the Chinese.
So we see that whether the tyranny of the State is or is not to be
abolished, the position of the innocent, who are oppressed by the
tyrants, will not be materially affected thereby.
Men are not to be frightened by being told that the wicked will
oppress the good, because that is the natural course, and will never
change.
The whole of pagan history is a mere narrative of events wherein
the wicked have got the upper hand, and, once in power, by craft
and cruelty have kept their hold upon men, announcing themselves
meanwhile as the guardians of justice and the defenders of the
innocent against the oppressor. All revolutions are but the result
of the appropriation of power by the wicked and their rule over the
good. When the rulers say that if their power were to be destroyed
the evil-doers would tyrannize over the innocent, what they really
mean is that the tyrants in power are reluctant to yield to those
other tyrants who would fain wrest from them their authority. When
they protest that this authority of theirs, which is actually
violence, is necessary to defend the people against the possible
tyranny of others,[19] they are simply denouncing themselves. The
reason why violence is dangerous is that, whenever it is employed,
all the arguments which the perpetrators advanced in their own
defense may be used against them with even greater force. They talk
of the violence done in the past, and more frequently of future and
imaginary violence, while they themselves are the real offenders.
"You say that men committed robbery and murder in former times, and
profess anxiety lest all men be robbed or murdered unless protected
by your authority. This may or may not be true, but the fact that
you allow thousands of men to perish in prisons by enforced labor,
in fortresses, and in exile, that your military requisitions ruin
millions of families and imperil, morally and physically, millions
of men, this is not a supposititious but an actual violence, which,
according to your own reasoning, should be resisted by violence.
And therefore, by your own admission, the wicked ones, against whom
one should use violence, are yourselves." Thus should the oppressed
reply to their oppressors. And such are the language, the thoughts,
and the actions of non-Christians. Wherever the oppressed are more
wicked than the oppressor, they attack and overthrow them whenever
they are able; or else--and this is more frequently the case--they
enter the ranks of the oppressors and take part in their tyranny.
[19] Such declarations on the part of Russian authorities, who are
noted for their oppression of foreign nationalities,--the Poles, the
Germans of the Baltic provinces, and the Jews,--strike one as both
amusing and artless. The Russian government, which has oppressed
its own subjects for centuries, and which has never protected the
Malo-Russians in Poland, the Latishi in the Baltic provinces,
nor the Russian peasants, of whom all sorts of people have taken
advantage for hundreds of years, suddenly becomes a champion of
the oppressed, of the very same people whom it still continues to
oppress.
Thus the dangers of which the defenders of State rights make a
bugbear--that if authority were overthrown the wicked would prevail
over the good--potentially exist at all times. The destruction of
State violence, in fact, never can, for this very reason, lead to
any real increase of violence on the part of the wicked over the
good.
If State violence disappeared, it is not unlikely that other acts
of violence would be committed; but the sum of violence can never be
increased simply because the power passes from the hands of one into
those of another.
"State violence can never be abolished until all the wicked
disappear," say the advocates of the existing order, by which
they imply that there must always be violence, because there will
always be wicked people. This could only prove true, supposing
the oppressors to be really beneficent, and supposing the true
deliverance of mankind from evil must be accomplished by violence.
Then, of course, violence could never cease. But as, on the
contrary, violence never really overcomes evil, and since there is
another way altogether to overcome it, the assertion that violence
will never cease is untrue. Violence is diminishing, and clearly
tending to disappear; though not, as is claimed by the defenders of
the existing order, in consequence of the amelioration of those who
live under an oppressive government (their condition really gets
worse), but because the consciousness of mankind is becoming more
clear. Hence even the wicked men who are in power are growing less
and less wicked, and will at last become so good that they will be
incapable of committing deeds of violence.
The reason why humanity marches forward is not because the inferior
men, having gained possession of power, reform their subjects
by arbitrary methods, as is claimed both by Conservatives and
Revolutionists, but is due above all to the fact that mankind in
general is steadily, and with an ever increasing appreciation,
adopting the Christian life-conception. There is a phenomenon
observable in human life in a manner analogous to that of boiling.
Those who profess the social life-conception are always ambitious
to rule, and struggle to attain power. In this struggle the most
gross and cruel, the least Christian elements of society, bubble up,
as it were, and rise, by reason of their violence, into the ruling
or upper classes of society. But then is fulfilled what Christ
prophesied: "Woe unto you that are rich! Woe unto you that are full!
Woe unto you, when all men shall speak well of you!" (Luke vi.
24-26). The men who have attained power, and glory, and riches, and
who have realized all their cherished aims, live to discover that
all is vanity, and gladly return to their former estate. Charles
V., Ivan the Terrible, Alexander I., having realized the evils of
power and its futility, renounced it because they recognized it as
a calamity, having lost all pleasure in the deeds of violence which
they formerly enjoyed.
But it is not alone kings like Charles V. and Alexander I. who
arrive at this disgust of power, but every man who has attained the
object of his ambition. Not only the statesman, the general, the
millionaire, the merchant, but every official who has gained the
position for which he has longed this half score of years, every
well-to-do peasant who has saved one or two hundred roubles, finds
at last the same disillusion.
Not only individuals, but entire nations, mankind as a whole, have
passed through this experience.
The attractions of power and all it brings--riches, honors,
luxury--seem to men really worth struggling for only until they are
won; for no sooner does a man hold them within his grasp than they
manifest their own emptiness and gradually lose their charm, like
clouds, lovely and picturesque in outline seen from afar, but no
sooner is one enveloped in them than all their beauty vanishes.
Men who have obtained riches and power, those who have struggled for
them, but more particularly those who have inherited them, cease to
be greedy for power or cruel in its acquisition.
Having learned by experience, sometimes in one generation, sometimes
in several, how utterly worthless are the fruits of violence, men
abandon those vices acquired by the passion for riches and power,
and growing more humane, they lose their positions, being crowded
out by others who are less Christian and more wicked; whereupon they
fall back into a stratum, which, though lower in the social scale,
is higher in that of morality, thus increasing the mean level of
Christian consciousness. But straightway, the worse, the rougher,
and less Christian elements rise to the surface, and being subject
to the same experience as their predecessors, after one or two
generations these men, too, recognize the hollowness of violent
ambitions, and, being penetrated with the spirit of Christianity,
fall back into the ranks of the oppressed. These are in turn
replaced by new oppressors, less despotic than the former, but
rougher than those whom they oppress. So that although the authority
is to all outward seeming unchanged, yet the number of those who
have been driven by the exigencies of life to adopt the Christian
life-conception increases with every change of rulers. They may be
more harsh, more cruel, and less Christian than their subjects;
but always men less and less violent replace their predecessors in
authority.
Violence chooses its instruments from among the worst elements
of society; men who gradually become leavened, and, softened and
changed for the better, are returned into society.
Such is the process by means of which Christianity takes fuller
possession of men day by day. Christianity enters into the
consciousness of men in spite of the violence of power, and even
owing to that violence.
The argument of the defenders of the State, that if power were
abolished the wicked would tyrannize over the good, not only fails
to prove that the domination of the wicked is a new thing to be
dreaded,--as it exists already,--but proves, on the contrary, that
the tyranny of the State, which allows the wicked to govern the
good, is itself the real evil which we ought to eradicate, and which
is constantly decreasing by the very nature of things.
"But if State violence is not to cease until the rulers have become
so far Christianized that they will renounce it of their own accord
and no others will be found to take their places,--if these things
are coming to pass," say the defenders of the existing order, "when
is it to happen? If 1800 years have passed, and still so many long
to rule, it is wholly improbable that we shall soon behold this
change, if it ever takes place at all.
"Even though there may be at present, as there always have been,
certain individuals who would not rule if they could, who do not
choose to benefit themselves in that way, still the number of those
who do prefer to rule rather than to be ruled is so great that it is
difficult to imagine a time when the number will be exhausted.
"In order to accomplish the conversion of all men, to induce each
one to exchange the pagan for the Christian life-conception,
voluntarily resigning riches and power, there being none left to
profit by these, it would be necessary that not only all the rude,
half-barbarous people, unfitted either to accept Christianity or
follow its precepts, who are always to be found in every Christian
community, should become Christians, but that all savage and
non-Christian nations, which are still numerous, should also become
Christian.
"Therefore were one to admit that the Christianizing process may
at some future time embrace all humanity, we must still take into
consideration the degree of progress that has been made in 1800
years, and realize that this can only happen after many centuries.
Hence we need not for the present trouble ourselves about the
overthrow of authority; all we have to do is to look to it that it
is in the best hands."
Thus reply the partizans of the existing system. And this reasoning
would be perfectly consistent, provided that the transition of men
from one life-conception to another were only to be effected by the
process of individual conversion; that is to say, that each man,
through his personal experience, should realize the vanity of power,
and apprehend Christian truth. This process is constantly going on,
and in that way, one by one, men are converted to Christianity.
But men do not become converted to Christianity merely in this way;
there is an exterior influence brought to bear which accelerates
the process. The progression of mankind from one system of life
to another is accomplished not only gradually, as the sand glides
through the hour-glass, grain by grain, until all has run out, but
rather as water which enters an immersed vessel, at first slowly,
at one side, then, borne down by its weight, suddenly plunges, and
at once fills completely.
And this is what happens in human communities during a change in
their life-conception, which is equivalent to the change from one
organization to another. It is only at first that men by degrees,
one by one, accept the new truth and obey its dictates; but after
it has been to a certain extent disseminated, it is accepted, not
through intuition, and not by degrees, but generally and at once,
and almost involuntarily.
And therefore the argument of the advocates of the present system,
that but a minority have embraced Christianity during the last
1800 years, and that another 1800 years must pass away before the
rest of mankind will accept it, is erroneous. For one must take
into consideration another mode, in addition to the intuitive of
assimilating new truth, and of making the transition from one mode
of life to another. This other mode is this: men assimilate a truth
not alone because they may have come to realize it through prophetic
insight or through individual experience, but the truth having been
spread abroad, those who dwell on a lower plane of intelligence
accept it at once, because of their confidence in those who have
received it and incorporated it in their lives.
Every new truth that changes the manner of life and causes humanity
to move onward is at first accepted by a very limited number, who
grasp it by knowledge of it. The rest of mankind, accepting on faith
the former truth upon which the existing system has been founded, is
always opposed to the spread of the new truth.
But as, in the first place, mankind is not stationary, but is
ever progressing, growing more and more familiar with truth and
approaching nearer to it in everyday life: and secondly, as all
men progress according to their opportunities, age, education,
nationality, beginning with those who are more, and ending with
those who are less, capable of receiving new truth--the men nearest
those who have perceived the truth intuitively pass, one by one,
and with gradually diminishing intervals, over to the side of the
new truth. So, as the number of men who acknowledge it increases,
the truth itself becomes more clearly manifested. The feeling of
confidence in the new truth increases in proportion to the numbers
who have accepted it. For, owing to the growing intelligibility of
the truth itself, it becomes easier for men to grasp it, especially
for those lower intellectually, until finally the greater number
readily adopt it, and help to found a new _régime_.
The men who go over to the new truth, once it has gained a certain
hold, go over _en masse_, of one accord, much as ballast is rapidly
put into a ship to maintain its equilibrium. If not ballasted,
the vessel would not be sufficiently immersed, and would change
its position every moment. This ballast, which at first may seem
superfluous and a hindrance to the progress of the ship, is
indispensable to its equipoise and motion.
Thus it is with the masses when, under the influence of some new
idea that has won social approval, they abandon one system to adopt
another, not singly, but in a body. It is the inertia of this mass
which impedes the rapid and frequent transition from one system of
life, not ratified by wisdom, to another; and which for a long time
arrests the progress of every truth destined to become a part of
human consciousness.
It is erroneous, then, to argue that because only a small percentage
of the human race has in these eighteen centuries adopted the
Christian doctrine, that many, many times eighteen centuries must
elapse before the whole world will accept it,--a period of time so
remote that we who are now living can have no interest in it. It is
unfair, because those men who stand on a lower plane of development,
whom the partizans of the existing order represent as hindrances to
the realization of the Christian system of life, are those men who
always go over in a body to a truth accepted by those above them.
And therefore that change in the life of mankind, when the powerful
will give up their power without finding any to assume it in their
stead, will come to pass when the Christian life-conception,
rendered familiar, conquers, not merely men one by one, but masses
at a time.
"But even if it were true," the advocates of the existing order
may say, "that public opinion has the power to convert the inert
non-Christian mass of men, as well as the corrupt and gross who are
to be found in every Christian community, how shall we know that
a Christian mode of life is born, and that State violence will be
rendered useless?
"After renouncing the despotism by which the existing order has been
maintained, in order to trust to the vague and indefinite force of
public opinion, we risk permitting those savages, those existing
among us, as well as those outside, to commit robbery, murder, and
other outrages upon Christians.
"If even with the help of authority we have a hard struggle against
the anti-Christian elements ever ready to overpower us, and destroy
all the progress made by civilization, how then could public
opinion prove an efficient substitute for the use of force, and
avail for our protection? To rely upon public opinion alone would
be as foolhardy as to let loose all the wild beasts of a menagerie,
because they seem inoffensive when in their cages and held in awe by
red-hot irons.
"Those men entrusted with authority, or born to rule over others by
the divine will of God, have no right to imperil all the results of
civilization, simply to make an experiment, and learn whether public
opinion can or cannot be substituted for the safeguard of authority."
Alphonse Karr, a French writer, forgotten to-day, once said, in
trying to prove the impossibility of abolishing the death penalty:
"Que Messieurs les assassins commencent par nous donner l'exemple."
And I have often heard this witticism quoted by persons who really
believed they were using a convincing and intellectual argument
against the suppression of the penalty of death. Nevertheless, there
could be no better argument against the violence of government.
"Let the assassins begin by showing us an example," say the
defenders of government authority. The assassins say the same, but
with more justice. They say: "Let those who have set themselves up
as teachers and guides show us an example by the suppression of
legal assassination, and we will imitate it." And this they say, not
by way of a jest, but in all seriousness, for such is in reality the
situation.
"We cannot cease to use violence while we are surrounded by those
who commit violence."
There is no more insuperable barrier at the present time to the
progress of humanity, and to the establishment of a system that
shall be in harmony with its present conception of life, than this
erroneous argument.
Those holding positions of authority are fully convinced that men
are to be influenced and controlled by force alone, and therefore to
preserve the existing system they do not hesitate to employ it. And
yet this very system is supported, not by violence, but by public
opinion, the action of which is compromised by violence. The action
of violence actually weakens and destroys that which it wishes to
support.
At best, violence, if not employed as a vehicle for the ambition of
those in high places, condemns in the inflexible form a law which
public opinion has most probably long ago repudiated and condemned;
but there is this difference, that while public opinion rejects
and condemns all acts that are opposed to the moral law, the law
supported by force repudiates and condemns only a certain limited
number of acts, seeming thus to justify all acts of a like order
which have not been included in its formula.
From the time of Moses public opinion has regarded covetousness,
lust, and cruelty as crimes, and condemned them as such. It condemns
and repudiates every form that covetousness may assume, not only
the acquisition of another man's property by violence, fraud, or
cunning, but the cruel abuse of wealth as well. It condemns all
kinds of lust, let it be impudicity with a mistress, a slave, a
divorced wife, or with one's wife; it condemns all cruelty,--blows,
bad usage, murder,--all cruelty, not only toward human beings, but
toward animals. Whereas, the law, based upon violence, attacks only
certain forms of covetousness, such as theft and fraud, and certain
forms of lust and cruelty, such as conjugal infidelity, assault,
and murder; and thus it seems to condone those manifestations of
covetousness, lust, and cruelty which do not fall within its narrow
limits.
But violence not only demoralizes public opinion, it excites in the
minds of men a pernicious conviction that they move onward, not
through the impulsion of a spiritual power, which would help them
to comprehend and realize the truth by bringing them nearer to that
moral force which is the source of every progressive movement of
mankind,--but, by means of violence,--by the very factor that not
only impedes our progress toward truth, but withdraws us from it.
This is a fatal error, inasmuch as it inspires in man a contempt for
the fundamental principle of his life,--spiritual activity,--and
leads him to transfer all his strength and energy to the practice of
external violence.
It is as though men would try to put a locomotive in motion by
turning its wheels with their hands, not knowing that the expansion
of steam was the real motive-power, and that the action of the
wheels was but the effect, and not the cause. If by their hands
and their levers they move the wheels, it is but the semblance of
motion, and, if anything, injures the wheels and makes them useless.
The same mistake is made by those who expect to move the world by
violence.
Men affirm that the Christian life cannot be established save by
violence, because there are still uncivilized nations outside of the
Christian world, in Africa and Asia (some regard even the Chinese
as a menace of our civilization), and because, according to the new
theory of heredity, there exist in society congenital criminals,
savage and irredeemably vicious.
But the savages whom we find in our own community, as well as
those beyond its pale, with whom we threaten ourselves and others,
have never yielded to violence, and are not yielding to it now.
One people never conquered another by violence alone. If the
victors stood on a lower plane of civilization than the conquered,
they always adopted the habits and customs of the latter, never
attempting to force their own methods of life upon them. It is by
the influence of public opinion, not by violence, that nations are
reduced to submission.
When a people have accepted a new religion, have become Christians,
or turned Mohammedans, it has come to pass, not because it was
made obligatory by those in power (violence often produced quite
the opposite result), but because they were influenced by public
opinion. Nations constrained by violence to accept the religion of
the conqueror have never really done so.
The same may be said in regard to the savage elements found in
all communities: neither severity nor clemency in the matter of
punishments, nor modifications in the prison system, nor augmenting
of the police force, have either diminished or increased the
aggregate of crimes, which will only decrease through an evolution
in our manner of life. No severities have ever succeeded in
suppressing the vendetta, or the custom of dueling in certain
countries. However many of his fellows may be put to death for
thieving, the Tcherkess continues to steal out of vainglory. No girl
will marry a Tcherkess who has not proved his daring by stealing a
horse, or at least a sheep. When men no longer fight duels, and the
Tcherkess cease to steal, it will not be from fear of punishment
(the danger of capital punishment adds to the prestige of daring),
but because public manners will have undergone a change. The same
may be said of all other crimes. Violence can never suppress that
which is countenanced by general custom. If public opinion would but
frown upon violence, it would destroy all its power.
What would happen if violence were not employed against hostile
nations and the criminal element in society we do not know. But
that the use of violence subdues neither we do know through long
experience.
And how can we expect to subdue by violence nations whose education,
traditions, and even religious training all tend to glorify
resistence to the conqueror, and love of liberty as the loftiest
of virtues? And how is it possible to extirpate crime by violence
in the midst of communities where the same act, regarded by the
government as criminal, is transformed into an heroic exploit by
public opinion?
Nations and races may be destroyed by violence--it has been done.
They cannot be subdued.
The power transcending all others which has influenced individuals
and nations since time began, that power which is the convergence
of the invisible, intangible, spiritual forces of all humanity, is
public opinion.
Violence serves but to enervate this influence, disintegrating it,
and substituting for it one not only useless, but pernicious to the
welfare of humanity.
In order to win over all those outside the Christian fold, all the
Zulus, the Manchurians, the Chinese, whom many consider uncivilized,
and the uncivilized among ourselves, there is _only one way_. This
is by the diffusion of a Christian mode of thought, which is only to
be accomplished by a Christian life, Christian deeds, a Christian
example. But instead of employing this _one way_ of winning those
who have remained outside the fold of Christianity, men of our epoch
have done just the opposite.
In order to convert uncivilized nations who do us no harm, whom we
have no motive for oppressing, we ought, above all, to leave them
in peace, and act upon them only by our showing them an example of
the Christian virtues of patience, meekness, temperance, purity, and
brotherly love. Instead of this we begin by seizing their territory,
and establishing among them new marts for our commerce, with the
sole view of furthering our own interests--we, in fact, rob them;
we sell them wine, tobacco, and opium, and thereby demoralize them;
we establish our own customs among them, we teach them violence and
all its lessons; we teach them the animal law of strife, that lowest
depth of human degradation, and do all that we can to conceal the
Christian virtues we possess. Then, having sent them a score of
missionaries, who gabble an absurd clerical jargon, we quote the
results of our attempt to convert the heathen as an indubitable
proof that the truths of Christianity are not adaptable to everyday
life.
And as for those whom we call criminals, who live in our midst,
all that has just been said applies equally to them. There is
only _one way_ to convert them, and that is by means of a public
opinion founded on true Christianity, accompanied by the example of
a sincere Christian life. And by way of preaching this Christian
gospel and confirming it by Christian example, we imprison, we
execute, guillotine, hang; we encourage the masses in idolatrous
religions calculated to stultify them; the government authorizes the
sale of brain-destroying poisons--wine, tobacco, opium; prostitution
is legalized; we bestow land upon those who need it not; surrounded
by misery, we display in our entertainments an unbridled
extravagance; we render impossible in such ways any semblance of a
Christian life, and do our best to destroy Christian ideas already
established; and then, after doing all we can to demoralize men, we
take and confine them like wild beasts in places from which they
cannot escape, and where they will become more brutal than ever;
or we murder the men we have demoralized, and then use them as an
example to illustrate and prove our argument that people are only to
be controlled by violence.
Even so does the ignorant physician act, who, having placed his
patient in the most unsanitary conditions, or having administered
to him poisonous drugs, afterward contends that his patient has
succumbed to the disease, when had he been left to himself he would
have recovered long ago.
Violence, which men regard as an instrument for the support of
Christian life, on the contrary, prevents the social system from
reaching its full and perfect development. The social system is such
as it is, not because of violence, but in spite of it.
Therefore the defenders of the existing social system are
self-deceived when they say that, since violence barely holds the
evil and un-Christian elements of society in awe, its subversion,
and the substitution of the moral influence of public opinion, would
leave us helpless in face of them. They are wrong, because violence
does not protect mankind; but it deprives men of the only possible
chance of an effectual defense by the establishment and propagation
of the Christian principle of life.
"But how can one discard the visible and tangible protection of the
policeman with his baton, and trust to invisible, intangible public
opinion? And, moreover, is not its very existence problematical?
We are all familiar with the actual state of things; whether it be
good or bad we know its faults, and are accustomed to them; we know
how to conduct ourselves, how to act in the present conditions; but
what will happen when we renounce the present organization, and
confide ourselves to something invisible, intangible, and utterly
unfamiliar?"
Men dread the uncertainty into which they would plunge if they
were to renounce the familiar order of things. Certainly were our
situation an assured and stable one, it would be well to dread
the uncertainties of change. But so far from enjoying an assured
position, we know that we are on the verge of a catastrophe.
If we are to give way to fear, then let it be before something that
is really fearful, and not before something that we imagine may be
so.
In fearing to make an effort to escape from conditions that are
fatal to us, only because the future is obscure and unknown, we are
like the passengers of a sinking ship who crowd into the cabin and
refuse to leave it, because they have not the courage to enter the
boat that would carry them to the shore; or like sheep who, in fear
of the fire that has broken out in the farmyard, huddle together in
a corner and will not go out through the open gate.
How can we, who stand on the threshold of a shocking and devastating
social war, before which, as those who are preparing for it tell
us, the horrors of 1793 will pale, talk seriously about the danger
threatened by the natives of Dahomey, the Zulus, and others who live
far away, and who have no intention of attacking us; or about the
few thousands of malefactors, thieves, and murderers--men whom we
have helped to demoralize, and whose numbers are not decreased by
all our courts, prisons, and executions?
Moreover, this anxiety lest the visible protection of the police be
overthrown, is chiefly confined to the inhabitants of cities--that
is, to those who live under abnormal and artificial conditions.
Those who live normally in the midst of nature, dealing with its
forces, require no such protection; they realize how little avails
violence to protect us from the real danger that surrounds us. There
is something morbid in this fear, which arises chiefly from the
false conditions in which most of us have grown up and continue to
live.
A doctor to the insane related how, one day in summer, when he was
about to leave the asylum, the patients accompanied him as far as
the gate that led into the street.
"Come with me into town!" he proposed to them.
The patients agreed, and a little band followed him. But the farther
they went through the streets where they met their sane fellow-men
moving freely to and fro, the more timid they grew, and pressed more
closely around the doctor. At last they begged to be taken back to
the asylum, to their old but accustomed mode of insane life, to
their keepers and their rough ways, to strait jackets and solitary
confinement.
And thus it is with those whom Christianity is waiting to set
free, to whom it offers the untrammeled rational life of the
future, the coming century; they huddle together and cling to their
insane customs, to their factories, courts, and prisons, their
executioners, and their warfare.
They ask: "What security will there be for us when the existing
order has been swept away? What kind of laws are to take the place
of those under which we are now living? Not until we know exactly
how our life is to be ordered will we take a single step toward
making a change." It is as if a discoverer were to insist upon
a detailed description of the region he is about to explore. If
the individual man, while passing from one period of his life to
another, could read the future and know just what his whole life
were to be, he would have no reason for living. And so it is with
the career of humanity. If, upon entering a new period, a program
detailing the incidents of its future existence were possible,
humanity would stagnate.
We cannot know the conditions of the new order of things, because
we have to work them out for ourselves. The meaning of life is to
search out that which is hidden, and then to conform our activity to
our new knowledge. This is the life of the individual as it is the
life of humanity.
CHAPTER XI
CHRISTIAN PUBLIC OPINION ALREADY ARISES IN OUR SOCIETY, AND WILL
INEVITABLY DESTROY THE SYSTEM OF VIOLENCE OF OUR LIFE. WHEN THIS
WILL COME ABOUT
The condition and organization of our society is shocking; it
is upheld by public opinion, but can be abolished by it--Men's
views in regard to violence have already changed; the number of
men ready to serve the governments decreases, and functionaries
of government themselves begin to be ashamed of their position,
to the point of often not fulfilling their duties--These facts,
signs of the birth of a public opinion, which, in becoming
more and more general, will lead finally to the impossibility
of finding men willing to serve governments--It becomes more
and more clear that such positions are no longer needed--Men
begin to realize the uselessness of all the institutions of
violence; and if this is realized by a few men, it will later
be understood by all--The time when the deliverance will be
accomplished is unknown, but it depends on men themselves; it
depends on how much each man is willing to live by the light
that is within him.
The position of the Christian nations, with their prisons, their
gallows, their factories, their accumulations of capital, taxes,
churches, taverns, and public brothels, their increasing armaments,
and their millions of besotted men, ready, like dogs, to spring
at a word from the master, would be shocking indeed if it were the
result of violence; but such a state of things is, before all, the
result of public opinion; and what has been established by public
opinion not only may be, but will be, overthrown by it.
Millions and millions of money, tens of millions of disciplined
soldiers, marvelous weapons of destruction, an infinitely perfected
organization, legions of men charged to delude and hypnotize the
people,--this is all under the control of men who believe that this
organization is advantageous for them, who know that without it they
would disappear, and who therefore devote all their energy to its
maintenance. What an indomitable array of power it seems! And yet
we have but to realize whither we are fatally tending, for men to
become as much ashamed of acts of violence, and to profit by them,
as they are ashamed now of dishonesty, theft, beggary, cowardice;
and the whole complicated and apparently omnipotent system will die
at once without any struggle. To accomplish this transformation it
is not necessary that any new ideas should find their way into the
human consciousness, but only that the mist which now veils the true
significance of violence should lift, in order that the growing
Christian public opinion and methods may conquer the methods of the
pagan world. And this is gradually coming to pass. We do not observe
it, as we do not observe the movement of things when we are turning,
and everything around us is turning as well.
It is true that the social organization seems for the most part as
much under the influence of violence as it seemed a thousand years
ago, and in respect of armaments and war seems even more; but the
Christian view of life is already having its effect. The withered
tree, to all appearance, stands as firmly as ever; it seems even
firmer, because it has grown harder, but it is already rotten at the
heart and preparing to fall. It is the same with the present mode
of life based upon violence. The outward position of man appears
the same. There are the same oppressors, the same oppressed, but
the feeling of both classes in regard to their respective positions
has undergone a change. The oppressors, that is, those who take
part in the government, and those who are benefited by oppression,
the wealthy classes, do not constitute, as formerly, the _élite_
of society, nor does their condition suggest that ideal of human
prosperity and greatness to which formerly all the oppressed
aspired. Now, it often happens that the oppressors renounce of their
own accord the advantages of their position, choosing the position
of the oppressed, and endeavor, by the simplicity of their mode of
life, to resemble them.
Not to speak of those offices and positions generally considered
contemptible, such as that of the spy, the detective, the usurer,
or the keeper of a tavern, a great many of the positions held by
the oppressors, and formerly considered honorable, such as those of
police officers, courtiers, judges, administrative functionaries,
ecclesiastical or military, masters on a large scale, and bankers,
are not only considered little enviable, but are already avoided
by estimable men. Already there are men who choose to renounce
such once envied positions, preferring others which, although less
advantageous, are not associated with violence.
It is not merely such as these who renounce their privileges; men
influenced, not by religious motives, as was the case in former
ages, but by growing public opinion, refuse to accept fortunes
fallen to them by inheritance, because they believe that a man ought
to possess only the fruits of his own labor.
High-minded youths, not as yet depraved by life, when about to
choose a career, prefer the professions of doctors, engineers,
teachers, artists, writers, or even of farmers, who live by their
daily toil, to the positions of judges, administrators, priests,
soldiers in the pay of government; they decline even the position of
living on their income.
Most of the monuments at the present day are no longer erected in
honor of statesmen or generals, still less of men of wealth, but to
scientists, artists, and inventors, to men who not only had nothing
in common with government or authority, but who frequently opposed
it. It is to their memory that the arts are thus consecrated.
The class of men who will govern, and of rich men, tends every day
to grow less numerous, and so far as intellect, education, and
especially morality, are concerned, rich men and men in power are
not the most distinguished members of society, as was the case
in olden times. In Russia and Turkey, as in France and America,
notwithstanding the frequent changes of officials, the greater
number are often covetous and venal, and so little to be commended
from the point of view of morality that they do not satisfy even the
elementary exigencies of honesty demanded in government posts. Thus
one hears often the ingenuous complaints of those in government that
the best men among us, strangely enough as it seems to them, are
always found among those opposed to them. It is as if one complained
that it is not the nice, good people who become hangmen.
Rich men of the present day, as a general thing, are mere vulgar
amassers of wealth, for the most part having but little care beyond
that of increasing their capital, and that most often by impure
means; or are the degenerate inheritors, who, far from playing an
important part in society, often incur general contempt.
Many positions have lost their ancient importance. Kings and
emperors now hardly direct at all; they seldom effect internal
changes or modify external policy, leaving the decision of such
questions to the departments of State, or to public opinion. Their
function is reduced to being the representatives of state unity and
power. But even this duty they begin to neglect. Most of them not
only fail to maintain themselves in their former unapproachable
majesty, but they grow more and more democratic, they prefer even to
be bourgeois; they lay down thus their last distinction, destroying
precisely what they are expected to maintain.
The same may be said of the army. The high officers, instead of
encouraging the roughness and cruelty of the soldiers, which befit
their occupation, promote the diffusion of education among them,
preach humanity, often sympathize with the socialistic ideas of
the masses, and deny the utility of war. In the late conspiracies
against the Russian government many of those concerned were military
men. It often happens, as it did recently, that the troops, when
called upon to establish order, refuse to fire on the people.
The barrack code of ideas is frankly deprecated by military men
themselves, who often enough make it the subject of derision.
The same may be said of judges and lawyers. Judges, whose duty it
is to judge and condemn criminals, conduct their trials in such a
fashion as to prove them innocent; thus the Russian government,
when it desires the condemnation of those it wishes to punish,
never confides them to the ordinary tribunals; it tries them by
court-martial, which is but a parody of justice. The same may be
said of lawyers, who often refuse to accuse, and, twisting round
the law, defend those they should accuse. Learned jurists, whose
duty it is to justify the violence of authority, deny more and more
frequently the right of punishment, and in its place introduce
theories of irresponsibility, often prescribing, not punishment, but
medical treatment for so-called criminals.
Jailers and turnkeys in convict prisons often become the protectors
of those it is a part of their business to torture. Policemen
and detectives are constantly saving those they ought to arrest.
Ecclesiastics preach tolerance; they often deny the right of
violence, and the more educated among them attempt in their sermons
to avoid the deception which constitutes all the meaning of their
position, and which they are expected to preach. Executioners
refuse to perform their duty; the result is that often in Russia
death-warrants cannot be carried out for lack of executioners,
for, notwithstanding all the advantages of the position, the
candidates, who are chosen from convicts, diminish in number every
year. Governors, commissioners, and tax-collectors, pitying the
people, often try to find pretexts for remitting the taxes. Rich
men no longer dare to use their wealth for themselves alone, but
sacrifice a part of it to social charities. Landowners establish
hospitals and schools on their estates, and some even renounce their
estates and bestow them on the cultivators of the soil, or establish
agricultural colonies upon them. Manufacturers and mill-owners found
schools, hospitals, and savings-banks, institute pensions, and build
houses for the workmen; some start associations of which the profits
are equally divided among all. Capitalists expend a portion of their
wealth on educational, artistic, and philanthropic institutions for
the public benefit. Many men who are unwilling to part with their
riches during their lifetime bequeath them to public institutions.
These facts might be deemed the result of chance were it not that
they all originate from one source, as, when certain trees begin
to bud in the spring of the year, we might believe it accidental,
only we know the cause; and that if on some trees the buds begin to
swell, we know that the same thing will happen to all of them.
Even so is it in regard to Christian public opinion and its
manifestations. If this public opinion already influences some of
the more sensitive men, and makes each one in his own sphere decline
the advantages obtained by violence or its use, it will continue to
influence men more and more, until it brings about a change in their
mode of life and reconciles it with that Christian consciousness
already possessed by the most advanced.
And if there are already rulers who do not venture on any
undertaking on their own responsibility, and who try to be like
ordinary men rather than monarchs, who declare themselves ready to
give up their prerogatives and become the first citizens of their
country, and soldiers who, realizing all the sin and evil of war,
do not wish to kill either foreigners or their fellow-countrymen,
judges and lawyers who do not wish to accuse and condemn criminals,
priests who evade preaching lies, tax-gatherers who endeavor to
fulfil as gently as possible what they are called upon to do, and
rich men who give up their wealth, then surely it will ultimately
come to pass that other rulers, soldiers, priests, and rich men will
follow their example. And when there are no more men ready to occupy
positions supported by violence, the positions themselves will cease
to exist.
But this is not the only way by which public opinion leads toward
the abolition of the existing system, and the substitution of a new
one. As the positions supported by violence become by degrees less
and less attractive, and there are fewer and fewer applicants to
fill them, their uselessness becomes more and more apparent.
We have to-day the same rulers and governments, the same armies,
courts of law, tax-gatherers, priests, wealthy landowners,
manufacturers, and capitalists as formerly, but their relative
positions are changed.
The same rulers go about to their various interviews, they have the
same meetings, hunts, festivities, balls, and uniforms; the same
diplomatists have the same conversations about alliances and armies;
the same parliaments, in which Eastern and African questions are
discussed, and questions in regard to alliances, ruptures, "Home
Rule," the eight-hour day. Changes of ministry take place just as of
old, accompanied by the same speeches and incidents. But to those
who know how an article in a newspaper changes perhaps the position
of affairs more than dozens of royal interviews and parliamentary
sessions, it becomes more and more evident that it is not these
meetings, interviews, and parliamentary discussions that control
affairs, but something independent of all this, something which has
no local habitation.
The same generals, officers, soldiers, cannon, fortresses, parades,
and evolutions. But one year elapses, ten, twenty years elapse, and
there is no war. And troops are less and less to be relied on to
suppress insurrection, and it becomes more and more evident that
generals, officers, and soldiers are only figure-heads in triumphal
processions, the plaything of a sovereign, a sort of unwieldy and
expensive _corps-de-ballet_.
The same lawyers and judges, and the same sessions, but it becomes
more and more evident that as civil courts make decisions in a great
variety of causes without anxiety about purely legal justice, and
that criminal courts are useless, because the punishment does not
produce the desired result, therefore these institutions have no
other object than the maintenance of men incapable of doing other
things more useful.
The same priests, bishops, churches, and synods, but it becomes more
and more evident to all that these men themselves have long since
ceased to believe what they preach, and are therefore unable to
persuade any one of the necessity of believing what they no longer
believe themselves.
The same tax-gatherers, but more and more incapable of extorting
money from the people by force, and it becomes more and more evident
that, without such collectors, it would be possible to obtain by
voluntary contribution all that is required for social needs.
The same rich men, and yet it becomes more and more evident
that they can be useful only when they cease to be personal
administrators of their possessions, and surrender to society their
wealth in whole or part.
When this becomes as plain to all men as it now is to a few, the
question will naturally arise: Why should we feed and support all
those emperors, kings, presidents, members of departments, and
ministers, if all their interviews and conversations amount to
nothing? Would it not be better, as some wit expressed it, to set up
an india-rubber queen?
And of what use to us are armies, with their generals, their
musicians, their horses, and drums? Of what use are they when there
is no war, when no one wishes to conquer anybody else? And even if
there were a war, other nations would prevent us from reaping its
advantages; while upon their compatriots the troops would refuse to
fire.
And what is the use of judges and attorneys whose decisions in
civil cases are not according to the law, and who, in criminal ones,
are aware that punishments are of no avail?
And of what use are tax-gatherers who are reluctant to collect the
taxes, when all that is needed could be contributed without their
assistance?
And where is the use of a clergy which has long ceased to believe
what it preaches?
And of what use is capital in the hands of private individuals
when it can be beneficial only when it becomes public property?
Having once asked all these questions, men cannot but arrive at the
conclusion that institutions which have lost their usefulness should
no longer be supported.
And furthermore, men who themselves occupy positions of privilege
come to see the necessity of abandoning them.
One day, in Moscow, I was present at a religious discussion which
is usually held during St. Thomas's week, near the church in the
Okhotny Ryad. A group of perhaps twenty men had gathered on the
pavement, and a serious discussion concerning religion was in
progress. Meanwhile, in the nobles' club near at hand, a concert
was taking place, and a police-officer, having noticed the group of
people gathered near the church, sent a mounted policeman to order
them to disperse,--not that the police-officer cared in the least
whether the group stayed where it was or dispersed. The twenty
men who had gathered inconvenienced no one, but the officer had
been on duty all the morning and felt obliged to do something. The
young policeman, a smart-looking fellow, with his right arm akimbo
and a clanking sword, rode up to us, calling out in an imperative
tone: "Disperse, you fellows! What business have you to gather
there?" Every one turned to look at him, while one of the speakers,
a modest-looking man in a peasant's coat, replied calmly and
pleasantly: "We are talking about business, and there is no reason
why we should disperse; it might be better for you, my young friend,
if you were to jump off from your horse and to listen to us. Very
likely it would do you good;" and turning away he continued the
conversation. The policeman turned his horse without a word and rode
away.
Such scenes as this must be of frequent occurrence in countries
where violence is employed. The officer was bored; he had nothing
to do, and the poor fellow was placed in a position where he felt
in duty bound to give orders. He was deprived of a rational human
existence; he could do nothing but look on and give orders, give
orders and look on, although both were works of supererogation. It
will not be long before all those unfortunate rulers, ministers,
members of parliaments, governors, generals, officers, bishops,
priests, and even rich men, will find themselves--indeed they
have already done so--in precisely the same position. Their
sole occupation consists in issuing orders; they send out their
subordinates, like the officer who sent the policeman to interfere
with the people; and as the people with whom they interfere ask not
to be interfered with, this seems to their official intelligence
only to prove that they are very necessary.
But the time will surely come when it will be perfectly evident to
every one that they are not only useless, but an actual impediment,
and those whose course they obstruct will say gently and pleasantly,
like the man in the peasant's coat: "We beg that you will let us
alone." Then the subordinates as well as their instructors will find
themselves compelled to take the good advice that is offered them,
cease to prance about among men with their arms akimbo, and having
discarded their glittering livery, listen to what is said among men,
and unite with them to help to promote the serious work of the world.
Sooner or later the time will surely come when all the present
institutions supported by violence will cease to be; their too
evident uselessness, absurdity, and even unseemliness, will finally
destroy them.
There must come a time when the same thing that happened to the king
in Andersen's fairy tale, "The King's New Clothes," will happen to
men occupying positions created by violence.
The tale tells of a king who cared enormously for new clothes, and
to whom one day came two tailors who agreed to make him a suit woven
from a wonderful stuff. The king engaged them and they set to work,
saying that the stuff possessed the remarkable quality of becoming
invisible to any one unfit for the office he holds. The courtiers
came to inspect the work of the tailors, but could see nothing,
because these men were drawing their needles through empty space.
However, remembering the consequences, they all pretended to see the
cloth and to be very much pleased with it. Even the king himself
praised it. The hour appointed for the procession when he was to
walk wearing his new garment arrived. The king took off his clothes
and put on the new ones--that is, he remained naked all the while,
and thus he went in procession. But remembering the consequences, no
one had the courage to say that he was not dressed, until a little
child, catching sight of the naked king, innocently exclaimed, "But
he has nothing on!" Whereupon all the others who had known this
before, but had not acknowledged it, could no longer conceal the
fact.
Thus will it be with those who, through inertia, continue to
fill offices that have long ceased to be of any consequence,
until some chance observer, who happens not to be engaged, as the
Russian proverb has it, in "washing one hand with the other," will
ingenuously exclaim, "It is a long time since these men were good
for anything!"
The position of the Christian world, with its fortresses, cannon,
dynamite, guns, torpedoes, prisons, gallows, churches, factories,
custom-houses, and palaces is monstrous. But neither fortresses nor
cannon nor guns by themselves can make war, nor can the prisons lock
their gates, nor the gallows hang, nor the churches themselves lead
men astray, nor the custom-houses claim their dues, nor palaces and
factories build and support themselves; all these operations are
performed by men. And when men understand that they need not make
them, then these things will cease to be.
And already men are beginning to understand this. If not yet
understood by all, it is already understood by those whom the rest
of the world eventually follows. And it is impossible to cease to
understand what once has been understood, and the masses not only
can, but inevitably must, follow where those who have understood
have already led the way.
Hence the prophecy: that a time will come when all men will hearken
unto the word of God, will forget the arts of war, will melt their
swords into plowshares and their lances into reaping-hooks;--which,
being translated, means when all the prisons, the fortresses, the
barracks, the palaces, and the churches will remain empty, the
gallows and the cannon will be useless. This is no longer a mere
Utopia, but a new and definite system of life, toward which mankind
is progressing with ever increasing rapidity.
But when will it come?
Eighteen hundred years ago Christ, in answer to this question,
replied that the end of the present world--that is, of the pagan
system--would come when the miseries of man had increased to their
utmost limit; and when, at the same time, the good news of the
Kingdom of Heaven--that is, of the possibility of a new system,
one not founded upon violence--should be proclaimed throughout the
earth.[20]
[20] Matt. xxiv. 3-28.
"But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of
heaven, but my Father only,"[21] said Christ. "Watch therefore: for
ye know not what hour your Lord doth come."
[21] Matt. xxiv. 36.
When will the hour arrive? Christ said that we cannot know. And for
that very reason we should hold ourselves in readiness to meet it,
as the goodman should watch his house against thieves, or like the
virgins who await with their lamps the coming of the bridegroom;
and, moreover, we should work with all our might to hasten the
coming of that hour, as the servants should use the talents they
have received that they may increase.[22]
[22] Matt. xxiv. 43; xxv. 1--13, 14-30.
And there can be no other answer. The day and the hour of the advent
of the Kingdom of God men cannot know, since the coming of that hour
depends only on men themselves.
The reply is like that of the wise man who, when the traveler asked
him how far he was from the city, answered, "Go on!"
How can we know if it is still far to the goal toward which humanity
is aiming, when we do not know how it will move toward it; that it
depends on humanity whether it moves steadily onward or pauses,
whether it accelerates or retards its pace.
All that we can know is what we who form humanity should or should
not do in order to bring about this Kingdom of God. And that we all
know; for each one has but to begin to do his duty, each one has but
to live according to the light that is within him, to bring about
the immediate advent of the promised Kingdom of God, for which the
heart of every man yearns.
CHAPTER XII
CONCLUSION
"REPENT, FOR THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN IS AT HAND!"
1
Encounter with a train carrying soldiers to establish order
among famine-stricken peasants--The cause of the disorder--How
the mandates of the higher authorities are carried out in case
of peasants' resistance--The affair at Orel as an example of
violence and murder committed for the purpose of asserting the
rights of the rich--All the advantages of the rich are founded
on like acts of violence.
2
The Tula train and the behavior of the persons composing it--How
men can behave as these do--The reasons are neither ignorance,
nor cruelty, nor cowardice, nor lack of comprehension or of
moral sense--They do these things because they think them
necessary to maintain the existing system, to support which
they believe to be every man's duty--On what the belief of the
necessity and immutability of the existing order of things is
founded--For the upper classes it is based on the advantages
it affords them--But what compels men of the lower classes to
believe in the immutability of this system, when they derive
no advantage from it, and maintain it with acts contrary to
their conscience?--The reason lies in the deceit practised by
the upper classes upon the lower in regard to the necessity
of the existing order, and the legitimacy of acts of violence
for its maintenance--General deception--Special deception--The
conscription.
3
How men reconcile the legitimacy of murder with the precepts of
morality, and how they admit the existence in their midst of a
military organization for purposes of violence which incessantly
threatens the safety of society--Admitted only by the powers
for whom the present organization is advantageous--Violence
sanctioned by the higher authorities and carried out by the
lower, notwithstanding the knowledge of its immorality, because,
owing to the organization of the State, the moral responsibility
is divided among a large number of participants, each of whom
considers some other than himself responsible--Moreover, the
loss of consciousness of moral responsibility is also due to a
mistaken opinion as to the inequality of men, the consequent
abuse of power by the authorities, and servility of the lower
classes--The condition of men who commit acts contrary to their
conscience is like the condition of a hypnotized person acting
under the influence of suggestion--In what does submission to
the suggestion of the State differ from submission to men of a
higher order of consciousness or to public opinion?--The present
system, which is the outcome of ancient public opinion, and
which is already in contradiction to the modern, is maintained
only through torpor of conscience, induced by auto-suggestion
among the upper classes, and by the hypnotization of the
lower--The conscience or intelligent consciousness of these
men may awaken, and there are instances when it does awaken;
therefore it cannot be said that any one of them will, or will
not, do what he sets out to do--Everything depends on the degree
of comprehension of the illegitimacy of the acts of violence,
and this consciousness in men may either awaken spontaneously or
be roused by those already awakened.
4
Everything depends upon the strength of conviction of each
individual man in regard to Christian truth--But the advanced
men of the present day consider it unnecessary to explain
and profess Christian truth, regarding it sufficient for the
improvement of human life to change its outward conditions
within the limits allowed by power--Upon this scientific theory
of hypocrisy, which has taken the place of the hypocrisy of
religion, men of the wealthy classes base the justification of
their position--In consequence of this hypocrisy, maintained by
violence and falsehood, they can pretend before each other to
be Christians, and rest content--The same hypocrisy allows men
who preach the Christian doctrine to take part in a _régime_
of violence--No external improvements of life can make it
less miserable; its miseries are caused by disunion; disunion
springs from following falsehood instead of truth--Union
is possible only in truth--Hypocrisy forbids such a union,
for while remaining hypocrites, men conceal from themselves
and others the truth they know--Hypocrisy changes into evil
everything destined to ameliorate life--It perverts the
conception of right and wrong, and therefore is a bar to the
perfection of men--Acknowledged malefactors and criminals do
less harm than those who live by legalized violence cloaked by
hypocrisy--All recognize the iniquity of our life, and would
long since have modified it, if it were not covered by the cloak
of hypocrisy--But it seems as if we had reached the limits of
hypocrisy, and have but to make an effort of consciousness in
order to awaken--like the man who has nightmare--to a different
reality.
5
Can man make this effort?--According to the existing
hypocritical theory, man is not free to change his life--He
is not free in his acts, but is always free to acknowledge or
disregard certain truths already known to him--The recognition
of truth is the cause of action--The cause of the apparent
insolvability of the question of man's freedom--It lies only
in the acknowledgment of the truth revealed unto him--No other
freedom exists--The acknowledgment of the truth gives freedom,
and points the way in which a man, willingly or unwillingly,
must walk--The recognition of truth and of true freedom allows
man to become a participant of the work of God, to be not the
slave but a creator of life--Men have but to forego the attempt
to improve the external conditions of life, and direct all their
energies toward the recognition and profession of the truth
that is known to them, and the present painful system of life
will vanish forthwith, and that portion of the Kingdom of God
which is accessible to men would be established--One has only to
cease lying and shamming to accomplish this--But what awaits us
in the future?--What will happen to mankind when they begin to
obey the dictates of their conscience, and how will they exist
without the customary conditions of civilization?--Nothing truly
good and beneficial can perish because of the realization of the
truth, but will only increase in strength when freed from the
admixture of falsehood and hypocrisy.
6
Our system of life has reached the limit of misery, and cannot
be ameliorated by any pagan reorganization--All our life, with
its pagan institutions, is devoid of meaning--Are we obeying
the will of God in maintaining our present privileges and
obligations?--We are in this position, not because such is
the law of the universe, that it is inevitable, but because
we wish it, because it is advantageous for some of us--All
our consciousness contradicts this, and our deliverance
consists in acknowledging the Christian truth, not to do to
one's neighbor that which one would not have done to one's
self--As our obligations in regard to ourselves should be
subordinate to our obligations to others, so in like manner our
obligations to others should be subordinate to our obligations
to God--Deliverance from our position consists, if not in
giving up our position and its rights at once, at least in
acknowledging our guilt, and neither lying nor trying to justify
ourselves--The true significance of our life consists in knowing
and professing the truth, whereas our approval of, and our
activity in, the service of the State takes all meaning from
life--God demands that we serve Him, that is, that we seek to
establish the greatest degree of union among all human beings,
which union is possible only in truth.
I was just putting the finishing touches to this two years' work
when, on the 9th day of September,[23] I had occasion to go by
rail to visit districts in the governments of Tula and Ryazan,
where certain peasants were suffering from last year's famine, and
others were enduring still greater suffering from the same causes
this year.[24] At one of the stations the train in which I was a
passenger met the express, which carried the Governor and troops
supplied with rods and loaded rifles for torturing and murdering the
famine-stricken peasants.
[23] 1892.--Tr.
[24] 1893.
Although corporal punishment was legally abolished in Russia
thirty years ago, the custom of flogging as a means of making the
decisions of authority respected has been revived, and has of late
been frequently employed. I had heard of it, had read in the papers
of the frightful tortures of which the Governor of Nijni-Novgorod,
Baranov, has gone so far as to boast, and of the tortures that have
been inflicted in Tchernigov, Tambov, Saratov, Astrakhan, and Orel,
but I had never yet witnessed, as I did now, how these things were
actually done.
And I myself saw well-meaning Russians, penetrated with the spirit
of Christ, but armed with muskets and carrying rods, on their way to
murder and torture their starving brothers.
The pretext was as follows:--
On the estate of a rich landowner, upon a piece of ground held by
him in common with the peasants, a forest had been allowed to grow.
(When I say that the forest "grew," I mean that the peasants had
not only planted it, but had continued to take care of it.) They
had always had the use of it, and therefore looked upon it as their
own, or at least as common property; but the landowner, confiscating
it entirely to himself, began to cut down the trees. The peasants
lodged a complaint. The judge of the lower court pronounced an
illegal decision (I call it illegal on the authority of the
Procureur[25] and the Governor, who surely ought to understand the
case) in favor of the landowner. The higher courts, as well as the
Senate, although they could see that the case had been unfairly
tried, confirmed the decision, and the wood was awarded to the
landowner, who continued to fell the trees. But the peasants,
believing it impossible that such an injustice could be perpetrated
by the higher magistrates, refused to submit to the decision, and
drove away the workmen sent to cut down the trees, saying that the
forest belonged to them, and that they would appeal to the Czar
himself before they would allow it to be touched.
[25] Attorney-General.
The case was reported to St. Petersburg, from whence the Governor
received the order to enforce the decision of the courts, and in
order to execute the command, asked for troops.
Hence these soldiers who, armed with bayonets and provided with
cartridges and rods expressly prepared for the occasion and stored
in one of the vans, were on their way to enforce the decision of
the higher authorities. The execution of an order from the ruling
powers can be accomplished either by threats of torture and death,
or by the enforcement of those threats, according to the degree of
resistance on the part of the people.
If, for instance, in Russia (it is practically the same in other
lands where state authority and the rights of ownership exist), the
peasants offer to resist, the result is as follows: The superior
officer makes a speech and orders them to obey. The excited crowd,
accustomed to be duped by those in high places, understands not
a word that the representative of authority is saying in his
official, conventional language, and is by no means pacified.
Whereupon the commanding officer declares that unless they submit
and disperse, he will be forced to have recourse to arms. If the
crowd still refuses to yield and does not disperse, he orders his
men to load the muskets and to fire over their heads, and then, if
the peasants still stand their ground, he orders the soldiers to
aim at the crowds; they fire, and men fall wounded and killed in
the street. The crowd is dispersed, the soldiers, carrying out the
orders of their commanders, having laid hands upon those whom they
suppose to be the chief instigators, and arrested them. The dying,
stained with blood, the wounded, mutilated, and dead, among whom
are often women and children, are picked up. The dead are buried,
the wounded sent to the hospitals. Those who are supposed to be the
ringleaders are taken to the city and court-martialed, and if proved
that they have used violence, they are summarily hung. This has
happened in Russia repeatedly, and similar scenes must take place
wherever the system of government is based upon violence. Such is
the course adopted in cases of revolt.
If, on the other hand, the peasants submit, the scene that ensues
is entirely original and peculiarly Russian. The Governor, on his
arrival at the place, either quarters the soldiers in the different
houses of the village, where their maintenance ruins the peasants,
or, satisfied by threatening the people, he graciously pardons
them and departs. Or, as more frequently happens, he addresses the
multitude, upbraids it for disobedience, and announces that the
ringleaders must be punished; he seizes a certain number of men
considered as such, and without any form of trial causes them to be
beaten with rods in his presence.
In order to give an idea of the manner in which such an affair
is conducted, I will describe an instance of the kind which
happened in Orel, which was approved by the higher authorities.
Like the landowner in Tula, the landed proprietor at Orel chose
to take possession of the peasants' property, and here, too, as
in the former instance, the peasants resisted. In this case, the
landowner, without the consent of the peasants, wished to dam up,
for the benefit of his mill, a flow of water which supplied the
meadows. The peasants resisted this.
The landlord lodged a complaint with the rural commissary, who
illegally (as was afterward admitted by the court) decided the case
in favor of the landowner, giving him leave to divert the water. The
landowner sent workmen to close the channel through which the water
descended. The peasants, excited at this unfair judgment, sent their
women to prevent the landowner's men from damming the channel. The
women proceeded to the dam, upset the carts, and drove the workmen
away. The landowner entered a complaint against them for committing
a lawless act. The rural commissary gave the order to arrest and
lock up in the village jail one woman out of every family,--an order
rather difficult to execute, since each family included several
women; and as it was impossible to tell which of them to arrest, the
police could not fulfil the order. The landowner complained to the
Governor of the laxity of the police. The Governor, without stopping
to consider the case, gave strict orders to the _Ispravnik_ to
carry out at once the orders of the rural commissary. In obedience
to his superior the _Ispravnik_ arrived in the village, and with
that contempt for the individual peculiar to Russian authorities,
ordered the police to seize the first women they could. Disputes
and resistance arose. The _Ispravnik_, paying no attention to
this, persisted in his order that the police should take one
woman, innocent or guilty, from every household, and put her under
arrest. The peasants defended their wives and mothers; they refused
to give them up, and resisted the police and the _Ispravnik_.
Thus another and a greater offense was committed,--resistance to
authority,--which was at once reported in town. Then the Governor,
just as I saw the Governor of Tula, with a battalion of soldiers
supplied with rods and muskets, backed by all due accessories of
telegraph and telephone, accompanied by a learned physician who was
to superintend the flogging from a medical standpoint, started
on an express train for the spot, like the modern Genghis Khan
predicted by Herzen. In the _Volostnoye Pravlenie_[26] were the
soldiers, a detachment of police with their revolvers suspended on
red cords, the principal peasants of the neighborhood, and the men
accused. Around them had collected a crowd of perhaps a thousand.
[26] House of the rural communal government.
Driving up to the house of the _Volostnoye Pravlenie_, the Governor
alighted from his carriage and delivered an address, which had been
prepared in advance, after which he inquired for the criminals, and
ordered a bench to be brought. No one understood what he meant until
the policeman, who always accompanied the Governor and made all the
arrangements for the punishments which had already been enforced
several times in the government of Orel, explained that the bench
was to be used for flogging. This bench and the rods that had been
brought by the party were both produced. The executioners had been
previously selected from certain horse-thieves taken from the same
village, the military having refused to do the business.
When all was ready the Governor bade the first of the twelve men who
were pointed out to him by the landowner as the ringleaders to step
forward. It so happened that he was the father of a family, a man
forty-five years of age, respected in the community, whose rights he
had manfully defended.
He was led to the bench, stripped, and ordered to lie down.
He would have begged for mercy, but realizing how little it
would avail, he made the sign of the cross and stretched himself
out on the bench. Two policemen held him down, and the learned
doctor stood by, ready in case of need to give his scientific
assistance. The executioners having spat upon their hands, swung
the rods, and the flogging began. The bench, it seemed, was too
narrow, and it was found difficult to keep the writhing victim,
whose muscles twitched convulsively, from falling off. Then the
Governor ordered to be brought another bench, to which a plank
was adjusted in such a way as to support it. The soldiers, ever
ready with their continual salutes and responses of "Yes, your
Excellency," swiftly and obediently executed the orders, while in
the meantime the half-naked, pale, and suffering man, trembling,
with contracted brows and downcast eyes, stood by waiting. When the
bench was readjusted, he was again stretched out upon it, and the
horse-stealers renewed their blows. His back, his legs, and even his
sides were covered with bleeding wounds, and every blow was followed
by the muffled groan which he could no longer repress. In the crowd
that stood by one could hear the sobs of the wife and mother, the
children, and the kinsfolk of the man, as well as of all who had
been called to witness the punishment.
The wretched Governor, intoxicated with power, who had no doubt
convinced himself of the necessity for this performance, counted the
strokes on his fingers, while he smoked cigarette after cigarette,
for the lighting of which several obliging persons hastened to offer
him a burning match.
After fifty blows had been given, the peasant lay motionless,
without uttering a sound, and the doctor, who had been educated in
a government school that he might devote his scientific knowledge
to the service of his country and his sovereign, approached the
tortured man, felt his pulse, listened to the beating of his heart,
and reported to the representative of authority that the victim had
become unconscious, and declared that, from a scientific point of
view, it might prove dangerous to prolong the punishment. But the
unfortunate Governor, utterly intoxicated by the sight of blood,
ordered the flogging to go on until seventy strokes had been given,
the number which he for some reason deemed necessary. After the
seventieth blow the Governor said:--
"That will do! Now bring on the next one!"
They raised the mutilated and unconscious man, with his swollen
back, and carried him away, and the next was brought forward. The
sobs and groans of the crowd increased, but the tortures were
continued.
So it went on until each of the twelve men had received seventy
strokes. They begged for mercy, they groaned and screamed. The
sobs and moans of the women grew louder and more heartrending, and
the faces of the men of the crowd more gloomy. But there stood the
troops, and the torture did not cease until it had seemed sufficient
to the unfortunate, half-intoxicated, erring man called the Governor.
Not only did the magistrates, the officers, and the soldiers
sanction this act by their presence, but they took part in it,
preventing the crowd from interfering with the order of its
execution.
When I asked one of the chief officials why these tortures were
inflicted after the men had already submitted, he replied, with
the significant air of a man who understands all the fine points
of political wisdom, that it was done because it had been proved
by experience that if the peasants are not punished they will
soon begin again to oppose the decrees of authority, and that the
punishment of a few strengthens forever the power of authority.
And now I saw the Governor of Tula, with his clerks, officers, and
soldiers, on his way to perform a similar act. Once more by murder
or torture the sentence of the higher authorities was to be carried
out,--a sentence whose object was to enable a young landowner, the
possessor of a yearly income of 100,000 roubles, to receive 3000
more for a tract of wood of which he had basely defrauded a whole
community of needy and starving peasants, the price of which he
would squander in a few weeks in the restaurants of St. Petersburg,
Moscow, and Paris. Such was the errand of the men I met.
It would seem as if there must be some purpose in this encounter,
when, after two years of incessant contemplation, of continuous
thought in one direction, fate should, for the first time in
my life, bring me face to face with this phenomenon, a living
illustration of the theory I have so long cherished; namely, that
the entire organization of our life rests, not on any principle of
justice, as men who occupy and enjoy advantageous positions under
the existing system like to imagine, but on the rudest and most
barefaced violence, on the murder and torture of human beings.
Those who possess large estates and large capital, or who receive
high salaries collected from the needy working-classes, from the
people who often lack the necessaries of life; merchants, clerks,
doctors, lawyers, artists, scientists, writers, coachmen, cooks, and
valets, who earn their living in the service of rich men,--fondly
believe that the privileges which they enjoy are not the outcome
of violence, but the natural result of a voluntary interchange of
services; that these privileges are by no means the result of the
outrages and floggings endured by their fellow-men, such as took
place last summer, in Russia, in Orel and elsewhere, as the like
took place in many parts of Europe and America. They prefer to
believe that the privileges they enjoy are the spontaneous result
of a mutual agreement among men; that violence is only the natural
result of certain universal and superior laws, judicial, political,
or economic. They try not to see that the privileges they possess
are only held by them in consequence of some circumstance, not
unlike that which compelled the peasants, who had tended the growing
forest and greatly needed it, to surrender it to the rich landowner,
who had taken no pains to preserve it, and who did not require
it for his own use; men who will either be flogged or murdered
if they refuse to surrender it. Now, if it is an undeniable fact
that the mill in Orel was made to yield an increased income to the
proprietor, and that the forest raised by the peasants was given to
the landowner only because of the flogging and the executions either
threatened or actually suffered, then it must be equally evident
that all the other exclusive rights of the rich, which deprive the
poor of the bare necessaries of life, rest on the same basis.
If the peasants who need land in order to support their families
may not cultivate the land around them, and if land sufficient to
feed a thousand families is in the hands of one man, a Russian, an
Englishman, an Austrian, a rich landowner of whatever nationality;
and if the merchant who buys grain from the needy grower keeps
it in his warehouses in the midst of a destitute and famishing
population, or sells it for three times its value to those of whom
he bought it at the lowest price,--it evidently springs from the
same cause.
And if, beyond a certain line called the frontier, one man is not
allowed to purchase certain goods without paying duties to other
men who have nothing to do with their production, and if a man is
obliged to part with his last cow in order to pay taxes which are
distributed by the government among its officials, or used for
the support of soldiers who may kill the taxpayers, it would seem
evident that all this is not the result of certain abstract rights,
but of incidents like those which may even now be going on in the
government of Tula, which in one form or another occur periodically
all the world over, wherever state organization exists, and wherever
there are rich and poor.
Owing to the fact that outrage and murder do not accompany all
social relations founded on violence, those who possess the
exclusive privileges of the governing classes assure themselves and
others that the advantages which they enjoy are not the result of
violence and bloodshed, but derived from certain vague and abstract
rights. Still it ought to be evident that if those men, who realize
the injustice of it all (as is the case with the working-classes at
the present day), continue to surrender the greater part of their
earnings to the capitalist and the landowner, and if they pay taxes,
knowing that such taxes are not put to a good use, they do this, not
because they acknowledge the justice of certain abstract rights,
whose meaning is unknown to them, but only because they know that
they will be whipped and put to death if they refuse to comply.
If it is not always necessary to imprison men, to flog them, or to
put them to death when the landowner collects his rents, if the
needy peasant pays a treble price to the merchant who deceives him,
or the mechanic accepts wages absurdly small in comparison with the
income of his master, or the poor man parts with his last rouble
for duties and taxes, it is because he remembers that men have been
flogged and put to death for trying to avoid compliance with what
was demanded of them. Like a caged tiger, who does not touch the
meat that lies before his eyes, and who when he is ordered to leap
over a stick obeys at once, not because he likes it, but because
he has not forgotten past hunger or the red-hot iron which he felt
every time he refused to obey; so it is with men, who, when they
submit to a law which is not for their advantage, to a law which is
disastrous to their interests, or to one which they firmly believe
to be unjust, do so because they remember what they will have to
suffer if they refuse to comply.
Those who benefit by privileges born of violence long since
perpetrated, often forget, and are very glad to forget, how such
privileges were obtained. And yet one has but to recall the annals
of history,--not the history of the exploits of kings, but genuine
history,--the history of the oppression of the majority by the
minority, in order to acknowledge that the scourge, the prison, and
the gallows have been the original and only sources whence all the
advantages of the rich over the poor have sprung. One has but to
remember the persistent and undying passion for gain among men, the
mainspring of human action in these days, to become convinced that
the advantages of the rich over the poor can be maintained in no
other way.
At rare intervals, oppression, flogging, imprisonment, executions,
the direct object of which is not to promote the welfare of the
rich, may possibly occur, but we can positively declare that in
our community, where for every man who lives at ease there are
ten overworked, hungry, and often cruelly suffering families of
working-men, all the privileges of the rich, all their luxury, all
their superfluities, are acquired and maintained only by tortures,
imprisonments, and executions.
The train that I met on the 9th day of September carrying soldiers,
muskets, ammunition, and rods to the famine-stricken peasants, in
order that the wealthy landowner might possess in peace the tract of
wood he had wrested from the peasants, a necessity of life to them,
to him a mere superfluity, affords a vivid proof of the degree to
which men have unconsciously acquired the habit of committing acts
wholly at variance with their convictions and their conscience.
The express consisted of one first-class carriage for the Governor,
officials, and officers, and several vans crowded with soldiers.
The jaunty young fellows in their fresh new uniforms were crowded
together, either standing, or sitting with their legs dangling
outside the wide open sliding doors of the vans. Some were smoking,
laughing, and jesting, some cracking seeds and spitting out the
shells. A few who jumped down upon the platform to get a drink of
water from the tub, meeting some of the officers, slackened their
pace and made that senseless gesture of lifting one hand to the
forehead; then, with serious faces, as though they had been doing
something not only sensible but actually important, they passed by,
watching the officers as they went. Soon they broke into a run,
evidently in high spirits, stamping on the planks of the platform as
they ran, and chatting, as is but natural for good-natured, healthy
young fellows who are making a journey together. These men, who were
on their way to murder starving fathers and grandfathers, seemed as
unconcerned as though they were off on the pleasantest, or at least
the most everyday, business in the world.
The gaily dressed officers and officials who were scattered about
on the platform and in the first-class waiting-room produced the
same impression. At a table laden with bottles sat the Governor, the
commander of the expedition, attired in his semi-military uniform,
eating his luncheon and quietly discussing the weather with some
friends he had met, as though the business that called him hither
was so simple a matter that it could neither ruffle his equanimity
nor diminish his interest in the change of the weather.
At some distance, but tasting no food, sat the chief of the police
with a mournful countenance, seemingly oppressed with the tiresome
formalities. Officers in gaudy, gold-embroidered uniforms moved
to and fro, talking loudly; one group was seated at a table just
finishing a bottle of wine; an officer at the bar who had eaten a
cake brushed away the crumbs that had fallen on his uniform, and
with a self-sufficient air flung a coin upon the counter; some
walked nonchalantly up and down in front of our train looking at the
faces of the women.
All these men on their way to commit murder, or to torture the
starved and defenseless peasants, by whose toil they were supported,
looked as if engaged upon some important business which they were
really proud to execute.
What did it mean?
These men, who were within half an hour's ride of the spot where,
in order to procure for a rich man an extra 3000 roubles, of which
he had no need whatever, which he was unjustly confiscating from
a community of famished peasants, might be obliged to perform the
most shocking deeds that the imagination can conceive,--to murder
and torture, as they did in Orel, innocent men, their brothers.
These men were now calmly approaching the time and place when these
horrors were to begin.
Since the preparations had been made, it could not very well be
claimed that all these men, officers and privates, did not know what
was before them, and what they were expected to do. The Governor had
given orders for the rods, the officials had purchased the birch
twigs, bargained for them, and noted the purchase in their accounts.
In the military department orders had been given and received
concerning ball cartridges. They all knew that they were on their
way to torture and possibly to put to death their brothers exhausted
by famine, and that perhaps in an hour they might begin the work.
To say, as they themselves would say, that they are acting from
principle, from a conviction that the state system must be
maintained, is untrue. Those men, in the first place, have rarely,
if ever, bestowed a single thought upon political science; and
in the second place, because they could never be convinced that
the business on which they are engaged serves to support rather
than destroy the State; and finally, because, as a matter of fact,
the majority of these men, if not all of them, would not only be
unwilling to sacrifice their peace and comfort to maintain the
State, but would never miss the opportunity to promote their own
interests at the expense of the State,--therefore it is not for the
sake of so vague a principle as that of maintaining the State that
they do this.
What, then, does all this mean?
I know these men. I may not know them as individuals, it is
true, yet I know their dispositions, their past lives, their
modes of thought. They have had mothers, some have wives and
children. Actually, they are, for the most part, kindly, gentle,
tender-hearted men, who abhor any kind of cruelty, to say nothing
of killing or torturing; moreover, every one of them professes
Christianity, and considers violence perpetrated against
the defenseless a contemptible and shameful act. Each taken
individually, in everyday life, is not only incapable, for the sake
of personal advantage, of doing one-hundredth part of what was
done by the Governor at Orel, but any one of them would consider
himself insulted if it were suggested that he could be capable of
doing anything like it in private life. And yet they are within
a half-hour's ride of the spot where they will inevitably find
themselves compelled to do such deeds.
What can it mean, then?
It is not only the men on this train who are ready to commit murder
and violence, but those others with whom the affair originated,
the landowner, the steward, the judge, those in St. Petersburg who
issue orders,--the Minister of State, the Czar, also worthy men and
professors of Christianity,--how can they, knowing the consequences,
conceive such a scheme, and direct its execution?
How can they, even, who take no active part in it,--the spectators,
whose indignation would be aroused by accounts of private violence,
even though it be but the ill-usage of a horse,--how can they allow
this shocking business to go on without rising in wrath to resist
it, crying aloud, "No, we will not allow you to flog or to kill
starving men because they refuse to surrender their last property
villainously attempted to be wrested from them!" And not only are
men found willing to do these deeds, but most of them, even the
chief instigators, like the steward, the landowner, the judge, and
those who take part in originating prosecution and punishment, the
Governor, the Minister of State, the Czar, remain perfectly calm,
and show no sign of remorse over such things. And they who are about
to execute this crime are equally calm.
Even the spectators, who, it would seem, have no personal interest
in the matter, look upon these men who are about to take part in
this dastardly business with sympathy rather than with aversion or
condemnation.
In the same compartment with me sat a merchant who dealt in timber,
a peasant by birth, who in loud and decided tones expressed his
approval of the outrage which the peasants were about to suffer.
"The government must be obeyed; that's what it's for. If we pepper
them well, they will never rebel again. It's no more than they
deserve!" he said.
What did it all mean?
It could not be said that all these men, the instigators, the
participants, the accomplices in this business, were rascals, who,
in defiance of conscience, realizing the utter abomination of the
act, were, either from mercenary motives or from fear of punishment,
determined to commit it. Any man of them would, given the requisite
circumstances, stand up for his convictions. Not one of those
officials would steal a purse, or read another man's letter, or
endure an insult without demanding satisfaction from the offender.
Not one of those officers would cheat at cards, or neglect to pay a
gambling debt, or betray a companion, or flee from the battlefield,
or abandon a flag. Not one of those soldiers would dare to reject
the sacrament, or even taste meat on Good Friday. Each of these men
would choose to endure any kind of privation, suffering, or danger,
rather than consent to do a deed which he considered wrong. Hence
it is evident that they are able to resist whatever is contrary to
their convictions.
Still less true would it be to pronounce these men brutes, to whom
such deeds are congenial rather than repulsive. One needs but to
talk with them to become convinced that all,--landowner, judge,
minister, governor, Czar, officers, and soldiers,--at the bottom of
their hearts not only disapprove of such deeds, but when a sense
of their true significance is borne in upon them, really suffer at
being forced to take part in these scenes. They can only try not to
think of them.
One needs but to speak to those who are actors in this business,
beginning with the landowner and ending with the lowest policeman
or soldier, to discover that at the bottom of their hearts they all
acknowledge the wickedness of the deed, and know that it would be
better to abstain from it; and this knowledge makes them suffer.
A lady of liberal views in our train, seeing the Governor and the
officers in the first-class waiting-room, and learning the object of
their journey, began to talk in an ostensibly loud tone, in order
that they might hear what she said, condemning the present laws and
crying shame upon the men who took part in this business. This made
everybody feel uncomfortable. The men knew not where to look, yet
no one ventured to argue the point. The passengers pretended that
remarks so senseless deserved no reply, but it was evident by the
expression of their faces and their wandering eyes that they felt
ashamed. I noticed the same in regard to the soldiers. They knew
well enough that they were going about an evil business, and they
preferred not to think of what was before them. When the timber
merchant, insincerely, in my opinion, and simply by way of showing
his superior knowledge, began to speak of the necessity of these
measures, the soldiers who heard him turned away frowning, and
pretended not to listen to him.
The landowner, his steward, the minister, the Czar, all who are
parties to this business, those who were traveling by this train,
even those who, taking no part in the affair, were but lookers-on,
all really know it to be wicked. Why, then, do they do these things,
why do they repeat them, why do they permit them to be?
Ask the landowner who started the affair; the judge who rendered a
decision legal in form, but absolutely unjust; and those who, like
the soldiers and the peasants, will, with their own hands, execute
this work of beating and murdering their brothers,--all of them,
instigators, administrators, and executioners, will make essentially
the same reply.
The officials will say that the present system requires to be
supported in this manner, and it is for this reason that they do
these things, because the good of the country, the welfare of
mankind in general, of social life and civilization, demand it.
The soldiers, men of the lower classes, who are forced to execute
this violence with their own hands, will answer that the higher
authorities, who are supposed to know their business, have commanded
it, and that it is for them to obey. It never occurs to them to
question the capacity of those who represent the higher authorities.
If the possibility of error is ever admitted, it is only in the case
of some subordinate authority; the higher power whence all things
emanate is supposed to be absolutely infallible.
Thus, while attributing their actions to various motives, both
principals and subordinates agree that the existing order is the one
best suited to the present time, and that it is the sacred duty of
every man to maintain it.
This assurance of the necessity and immutability of the existing
order is continually advanced by all participators in violence
committed by the State, and that, as the existing order never can be
changed, the refusal of a single individual to perform the duties
imposed on him will make no difference as far as the fundamental
principle is concerned, and will only result in the substitution of
another who may be more cruel and do more harm.
This belief that the existing order is immutable, and that it is
the sacred duty of every man to lend it support, encourages every
man of good moral character to take part, with a conscience more or
less clear, in such affairs as that which occurred in Orel, and the
one in which those in the train for Tula were going to take part.
On what, then, is this belief founded?
It is but natural that it should seem pleasant and desirable to a
landowner to believe that the existing order is indispensable and
immutable, because it secures to him the income from his hundreds
and thousands of _dessiatins_ by which his idle and luxurious
existence is maintained.
It is also natural that the judge should willingly admit the
necessity of a system through which he receives fifty times more
than the most hard-working laboring man. And the same may be said
in regard to the other higher functionaries. It is only while the
present system endures that he, as governor, procureur, senator,
or member of the council, can receive his salary of several
thousands, without which he and his family would certainly perish;
for outside the place which he fills, more or less well according
to his abilities and diligence, he could command only a fraction of
what he receives. The ministers, the head of the State, and every
person in high authority are all alike in this, save that the higher
their rank, the more exclusive their position, the more important
it becomes that they should believe no order possible, except that
which now exists; for were it overthrown, not only would they find
it impossible to gain similar positions, but they would fall lower
in the scale than other men. The man who voluntarily hires himself
out as a policeman for ten roubles a month, a sum which he could
easily earn in any other position, has but little interest in the
preservation of the existing system, and therefore may or may not
believe in its immutability.
But the king or emperor, who receives his millions, who knows that
around him there are thousands of men envious to take his place, who
knows that from no other quarter could he draw such an income or
receive such homage, that, if overthrown, he might be judged for
abuse of power,--there is neither king nor emperor who can help
believing in the immutability and sanctity of the existing order.
The higher the position in which a man is placed, the more unstable
it is; and the more perilous and frightful the possible downfall,
the more firmly will he believe in the immutability of the existing
order; and he is able to do wicked and cruel deeds with a perfectly
peaceful conscience, because he persuades himself that they are
done, not for his own benefit, but for the support of the existing
order.
And so it is with every individual in authority, from obscure
policemen to the man who occupies the most exalted rank,--the
positions they occupy being more advantageous than those which they
might be capable of filling if the present system did not exist. All
these men believe more or less in its immutability, because it is
advantageous to them.
But what influences the peasants, the soldiers, who stand on
the lowest rung of the ladder and who derive no advantage from
the existing system, who are in the most enslaved and degraded
condition; what induces them to believe that the existing order,
which serves to keep them in this inferior position, is the best,
and one which should be maintained; and why are they willing,
in order to promote this end, to violate their consciences by
committing wicked deeds?
What urges them to the false conclusion that the existing order is
immutable and ought therefore to be maintained, when the fact is
that its immutability is due only to their own effort to maintain it?
Why do those men, taken from the plow, whom we see masquerading in
ugly, objectionable uniforms, with blue collars and gold buttons, go
about armed with muskets and sabers to kill their famishing fathers
and brothers? They derive no advantage from their present position;
they would be no losers were they deprived of it, since it is worse
than the one from which they were taken.
Those in authority belonging to the higher classes, the landowners
and merchants, the judges, senators, governors, ministers, and
kings, the officials in general, participate in such actions and
maintain the present system, because such a system is for their
interest. Often enough they are kind-hearted and gentle men. They
play no personal part in these acts; all they do is to institute
inquiries, pronounce judgments, and issue commands. Those in
authority do not themselves execute the deeds which they have
devised and ordered. They but rarely see in what manner these
dreadful deeds are executed. But the unfortunate members of the
lower classes, who receive no benefit from the existing system, who,
on the other hand, find themselves greatly despised because of the
duties which they perform in order that a system which is opposed to
their own interests may be maintained,--they who tear men from the
bosom of their families to send them to the galleys, who bind and
imprison them, who stand on guard over them, who shoot them, why do
they do this? What is it that compels these men to believe that the
existing order is immutable, and that it is their duty to maintain
it? Violence exists only because there are those who with their
own hands maltreat, bind, imprison, and murder. If there were no
policemen, or soldiers, or armed men of any sort ready when bidden
to use violence and to put men to death, not one of those who sign
death-warrants, or sentence for imprisonment for life or hard labor
in the galleys, would ever have sufficient courage himself to hang,
imprison, or torture one thousandth part of those whom now, sitting
in their studies, these men calmly order to be hung or tortured,
because they do not see it done, they do not do it themselves. Their
servants do it for them in some far-away corner.
All these deeds of injustice and cruelty have become an integral
part of the existing system of life, only because there are men ever
ready to execute them. If there were no such men, the multitude of
human beings who are now the victims of violence would be spared,
and furthermore, the magistrates would never dare to issue, nor even
dream of issuing, those commands which they now send forth with
such assurance. If there were no men to obey the will of others
and to execute commands to torture and murder, no one would ever
dare to defend the declaration so confidently made by landowners
and men of leisure; namely, that the land lying on all sides of
the unfortunate peasants, who are perishing for the want of it, is
the property of the man who does not till it, and that reserves
of grain, fraudulently obtained, are to be held intact amidst a
famine-stricken and dying population, because the merchant must
have his profit. If there were no men ready at the bidding of the
authorities to torture and murder, the landowner would never dream
of seizing a forest which had been tended by the peasants; nor would
officials consider themselves entitled to salaries paid to them from
money wrung from the famished people whom they oppress, or which
they derive for the prosecution, imprisonment, and exile of men who
denounce falsehood and preach the truth.
All this is done because those in authority well know that they have
always at hand submissive agents ready to obey their commands to
outrage and to murder.
It is to this crowd of submissive slaves, ready to obey all orders,
that we owe the deeds of the whole series of tyrants, from Napoleon
to the obscure captain who bids his men fire upon the people. It is
through the agency of policemen and soldiers (especially the latter,
since the former can act only when supported by military force)
that these deeds of violence are committed. What, then, has induced
those who are by no means benefited by doing with their hands
these dreadful deeds,--what is it that has led these kindly men
into an error so gross that they actually believe that the present
system, which is so distressing, so baleful, so fatal, is the one
best suited to the times? Who has led them into this extraordinary
aberration?
They can never have persuaded themselves that a course which is not
only painful and opposed to their interests, but which is fatal
to their class, which forms nine-tenths of the entire population,
one which, too, is opposed to their conscience, is right. "What
reason can you give for killing men, when God's commandment says,
'Thou shalt not kill'?" is a question I have often put to different
soldiers. And it always embarrassed them to have a question put
which recalled what they would rather not remember.
They knew that the divine law forbade murder,--_thou shalt not
kill_,--and they had always known of this compulsory military duty,
but had never thought of one as contradictory to the other. The
hesitating replies to my question were usually to the effect that
the act of killing a man in war and the execution of criminals by
order of the government were not included in the general prohibition
against murder. But when I rejoined that no such limitation existed
in the law of God, and cited the Christian doctrine of brotherhood,
the forgiveness of injuries, the injunction to love one's neighbor,
all of which precepts are quite contrary to murder, the men of the
lower class would usually agree with me and ask, "How then can it be
that the government (which they believe cannot err) sends troops to
war and orders the execution of criminals?" When I replied that this
was a mistake on the part of the government, my interlocutors became
still more uncomfortable, and either dropped the conversation or
showed annoyance.
"Probably there is a law for it. I should think the bishops know
more than you do," a Russian soldier once said to me. And he
evidently felt relieved, confident that his superiors had found a
law, one that had authorized his ancestors and their successors,
millions of men like himself, to serve the State, and that the
question I had asked is in the nature of a conundrum.
Every man in Christendom has undoubtedly been taught by tradition,
by revelation, and by the voice of conscience, which can never be
gainsaid, that murder is one of the most heinous crimes men can
commit; it is thus affirmed in the gospel, and they know that this
sin of murder is not altered by conditions--that is to say, if it
is sinful to kill one man, it is sinful to kill another. Any man
knows that, if murder be a sin, it is not changed by the character
or position of the man against whom it is committed, which is the
case also with adultery, theft, and all other sins, and yet men are
accustomed from childhood to see murder, not only acknowledged, but
blessed by those whom they are taught to regard as their spiritual
directors appointed by Christ, and to know that their temporal
leaders, with calm assurance, countenance the custom of murder, and
summon all men, in the name of the law and even the name of God, to
its participation. Men perceive the existence of an inconsistency,
but finding themselves unable to discern its cause, they naturally
attribute the idea to their own ignorance. The obviousness and
crudity of the contradiction confirms them in this belief. They
cannot imagine that their superiors and teachers, even the
scientists, could advocate with so much assurance two principles so
utterly at variance as the command to follow the law of Christ, and
the requirement to commit murder. No pure-minded, innocent child, no
youth, could imagine that men who stand so high in his esteem, whom
he looks upon with such reverence, could for any purpose deceive him
so unscrupulously.
And yet it is this very deception which is constantly practised. In
the first place, to all working-men, who have personally no time to
analyze moral and religious problems, it is taught from childhood,
by example and precept, that tortures and murders are compatible
with Christianity, and in certain cases they should not only be
permitted, but must be employed; in the second place, to certain
among them, engaged in the army either through conscription or
voluntarily, it is conveyed that the accomplishment with their own
hands of torture or homicide is not only their sacred duty, but a
glorious exploit, meriting praise and recompense.
This universal deception is propagated by all catechisms or their
substitutes, those books which at the present time teachers are
compelled to use in the instruction of the young. It is taught that
violence,--outrage, imprisonment, execution,--the murder that takes
place in civil or in foreign war, has for its object the maintenance
and security of the political organization,--whether this be an
absolute or a constitutional monarchy, consulate, republic, or
commune,--that it is perfectly legitimate, and that it is in
contradiction neither to morality nor Christianity.
And men are so firmly convinced of this that they grow up, live, and
die in the belief, never for a moment doubting it.
So much for this universal deception. And now for another, which is
special, and practised upon soldiers and police, the instruments by
whose agency outrages and murders, necessary for the support and
maintenance of the existing order, are accomplished.
The military rules and regulations of every country are practically
the same as those formulated in the Russian military code.
"87. To fulfil exactly, and without comment, the orders of the
superior officers, means--to execute orders with precision, without
considering whether they are good or bad, or whether their execution
be possible. Only the superior is responsible for the consequences
of his order.
"88. The only occasion on which the inferior should not obey the
order of his superior is when he sees plainly that in obeying it
..." (Here one naturally thinks it will surely go on to say when
he plainly sees that in fulfilling the order of his superior he
violates the law of God. Not at all; it goes on to say:) "_sees
plainly that he violates the oath of allegiance and duty to his
sovereign_."
It is stated in the code that a man, in becoming a soldier, can and
must execute _all_ the orders, without exception, which he receives
from his superior; orders which, for a soldier, are for the most
part connected with murder. He may violate every law, human and
divine, as long as he does not violate his oath of allegiance to him
who, at a given time, happens to be in power.
Thus it stands in the Russian military code, and this is the
substance of the military codes of other nations. It could not be
otherwise. The foundations of the power of the State rest upon the
delusion by means of which men are set free from their obligations
to God and to their own consciences, and bound to obey the will of a
casual superior.
This is the basis of the appalling conviction that prevails among
the lower classes, that the existing system, so ruinous to them, is
necessary and justifiable, and that it must be maintained by outrage
and murder.
This is inevitable. In order to force the lower, the more numerous
classes to act as their own oppressors and tormentors, to commit
deeds contrary to their consciences, it is necessary to deceive them.
And this is done.
Not long since I saw again put into practice this shameful
deception, and again wondered to see it effected without opposition
and so audaciously.
In the beginning of November, on my way through Tula, I saw at the
gates of the _Zemskaya Uprava_ the familiar dense crowd of men and
women, from which issued the sounds of drunken voices, blended with
the heartrending sobs of the wives and mothers.
The military conscription was in progress.
As usual, I could not pass by without pausing; the sight attracts me
as by fascination.
Again I mingled with the crowd, and stood looking on, questioning,
and marveling at the facility with which this most terrible of all
offenses is committed in broad daylight, and in the midst of a large
city.
On the first day of November, in every village in Russia, with its
population of one hundred millions, the _starostas_,[27] according
to custom, take the men whose names are entered on the rolls,
frequently their own sons, and carry them to town.
[27] Elders.
On the way the men drink freely, unchecked by the elder men; they
realize that entering upon this insane business of leaving their
wives and mothers, giving up everything that is sacred to them, only
to become the senseless tools of murder, is too painful if one's
senses are not stupefied with wine.
And thus they journey on, carousing, brawling, singing, and
fighting. The night is spent in a tavern, and on this morning,
having drunk still more, they assemble before the house of the
_Uprava_.
Some in new sheepskin coats, with knit mufflers wound round their
necks, some with their eyes swollen with drinking, some noisy and
boisterous, by way of stimulating their courage, others silent and
woebegone, they were gathered near the gates, surrounded by their
wives and mothers with tear-stained faces, awaiting their turn (I
happened to be there on the day when the recruits were received,
that is to say, the day on which they were examined), while others
were crowding the entry of the office.
Meanwhile they are hurrying on the work within. A door opens and
the guard calls for Piotr Sidorov. Piotr Sidorov makes the sign of
the cross, looks around with a startled gaze, and opening a glass
door, he enters the small room where the recruits take off their
clothes. The man before him, his friend, who has just been enrolled,
has but this moment stepped out of the office stark naked, and
with chattering teeth hastens to put on his clothes. Piotr Sidorov
has heard, and can plainly see by the look on his face, that the
man has been enlisted. He longs to question him, but he is ordered
to undress as quickly as possible. He pulls off his sheepskin
coat, drops his waistcoat and his shirt, and with prominent ribs,
trembling and reeking with the odors of liquor, tobacco, and sweat,
steps barefooted into the office, wondering what he shall do with
his large sinewy hands.
A portrait of the Emperor in uniform, with a ribbon across his
breast, in a large golden frame, hangs in a conspicuous place, while
a small ikon of Christ, clad in a loose garment, with the crown of
thorns on his head, hangs in one corner. In the middle of the room
is a table covered with a green cloth on which papers are lying,
and on which stands a small three-cornered object surmounted by
an eagle and called the mirror of justice. Around the table the
officials sit tranquilly. One smokes, another turns over the papers.
As soon as Sidorov enters a guard comes up and measures him. His
chin is raised and his feet are adjusted. Then a man who is smoking
a cigarette--the doctor--approaches him, and without glancing at
his face, but gazing in another direction, touches his body with an
expression of disgust, measures him, orders the guard to open his
mouth, tells him to breathe, and then proceeds to dictate to another
man who takes down the minutes. Finally, and still without even one
glance at his face, the doctor says: "He will do! The next!" and
with a wearied air he seats himself at the table. Once more the
guard hustles him about, bidding him to make haste. Somehow or other
he pulls on his shirt, fumbling for the sleeves, hastily gets on his
trousers, wraps his feet in the rags he uses for stockings, pulls on
his boots, hunts for his muffler and cap, tucks his sheepskin coat
under his arm, and is escorted to that part of the hall which is
fenced off by a bench, where the recruits who have been admitted are
placed. A young countryman like himself, but from another, far-away
government, who is a soldier already, with a musket to which a
bayonet is attached, guards him, ready to run him through the body
if he should attempt to escape.
Meanwhile the crowd of fathers, mothers, and wives, hustled by
policemen, presses around the gates, trying to find out who has been
taken and who rejected. A man who has been rejected comes out and
tells them that Piotr has been admitted; then is heard the cry of
Piotr's young wife, for whom this word means a four or five years'
separation, and the dissolute life such as a soldier's wife in
domestic service is.
But here comes a man with flowing hair and dressed differently from
the others, who has just arrived; he descends from his droschky and
goes toward the house of the _Zemskaya Uprava_, while the policemen
clear a way for him through the crowd.
"The Father has arrived to swear them in." And this "Father,"
who has always been accustomed to believe himself a special and
privileged servant of Christ, and who is usually quite unconscious
of his false position, enters the room where the recruits who have
been admitted are waiting for him; he puts on, as a vestment, a sort
of brocade curtain, disengages from it his flowing hair, opens the
Bible wherein an oath is forbidden, lifts the cross, that cross on
which Christ was crucified for refusing to do what this person, his
supposed servant, commands men to do, and all these defenseless and
deluded young men repeat after him the lie so familiar to his lips,
which he utters with such assurance. He reads while they repeat:
"I promise and swear to the Lord Almighty, upon His holy Bible,"
etc. ... to defend (that is, to murder all those whom I shall be
ordered to murder) and to do whatever those men, strangers to me,
who regard me only as a necessary tool to be used in perpetrating
the outrages by which they oppress my brethren and preserve their
own positions, command me to do. All the recruits having stupidly
repeated the words, the so-called Father departs, quite sure that
he has performed his duty in the most accurate and conscientious
manner, while the young men deluded by him really believe that by
the absurd, and to them almost unintelligible, words which they have
just uttered, they are released during their term of service from
all obligations to their fellow-men, and are bound by new and more
imperative ties to the duties of a soldier.
And this is done publicly, but not a man comes forward to say to the
deceived and the deceivers, "Come to your senses and go your way;
this is all a base and treacherous lie; it imperils not only your
bodies, but your souls."
No one does this. On the contrary, as if in derision, after they
have all been enrolled and are about to depart, the colonel enters
the hall where these poor, drunken, and deluded creatures are locked
in, and with a solemn air, calls out to them in military fashion:
"Good day, men! I congratulate you upon entering _the Czar's
service_." And they, poor fellows, mumble in their semi-drunken way,
a reply which has already been taught them, to the effect that it
fills their hearts with joy.
The expectant crowd of fathers, mothers, and wives is still standing
at the gates. Women, with tear-worn, wide-open eyes, watch the door.
Suddenly it opens and the men come rolling out, assuming an air of
bravado, the Petruhas, Vanuhas, and Makars, now enrolled, trying
to avoid the eyes of their relatives, pretending not to see them.
At once break out the sobs and cries of the wives and mothers.
Some of the men clasp them in their arms, weeping, some put on a
devil-may-care look, others make an attempt to console them. The
wives, the mothers, realizing that they are now abandoned, without
support, for three or four years, cry and wail bitterly. The fathers
say little; they only sigh and make a clicking sound with their
tongues that indicates their grief; they know that they are about
to lose that help which they have reared and trained their sons to
render; that when their sons return they will no longer be sober and
industrious laborers, but soldiers, weaned from their former life of
simplicity, grown dissolute, and vain of their uniforms.
Now the whole crowd has departed, driving down the street in
sleighs to the taverns and inns, and louder grows the chorus of
mingled sobs, songs, and drunken cries, the moaning and muttering
of the wives and mothers, the sounds of the accordion, the noise of
altercations.
All repair to the eating-houses and taverns, from the traffic of
which part of the revenue of the government is derived, and there
they give themselves up to drink, stupefying their senses so that
they care nothing for the injustice done to them.
Then they spend several weeks at home, drinking nearly all the time.
When the day arrives, they are driven like cattle to the appointed
place, where they are drilled in military exercises by those who a
few years ago, like themselves, were deceived and brutalized. During
the instructions the means employed are lying, blows, and _vodka_.
And before the year is over the good, kindly, and intelligent
fellows will have become as brutal as their teachers.
"Suppose your father were arrested and attempted escape," I once
suggested to a young soldier, "what would you do?"
"It would be my duty to thrust my bayonet through his body," he
replied, in the peculiar, meaningless monotone of the soldier. "And
if he ran I should shoot," he added, taking pride apparently in
thinking what he should do if his father attempted to run.
When a good young fellow is reduced to a condition lower than
that of the brute, he is ready for those who wish to use him as
an instrument of violence. He is ready. The man is lost, and a
new instrument of violence has been created. And all this goes on
throughout Russia in the autumn of every year, in broad daylight, in
the heart of a great city, witnessed by all the inhabitants, and the
stratagem is so skilfully managed, that though men at the bottom of
their hearts realize its infamy, still they have not the power to
throw off the yoke.
After our eyes are once opened, and we view this frightful delusion
in its true light, it is astonishing that preachers of Christianity
and morality, teachers of youth, or even those kindly and sensible
parents who are to be found in every community, can advocate
any principles of morality whatever in the midst of a society
where torture and murder are openly recognized as constituting
indispensable conditions in human life,--openly acknowledged by all
churches and governments,--where certain men among us must be always
ready to murder their brethren, and where any of us may have to do
the same.
Not to speak of Christian doctrine, how are children, how are
youths, how are any to be taught morality, while the principle that
murder is required in order to maintain the general welfare is
taught; when men are made to believe that murder is lawful, that
some men, and any of us may be among them, must kill and torture
their neighbors, and commit every kind of crime at the command of
those in authority? If this principle is right, then there is not,
nor can there be, any doctrine of morality; might is right, and
there is no other law. This principle, which some seek to justify
on the hypothesis of the struggle for existence, in fact dominates
society.
What kind of moral doctrine can that be which permits murder for any
object whatsoever? It is as impossible as a mathematical problem
which would affirm that 2 = 3. It may be admitted that 2 = 3 looks
like mathematics, but it is not mathematics at all. Every code of
morals must be founded first of all upon the acknowledgment that
human life is to be held sacred.
The doctrine of an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, and a life
for a life, has been revoked by Christianity because that doctrine
was but the justification of immorality, a semblance of justice, but
without meaning. Life is a substance which can neither be weighed,
measured, nor compared; hence the taking of one life for another has
no sense. Moreover, the aim of every social law is amelioration of
human life. How, then, can the destruction of certain lives improve
the condition of other lives? The destruction of life is not an act
that tends to improve it; it is suicide.
To destroy human life, and call it justice, may be likened to the
act of a man who, having lost one arm, cuts off the other, by way of
making matters even.
Not to speak of the deceit of presenting the most shocking crimes in
the light of a duty, of the shocking abuse of using Christ's name
and authority in order to confirm acts which he condemned, how can
men, looking at the matter from the standpoint merely of personal
safety, suffer the existence of the shocking, senseless, cruel, and
dangerous force which every organized government, supported by the
army, represents?
The most violent and rapacious band of robbers is less to be
feared than such an organization. Even the authority of the leader
of a band of robbers is more or less limited by the will of each
individual member of the band, who, retaining a certain degree of
independence, has the right to oppose acts with which he does not
agree. But the authority of men who form part of an organized
government, maintained by the army with its present system of
discipline, is unlimited. When their master, be he Boulanger,
Pugatchov, or Napoleon, issues his commands, there is no crime too
hideous for those who form part of the government and the army to
commit.
It must often occur to one who sees conscriptions, drills, and
military manœuvers taking place, who sees police going about with
loaded revolvers, sentinels armed with bayonets,--to one who hears
from morning till night, as I do (in the district of Hamovniky,[28]
where I live), the whirring balls and the concussion as they
strike the target,--to ask why these things are tolerated. And
when one sees in the same city, where every attempt at violence is
at once suppressed, where even the sale of powder or medicines is
prohibited, where a doctor is not allowed to practice without a
diploma, thousands of disciplined men, controlled by one individual,
being trained for murder, one cannot help asking how men who have
any regard for their own safety can calmly endure such a condition
of affairs, and allow it to continue? Leaving aside the question
of the immorality and pernicious influence of it, what could be
more dangerous? What are they thinking of,--I speak not now of
Christians, Christian pastors, philanthropists, or moralists, but
simply those who value their lives, their safety, their welfare?
Granting that power is at present in the hands of a moderate
ruler, it may fall to-morrow into those of a Biron, an Elizabeth,
a Catharine, a Pugatchov, a Napoleon. And even though the ruler be
moderate to-day, he may become a mere savage to-morrow; he may be
succeeded by an insane or half-insane heir, like the King of Bavaria
or the Emperor Paul.
[28] In Moscow.
It is not only those who fill the highest offices, but all the
lesser authorities scattered over the land--the chiefs of police,
the commanders of companies, even the _stanovoys_[29]--may commit
shocking crimes before they can be dismissed; it is an everyday
occurrence.
[29] Chiefs of rural police.
Involuntarily one asks: How can men allow these things to go on? How
can they tolerate them with any regard to their own personal safety?
It may be replied that some men do oppose it. (Those who are
deluded and live in subjection have nothing either to tolerate or
interdict.) Those who favor the continuance of the present system
are only those who derive some special advantage from it. They
favor it, and even with the disadvantages of having an insane
or tyrannical man at the head of the government and the army,
the position is less disadvantageous to them than if the present
organization were abolished.
Whether his position be held under a Boulanger, a Republic, a
Pugatchov, or a Catharine,--the judge, the police commissioner, the
governor, the officer, will remain in it. But if the system which
assures their positions were overthrown, they would lose them.
Therefore it is a matter of indifference to these men whether one
man or another be at the head of the organization of violence. What
they do fear is its abolition; so they support it.
One wonders why men of independent means, who are not obliged to
become soldiers, the so-called _élite_ of society, enter military
service in Russia, in England, in Germany, in Austria, and even in
France, and desire the chance of killing? Why do parents, why do
moral men, send their children to military schools? Why do mothers
buy them such toys as helmets, swords, and muskets? (No child of
a peasant ever plays at being a soldier.) Why do kindly men and
women, who can have no manner of interest in war, go into ecstasies
over the exploits of a man like Skobelev? Why do men who are
under no obligation to do it, and who receive no pay for it, like
Marshals of Nobility in Russia, devote months to the service which
demands such unremitting labor, wearying to the minds as well as
to the body,--the enlistment of recruits? Why do all emperors and
kings wear a military dress, why do they have drills and parades
and military rewards? Why are monuments built to generals and
conquerors? Why do wealthy and independent men regard it as an
honor to occupy the position of lackeys to kings, to flatter them
and feign a belief in their special superiority? Why do men who
have long since ceased to believe in the medieval superstitions
of the Church still constantly and solemnly pretend to do so,
and thus support a sacrilegious and demoralizing institution?
Why is the ignorance of the people so zealously preserved, not
only by the government, but by men of the higher classes? Why do
they so energetically denounce every attempt to overthrow popular
superstition and to promote popular education? Why do historians,
novelists, and poets, who can derive no benefit in exchange for
their flattery, paint in such glowing colors the emperors, kings,
and generals of bygone times? Why do the so-called scientists devote
their lives to formulate theories that violence committed on the
people by power is legitimate violence--is right?
One often wonders why an artist or a woman of the world, neither of
whom, it would seem, ordinarily take much interest in sociological
or military questions--why should they condemn strikes among
workmen, or advocate war with such partizan zeal?
But one ceases to feel surprise when one realizes that the members
of the higher classes possess the keenest insight, an intuitive
perception, as it were, concerning those conditions which are
friendly and those which are hostile to the organization upon whose
existence their privileges depend.
It is true that the woman of society does not deliberately argue
thus: "Were there no capitalists, or armies to defend them, my
husband would have no money, and I should have neither _salon_
nor fashionable gowns;" nor does the artist tell himself, in
so many words, that if his pictures are to be sold there must
be capitalists, defended by armies, to buy them; yet instinct,
here doing duty for reason, is their surest guide. This instinct
guides, with rare exceptions, all men who support those political,
religious, and economic institutions which are advantageous to
themselves.
But is it possible that men who belong to the higher classes defend
this organization only because it is for their own advantage? They
surely cannot fail to see that as an organization it is irrational,
incompatible with the present consciousness of men, with public
opinion, and that it is fraught with danger. Good, intelligent,
honest men who belong to the ruling class cannot but suffer from
such contradictions, nor can they close their eyes to the dangers
that menace them.
And is it possible that the millions of men of the lower classes
can go on calmly committing deeds which are so manifestly criminal,
such as are the murders and tortures which they commit, simply from
fear of punishment? Surely these things could not exist were not the
falsehood and brutality of their actions hidden from all classes of
men by the system of the political organization.
When such deeds are committed, there are so many instigators,
participants, and abettors that no single individual feels himself
morally responsible.
Assassins compel all the witnesses of an assassination to strike
the body of the victim, with the intention of dividing the
responsibility among the greatest number possible. And whenever
those crimes by the aid of which the state system is maintained are
to be committed, this same thing is observed. The rulers of State
always endeavor to involve the greatest possible number of citizens
in the participation of the crimes which it is to their interest to
have committed.
In these latter days this is made especially evident by the
drawing of citizens on the jury in courts of law, by drafting them
into the army as soldiers, and into the communal or legislative
administration as electors or elected.
As in a wicker basket all the ends are so carefully interwoven that
they cannot be seen, so is it with the responsibility for crime.
Individual responsibilities are so manipulated that no man perceives
precisely what he is incurring.
In olden times tyrants were responsible for the crimes which were
committed, but in the present age the most frightful crimes are
perpetrated, such as would hardly have been possible in the time of
Nero, and still no one is held responsible.
Some demand the crime, some propose it, some determine it, some
confirm it, some order it, some execute it.
Women and old men are hung, are flogged to death--even quite
innocent people, as was recently the case with us in Russia, in
the affair of the factory at Uzova; or, as is done all over in
Europe and America, in the struggle with anarchists and other
revolutionists, hundreds, thousands of men are shot, are killed;
or, as happens in time of war, millions of men are massacred; or,
as is happening always, the souls of men are destroyed by solitary
confinement, by the debauchery of barrack life--and no one is
responsible.
On the lower scale of the social ladder are posted soldiers armed
with muskets, pistols, swords; they go about doing violence and
killing, and through their doing so force other men to become
soldiers like themselves, and yet they never dream that the
responsibility rests on their shoulders; they shift it on to their
superiors, who give the orders.
The czars, the presidents, the ministers of State, the general
assemblies, order tortures, murders, conscriptions, and as they
enjoy the absolute assurance that they rule by the grace of God
or by the will of the society they govern, and that that society
demands from them what they order, they cannot regard themselves as
responsible.
Between these two classes we find a number of intermediaries, who
take charge of the executions, tortures, conscriptions, and they,
too, wash their hands of all responsibility, alleging on the one
hand the orders of their superiors, and on the other that it is for
such as themselves, who stand lower on the social ladder, to do
these things.
The power that demands and the power that fulfils commands, the two
extremes of governmental organization, unite like the two ends of
a chain, each depending on and supporting the other, and all the
intervening links.
Were it not for the conviction that there are men who assume the
whole responsibility of such deeds, no soldier would lift his hand
to torture or murder his fellow-man. Were it not for the conviction
that the nation demands it, no king, emperor, president, or assembly
would venture to issue commands for murder and torture. Were it
not that he believes that there are men above him who assume the
responsibility of his actions, and others below him whose welfare
requires this treatment, no man of the intermediate class would ever
perform the functions committed to him.
The organization of the State is such that on whatever position of
the social ladder a man may stand, his irresponsibility remains
intact. The higher he stands, the more liable he is to feel the
pressure brought to bear on him from below, urging him to issue
commands, and the less likely he will be to be influenced by orders
from above, and _vice versa_.
But it is not enough that all men bound by the organization of the
State transfer their responsibility from one to the other,--the
peasant, for instance, who becomes a soldier to the merchant who
has become an officer; the officer to the noble who occupies the
position of governor; the governor to the minister of State; the
minister to the sovereign; and the sovereign who in his turn
shifts the responsibility upon all,--officials, nobles, merchants,
peasants. Not only do men in this way merely free themselves from
all sense of responsibility for their actions, but because, as
they adapt themselves to fulfil the requirements of political
organizations, they so constantly, persistently, and strenuously
assure themselves and others that all men are not equal that they
begin to believe it sincerely themselves. Thus we are assured that
some men are superior and must be especially honored and obeyed;
while, on the other hand, we are assured in every way that others
are inferior, and therefore bound to obey without murmur the
commands of their superiors.
It is to this inequality,--the exaltation of some upon the abasement
of others,--that we may chiefly attribute the incapacity which men
display for discerning the folly of the existing system, with the
cruelty and deceptions committed by some, and suffered by others.
There are certain men who have been made to believe that they are
possessed of a peculiar importance and greatness, who have become
so intoxicated by their imaginary superiority that they cease to
realize their responsibility for the actions they commit; others
who, on the contrary, have been told that they are insignificant
beings, and that it is their duty to submit to those above them,
and, as the natural result of this continual state of degradation,
fall into a strange condition of stupefied servility, and in this
state they, too, lose all sense of responsibility for their actions.
And as to the intermediate class, subservient to those above them,
and yet to a certain extent regarding themselves as superiors, they
are apt to be both servile and arrogant, and they also lose the
sense of responsibility.
One needs but to glance at any official of high rank in the act
of reviewing the troops. Accompanied by his staff, mounted on
a magnificently caparisoned charger, equipped in a brilliant
uniform, displaying all his decorations, he rides in front of
the ranks, while the band plays martial music and the soldiers
present arms, standing, as they do, as though verily petrified
with servility,--one has but to see this to understand how in such
moments, under such conditions, both generals and soldiers might
commit deeds which they never would have dreamed of committing.
But the intoxication to which men succumb under conditions like
parades, pageants, religious ceremonies, and coronations, though
acute, is not enduring, while there is another which is chronic,
shared by all who have any authority whatsoever, from the Czar to
the policemen on the street, shared, too, by the masses who submit
to authority in a state of stupefied servility, and who by way of
justifying their submission, after the usual manner of slaves,
ascribe the greatest importance and dignity to those whom they obey.
It is this delusion in regard to human inequality and the consequent
intoxication of power and stupefaction of servility, which makes it
possible for those who are associated in a state organization to
commit crimes and suffer no remorse.
Under the influence of this intoxication,--there is an intoxication
of servility as well as of power,--men seem to others, no less than
to themselves, not the ordinary human beings which they really are,
but specially privileged beings,--nobles, merchants, governors,
judges, officers, kings, statesmen, soldiers, having no longer
ordinary human duties, but only the duties of the class to which
they belong.
Thus the landed proprietor who prosecuted the peasants on account of
the forest did so because he did not regard himself as an ordinary
man, with the same rights as the peasants, his neighbors, but as a
great landowner and a member of the nobility, and, as such, exalted
by the intoxication of authority, felt himself insulted by the
opposition of the peasants. And regardless of the consequences, he
sends in his petition to be reinstated in his pretended rights. The
judges who rendered an unfair decision in his favor, did so because
they fancied themselves different from ordinary men, who are guided
only by truth; under the spell of the intoxication of authority,
they believed themselves the guardians of a justice which cannot
err; and at the same time, under the influence of servility, they
considered themselves obliged to apply certain texts set forth in a
certain book and called the laws; and all the other persons who took
part in this affair, from the representatives of higher authority
down to the last soldier ready to fire upon his brother,--they all
accepted themselves in their conventionally accredited characters.
Not one asked himself if he should take part in an act which his
conscience reprobated, but each accepted himself as one who had
simply to fulfil a certain function; let it be the Czar, anointed
of God, an exceptional being called to look after the welfare of a
hundred million men; let it be the noble; the priest, the recipient
of grace through ordination; the soldier, bound by oath to fulfil
commands without hesitation,--it is the same with all.
All their activity, past, present, and future, is stimulated by a
like intoxicating influence. If they had not the firm conviction
that the title of king, statesman, governor, judge, landowner,
marshal of nobility, officer, or soldier is of serious import and
necessity, not one of them could contemplate without horror and
disgust his own share in the deeds done in these latter days.
Arbitrary distinctions, established hundreds of years ago,
recognized for hundreds of years, described by special names
and distinguished by special dress, sanctioned by all kinds of
solemnities calculated to influence men through their emotions, have
been so thoroughly impressed upon the human imagination that men
have forgotten the common, everyday aspects of life; they look upon
themselves and others from a point of view dependent upon outward
conditions, and regard their own acts and those of their neighbors
accordingly.
Here, for instance, we see a man of advanced years, a man perfectly
in possession of his senses, who, because he has been decorated
with some bauble, and is attired in a ridiculous habit, or because
he is the holder of certain keys, or has received a bit of blue
ribbon fitter for the wear of a coquettish child, when he is called
general, chamberlain, chevalier of the order of St. Andrew, or some
such absurdity, becomes at once proud, arrogant, happy; if, on the
contrary, he fails to get the gewgaw or the nickname he expected, he
becomes unhappy and ill, really to the point of sickness.
Or let us take a still more remarkable case. A man, morally
sane, young, free, and absolutely safe from want, has no sooner
received the name of district-attorney, of _Zemsky Nachalnik_,
than he pounces upon some luckless widow, takes her from her small
children, and throws her into jail, all because the poor woman has
been secretly selling wine, and thus depriving the treasury of 25
roubles' revenue. This man feels no remorse. Another still more
surprising case is that of a man, ordinarily kind and good, who,
because he wears a uniform or carries a medal, and is told that he
is a keeper [_garde-champêtre_] or custom-house officer, considers
himself justified in shooting men down, and no one ever dreams of
blaming him for it, nor does he think himself in the wrong; but
if he failed to fire upon his fellow-men he would then indeed be
culpable. I say nothing of judges and jurymen, who condemn men to
death, nor of troops, who slaughter thousands without a vestige of
remorse, because they are told that they are not in the position of
ordinary men, but are jurymen, judges, generals, soldiers.
This abnormal and surprising state of affairs is formulated in words
like these: "As a man, I sympathize with him, but as a keeper, a
judge, a general, a czar, or a soldier, I must torture or murder
him."
So it is in this present case; men are on the way to slaughter and
torment their famine-stricken brethren, admitting all the while that
in this dispute between the peasants and the landowner the former
are in the right (all the superior officials told me so). They know
that the peasants are miserable, poor, and hungry, and that the
landowner is wealthy and one who inspires no sympathy, and yet these
men are going to kill the peasants in order that this landowner may
gain 3000 roubles; and all because they regard themselves at the
moment not as men, but one as a governor, another as a general of
gendarmerie, another as an officer, or as soldiers, as the case may
be, and bound not by the eternal laws of the human conscience, but
by the accidental, transitory demands of their positions.
However strange it may appear, the only explanation of this
surprising phenomenon is that men are like those under hypnotic
influence, who, as suggested by the hypnotizers, imagine themselves
in certain conditions. Thus, for instance, when it is suggested to
a hypnotized patient that he is lame, he proceeds to limp; that he
is blind, he ceases to see; that he is an animal, and he begins to
bite. And this is the state of all those who put their social and
political duties before, and to the detriment of, their duties as
human beings.
The essential characteristic of this condition is, that men,
influenced by the thought that has been suggested to them, are
unable to weigh their own actions, and simply obey the suggestion
that has been communicated to them.
The difference between men artificially hypnotized and those under
the influence of governmental suggestion consists in this,--that
to the former their imagined environment is suggested suddenly by
one person, and the suggestion operates only for a short time;
whereas to the latter, their imagined position has been the result
of gradual suggestion, going on, not for years, but for generations,
and proceeds not from a single individual, but from their entire
circumstances.
"But," it will be objected, "always, in all societies, the majority
of men, all the children, all the women, absorbed in the duties
and cares of motherhood, all the great mass of workers, who are
completely absorbed by their labor, all those of weak mind, all the
enfeebled, the many who have come under the subjection of nicotine,
alcohol, opium, or what not,--all these are not in a position to
think for themselves, and consequently they submit to those who
stand on a higher intellectual level, or they simply act according
to domestic or social tradition, or in accordance with public
opinion,--and in their acting thus there is nothing abnormal or
contradictory."
Indeed, there is nothing unnatural in it, and the readiness with
which those who reason but little submit to the guidance of men who
stand on a higher plane of consciousness is a universal phenomenon,
and one without which social life could not be. The minority submit
to principles which they have considered for themselves, and in
consequence of the accordance of these principles with their reason;
the rest of men, the majority, submit to the same principles, not
because of personal apprehension of their validity, but because
public opinion demands it.
Such submission to public opinion of men who can think but little
for themselves has nothing abnormal about it so long as public
opinion maintains its unity.
But there is a period when the higher forms of truth, having been
revealed to the few, are in process of transmission to the many;
and when the public opinion which was based on a lower plane of
consciousness has already begun to waver, to give place to the new,
ready to be established. And now men begin to view their own and
other men's actions in the light of their new consciousness, while,
influenced by inertia and tradition, they still continue to apply
principles which were the outcome of the once highest consciousness,
but which are now distinctly opposed to it. Hence it is that men
find themselves in an abnormal position, and that, while realizing
the necessity of conforming to this new public opinion, they lack
courage to abandon conformity to the old one. This is the attitude
which men, not only the men on the train, but the greater part of
mankind, occupy toward Christian truths.
The attitude of those who belong to the upper classes, and who have
all the advantages of high position, is the same as that of the
lower classes who obey implicitly every command that is given to
them.
Men of the ruling classes, who have no reasonable explanation of
their privileges, and who in order to retain them are forced to
repress all their nobler and more humane tendencies, try to persuade
themselves of the necessity of their superior position; while the
lower classes, stultified and oppressed by labor, are kept by the
higher classes in a state of constant subjection.
This is the only possible explanation of the amazing phenomena
which I witnessed on the train on the 9th of September, when men,
naturally kindly and inoffensive, were to be seen going with an easy
conscience to commit the most cruel, contemptible and idiotic of
crimes.
It cannot be said that they are devoid of the conscience which
should forbid them to do these things, as was the case with the men
who, centuries ago, tortured their fellow-men, scourged them to
death, and burned them at the stake;--nay, it does exist in them,
but it is kept dormant; auto-suggestion, as the psychologist calls
it, keeps it thus among the upper classes, while the soldiers, the
executioners, are under the hypnotic influence of the classes above
them.
Conscience may slumber for a time, but it is not dead, and in spite
of suggestion and auto-suggestion, it still whispers; yet a little
while and it will awaken.
One might compare these men to a person under the influence of
hypnotism, to whom it has been suggested that he shall commit some
act contrary to his conception of right and wrong, as, for example,
to murder his mother or his child. He feels himself so far coerced
by the suggestion given him that he cannot refrain; and yet as the
appointed time and place draw near, he seems to hear the stifled
voice of conscience reviving, and he begins to draw back, he tries
to awaken himself. And no one can tell whether or not hypnotic
suggestion will conquer in the end; all depends on the relative
strength of conflicting influences.
So it was with the soldiers on that train, so it is with all men of
our period who take part in state violence and profit by it.
There was a time when, having gone forth to do violence and murder,
to terrify by an example, men did not return until they had
performed their mission, and then they suffered no doubt or remorse;
but having done their fellow-men to death, they placidly returned to
the bosom of their families, caressed their children, and with jest
and laughter gave themselves up to all the pure joys of the hearth.
The men who were then benefited by violence, landed proprietors
and men of wealth, believed their own interests to have a direct
connection with these cruelties. It is different now, when men know,
or at least suspect, the real reason why they do these things. They
may close their eyes and try to silence their consciences, but
neither those who commit such outrages, nor those who order them,
can longer fail to discern the significance of their acts. It may
be that they do not fully appreciate it until they are on the point
of committing the deed, or in some cases not until after the deed
has been done. Those soldiers, for instance, who administered the
tortures during the riot at the Yuzovo factory, at Nijni-Novgorod,
Saratov, and Orel, did not fully apprehend the significance of what
they were doing until it was all over; and now, both they who gave
the orders, and they who executed them, suffer agonies of shame in
the condemnation of public opinion and of their own conscience. I
have talked with some of the soldiers about it; they either tried to
change the subject or spoke of it with horror and repugnance.
There are instances of men coming to their senses, however, just
as they are on the point of committing deeds of the kind. I know
of a sergeant who during the riots was beaten by two peasants;
he reported the fact to the commander of his company, but on the
following day, when he saw the tortures inflicted upon other
peasants, he persuaded his superior officer to destroy his report
and to allow the peasants who had beaten him to depart unpunished.
I know of a case where the soldiers appointed to shoot a prisoner
refused to obey; and of other occasions where the superior officers
have refused to direct tortures and executions.
The men who were in the train on the 9th of September started with
the intention of torturing and murdering their fellow-men, but
whether they would carry out their intention one could not know.
However each one's share in the responsibility of this affair might
be concealed from him, however strong the hypnotic suggestion
among those taking part in it that they did so, not as men, but as
functionaries, and so could violate all human obligations,--in spite
of this,--the nearer they approached their destination, the more
they must have hesitated about it.
It is impossible that the Governor should not pause at the moment of
giving the decisive order to begin to murder and torture. He knows
that the conduct of the Governor at Orel has excited the indignation
of the honorable men, and he himself, influenced by public opinion,
has repeatedly expressed his own disapproval of the affair; he knows
that the lawyer who ought to have accompanied him distinctly refused
to do so, denouncing the whole affair as shameful; he knows that
changes are likely to take place in the government at any moment,
the result of which would be that those who were in favor yesterday
may be in disgrace to-morrow; that if the Russian press remains
silent, the foreign press may give an account of this business that
might cover him with opprobrium. Already he feels the influence of
the new public opinion which is to supersede and destroy the old
one. Moreover, he has no assurance that his subordinates may not at
the last moment refuse to obey him. He hesitates; it is impossible
to divine what he will do.
The functionaries and officers who accompany him feel more or less
as he does. They all know at the bottom of their hearts that they
are engaged in a shameful business, that their share in it stains
and degrades them in the eyes of those persons whose opinion they
value. They know that a man who participates in deeds like these
feels shame in the presence of the woman he loves. And like the
Governor, they, too, feel doubtful whether the soldiers will obey
them at the last moment. What a contrast to the self-assurance of
their bearing on the platform of the station! Not only do they
suffer, but they actually hesitate, and it is partly to hide their
inward agitation that they assume an air of bravado. And this
agitation increases as they draw nearer to their destination.
And, indeed, the entire body of soldiers, although they give no
outward sign, and seem utterly submissive, are really in the same
state of mind.
They are no longer like the soldiers of former days, who gave up the
natural life of labor, and surrendered themselves to debauchery,
rapine, and murder, as the Roman legions did, or the veterans of
the Thirty Years' War, or even those soldiers of more modern times,
whose term of service lasted twenty-five years. Now they are for
the most part men newly taken from their families, with all the
memories of the wholesome, rational life from which they have been
torn still fresh in their minds.
These young men, peasants for the most part, know what they are
going to do; they know that the land-owners generally ill-treat the
peasants, and that this probably is a case in point. Furthermore,
the majority of them can read, and the books they read are
not always in favor of the service; some even demonstrate its
immorality. They find comrades who are independent thinkers,
volunteers and young officers, and the seed of doubt respecting the
merit and rectitude of such deeds as they are about to commit has
already been sown in their minds. True, they have all been subjected
to that ingenious discipline, the work of centuries, which tends to
kill the spirit of independence in every man, and are so accustomed
to automatic obedience that at the words of command, "Fire along the
line!... Fire!" and so forth, their muskets are raised mechanically,
and they perform the customary movements. But now, "Fire!" means
something more than firing at a target; it means the murder of their
abused, downtrodden fathers and brothers, who are grouped yonder in
the street with their wives and children, gesticulating and crying
out one does not know what.
There they are: here a man with thin beard, clad in a patched
_kaftan_, with bast shoes on his feet, just like the father left
behind in the province of Kazan or Ryazan; there another, with gray
beard and bowed shoulders, leaning on a stout staff, just like the
grandfather; and here a youth, with big boots and red shirt, just
like himself a year ago,--the soldier who is about to shoot him. And
there is a woman, with her bast shoes and petticoat, like the mother
he left behind him.
And he must fire upon them!
And God alone knows what each soldier will do at the supreme moment.
The slightest suggestion that they ought not to do it, that they
must not do it,--a single word or hint,--would be enough to make
them pause.
Every one of these men at the moment of action will be like one
hypnotized, to whom it has been suggested to chop a log, who, as
he approaches the object which is told to him is a log, sees as
he raises the ax that it is not a log at all, but his own brother
who lies sleeping there. He may accomplish the act which has been
suggested to him, or he may awake at the moment of committing it.
It is the same with these men. If they do not awaken, then will a
deed be done as shocking as that committed in Orel, and the reign of
official hypnotism will thereby gain new power. If they awaken, then
not only will the deed remain undone, but many of those who hear
of their refusal to do it will free themselves from the suggestion
under whose influence they have hitherto acted, or at least will
think of the possibility of doing so.
If only a few of these men come to their senses, and refuse to do
the deed, and fearlessly express their opinion of the wickedness of
such deeds, even such a few men might enable the rest to throw off
the suggestion under the influence of which they act, and such evil
deeds would not be done.
And another thing: if but a few of those persons who are simply
spectators of the affair would, from their knowledge of other
affairs of the same kind, boldly express their opinion to those
engaged in it, and point out to them their folly, cruelty, and
criminality, even this would not be without a salutary influence.
This is precisely what happened in the case of Tula. Partly because
certain persons expressed reluctance to take a part in the affair;
because a lady passenger and others showed their indignation at a
railway station; because one of the colonels whose regiment was
summoned to reduce the peasants to obedience declared that soldiers
are not executioners,--because of these and other apparently
trifling influences the affair took on a different aspect, and
the troops, on arriving, did not commit outrages, but contented
themselves with cutting down the trees and sending them to the
landowner.
Had it not been that certain of these men conceived a distinct idea
that they were doing wrong, and had not the idea got abroad, the
occurrences at Orel would have been repeated. Had the feeling been
stronger, perhaps the Governor and his troops would not have gone
so far as even to fell the trees and deliver them to the landowner.
Had it been more powerful still, perhaps the Governor would not have
dared even to set out for Tula; its influence might even have gone
so far as to prevent the Minister from framing, and the Emperor from
confirming, such decrees.
All depends, as we come therefore to see, upon the degree of
consciousness that men possess of Christian truth.
Hence, let all men to-day who wish to promote the welfare of mankind
direct their efforts toward the development of this consciousness of
Christian truth.
But, strange to say, those men who nowadays talk most of the
amelioration of human life, and who are the acknowledged leaders
of public opinion, declare this to be precisely the wrong thing
to do, and that there are more effectual expedients for improving
human existence. They insist that any improvement in the conditions
of human life must be accomplished, not through individual
moral effort, nor through the propagation of truth, but through
progressive modifications in the general material conditions of
life. Therefore, they say, individual effort should be devoted to
the gradual reform of the everyday conditions of life; and seeing
that any individual profession of the truth which may happen to
be incompatible with the existing order is harmful, because it
provokes, on the part of the government, an opposition which
prevents the individual from continuing efforts which may be of
utility to society.
According to this theory, all changes in the life of mankind proceed
from the same causes that control the lives of the brute creation.
And all the religious teachers, like Moses and the Prophets,
Confucius, Lao Tze, Buddha, and Christ, preached their doctrines,
and their followers adopted them, not because they divined and loved
the truth, but because the political, social, and, above all, the
economical conditions of the nations in whose midst these doctrines
found expression were favorable to their exposition and development.
Therefore the principal activity of a man who wishes to serve the
world and to improve the condition of his kind should be directed,
according to this theory, not to teaching and profession of the
truth, but to the improvement of the outward, political, social,
and, above all, economic conditions of life. The change in these
conditions may be accomplished by serving the government and
introducing liberal and progressive principles, by contributing to
the development of commerce, by propagating socialistic principles,
but, above all, by promoting the diffusion of science.
According to this doctrine, it is a matter of no consequence whether
one profess the revealed truth or not; there is no obligation to
live in accordance with its precepts, or to refrain from actions
opposed to them,--as, for instance, to serve the government, though
one considers its power detrimental; to profit by the organization
of capital, though one disapproves of it; to subscribe to certain
forms of religion, though one considers them superstitions. Practise
in the courts of law, though one believes them to be corrupt; or
enter the army, or take the oath of allegiance, or indeed lie, or
do anything that is convenient. These things are trivial; for it is
a matter of vital importance, instead of challenging the prevailing
customs of the day, to conform to them, though they be contrary
to one's convictions, satisfied meanwhile to try and liberalize
the existing institutions, by encouraging commerce, propagating
socialistic doctrines, and generally promoting _soi-disant_
science and civilization. According to this convenient theory,
it is possible for a man to remain a landowner, a merchant, a
manufacturer, a judge, a functionary paid by the government, a
soldier, an officer, and at the same time to be humanitarian,
socialist, and revolutionary.
Hypocrisy, formerly growing only out of such religious doctrines as
that of original sin, redemption, the Church, has in these latter
days, by means of the new theory, gained for itself a scientific
basis, and those whose intellectual habit of mind renders the
hypocrisy of the Church unendurable, are yet deceived by this new
hypocrisy with the _cachet_ of science. If in old times a man who
professed the doctrines taught by the Church could with a clear
conscience take part in any political crime, and benefit by so
doing, provided he complied with the external forms of his faith,
men of the present day, who deny Christianity, and view the conduct
of life from a secular and scientific standpoint, are every whit as
sure of their own innocence, even of their lofty morality, when they
participate in and benefit by the evil-doings of government.
It is not alone in Russia, but in France, England, Germany, and
America as well, that we find the wealthy landed proprietor, who,
in return for having allowed the men who live on his estate and who
supply him with the products of the soil, extorts from these men,
who are often poverty-stricken, all that he possibly can. Whenever
these oppressed laborers make an attempt to gain something for
themselves from the lands which the rich man calls his own, without
first asking his consent, troops are called out, who torture and put
to death those who have been bold enough to take such liberties.
By methods like this are claims to the ownership of land made good.
One would hardly imagine that a man who lived in such a wicked and
selfish manner could call himself a Christian, or even liberal.
One would think that if a man cared to seem Christian or liberal,
he would at least cease to plunder and to torment his fellow-men
with the aid of the government, in order to vindicate his claims
to the ownership of land. And such would be the case were it not
for the metaphysical hypocrisy which teaches that from a religious
standpoint it is immaterial whether one owns land or not, and that,
from the scientific point of view, for a single individual to give
up his land would be a useless sacrifice, without any effect on the
well-being of mankind, the amelioration of which can only be brought
about by a progressive modification of outward conditions.
Meanwhile, your modern landowner will, without the least hesitation
or doubt, organize an agricultural exhibition, or a temperance
society, or, through his wife and daughters, distribute warm
underclothing and soup to three old women; and he will hold forth
before the domestic circle, or in society, or as a member of
committees, or in the public press, upon the gospel of love for
mankind in general and the agricultural class in particular, that
class which he never ceases to torment and oppress. And those who
occupy a similar position will believe in him and sing his praises,
and take counsel together upon the best methods of improving the
condition of those very laboring classes they spend their lives
in exploiting; and for this purpose they suggest every possible
expedient, save that which would effect it,--namely, to desist from
robbing the poor of the land necessary for their subsistence.
(A striking example of this hypocrisy was presented by the Russian
landowners during the struggle with the famine of last year,[30]
a famine of which they were themselves the cause, and by which
they profited, not only by selling bread at the highest price, but
even by disposing of the dried potato-plants for five roubles a
_dessiatin_, to be used as fuel by the freezing peasants.)
[30] 1892.
The business of the merchant, again (as is the case with business of
any kind), is based upon a series of frauds; he takes advantage of
the necessities of men by buying his merchandise below, and selling
it above, its value. One would think that a man, the mainspring
of whose activity is what he himself in his own language calls
shrewdness, ought to feel ashamed of this, and never dream of
calling himself Christian or liberal while he continues a merchant.
But, according to the new metaphysic of hypocrisy, he may pass for
a virtuous man and still pursue his evil career; the religious man
has but to believe, the liberal man but to coöperate, in the reform
of external conditions to promote the general progress of commerce;
the rest does not signify. So this merchant (who, besides, often
sells bad commodities, adulterates, and uses false weights and
measures, or deals exclusively in commodities that imperil human
life, such as alcohol or opium) frankly considers himself, and is
considered by others,--always provided he only does not cheat his
colleagues in business and knavery, his fellow-tradesmen,--a model
of conscientiousness and honesty. And if he spend one per cent of
his stolen money on some public institution, hospital, museum,
or school, men call him the benefactor of the people on whose
exploitation all his welfare depends; and if he gives but the least
part of this money to the Church or to the poor, then is he deemed
an exemplary Christian indeed.
Take again the factory-owner, whose entire income is derived
from reducing the pay of his workmen to its lowest terms, and
whose whole business is carried on by forced and unnatural labor,
endangering the health of generations of men. One would suppose
that if this man professed Christian or liberal principles he would
cease to sacrifice human lives to his interests. But, according
to the existing theory, he encourages industry, and it would be a
positive injury to society if he were to abandon his operations,
even supposing he were willing to do so. And, too, this man, the
cruel slave-driver of thousands of human beings, having built for
those injured in his service minute houses, with gardens six feet
in extent, or established a fund, or a home for the aged, or a
hospital, is perfectly satisfied that he has more than atoned for
the moral and physical jeopardy into which he has plunged so many
lives; and he continues to live calmly, proud of his work.
We find that the functionary, civil, military, or ecclesiastical,
who performs his duties to gratify his selfishness or ambition, or,
as is more usually the case, for the sake of the stipend, collected
in the shape of taxes from an exhausted and crippled people,--if,
by a rare exception, he does not directly steal from the public
treasury,--considers himself, and is considered by his equals, a
most useful and virtuous member of society.
There are judges and other legal functionaries who know that their
decisions have condemned hundreds and thousands of unfortunate men
to be torn from their families and thrown into prison. There these
hapless beings are locked up in solitary confinement, or sent to
the galleys, where they go desperate and put an end to themselves
by starving themselves to death, by swallowing glass, or by some
such means. And who knows what the mothers, wives, and children
of these men suffer by the separation and imprisonment, and the
disgrace of it,--who have vainly begged for pardon for their sons,
husbands, brothers, or that their lot may be a little alleviated.
But the judge or other legal functionary is so primed with the
current hypocrisy that he himself, his colleagues, his wife, and his
friends are all quite sure, despite what he does, that he is a good
and sensible man. According to the current philosophy of hypocrisy,
such a man performs a duty of great importance to the public. And
this man, who has injured hundreds or thousands of human beings, who
owe it to him that they have lost their belief in goodness and their
faith in God, goes to church with a benevolent smile, listens to the
Bible, makes liberal speeches, caresses his children, bestows moral
lessons upon them, for their edification, and grows sentimental over
imaginary suffering.
Not only these men, their wives and children, but the entire
community around them, all the teachers, actors, cooks, jockeys,
live by preying upon the life-blood of the working-people, which
in one way or another they absorb like leeches. Every one of their
days of pleasure costs thousands of days in the lives of the
workers. They see the suffering and privation of these workmen,
of their wives and children, of their aged and feeble. They know
what punishments are visited upon those who attempt to resist
the organized system of pillage, but so far from abandoning or
concealing their luxurious habits, they flaunt them in the faces of
those whom they oppress and by whom they are hated. All the while
they assure themselves and others that they have the welfare of the
working-man greatly at heart. On Sundays, clad in rich garments,
they drive in their carriages to churches where the mockery of
Christianity is preached, and listen there to the words of men who
have learned their falsehoods by heart. Some of these men wear
stoles, some wear white cravats; they all preach the doctrine of
love for one's neighbor, a doctrine belied by their daily lives. And
they have all grown so accustomed to playing this part that they
really believe themselves to be what they pretend.
This universal hypocrisy, which has become to every class of
society at the present day like the air it breathes, is so familiar
that men are no longer exasperated by it. It is very fitting that
hypocrisy should signify acting or playing of a part. It has become
so much a matter of course that it no longer excites surprise when
the representatives of Christ pronounce a blessing over murderers
as they stand in rank holding their guns in the position which
signifies, in military parlance, "for prayers," or when the priests
and pastors of various Christian sects accompany the executioner
to the scaffold, and, by lending the sanction of their presence
to murder, make men believe it compatible with Christianity.
(One minister was present when experiments in "electrocution"
took place in the United States.) At the International Prison
Exposition recently held in St. Petersburg, where instruments of
torture, such as chains, and models of prison-cells for solitary
confinement,--means of torture worse than the knout or the
rod,--were on exhibition, sympathetic ladies and gentlemen went to
see them, and seemed greatly entertained.
No one marvels to find liberal science insisting upon the
equality, fraternity, and liberty of men on the one hand, while
on the other it is striving to prove the necessity of armies,
executions, custom-houses, of censorship of the press, of legalized
prostitution, of the expulsion of foreign labor, of the prohibition
of emigration, and of the necessity and justice of colonization
established by the pillage and extermination of whole races of
so-called savages, etc.
They talk of what will happen when all men shall profess what they
call Christianity (by which they mean the different conflicting
creeds); when every one will be fed and clothed; when men will
communicate with one another all over the world by telegraph and
telephones, and will travel in balloons; when all working-men will
accept the doctrine of socialism; when the trade unions will embrace
many millions of men and possess millions of money; when all men
will be educated, will read the papers, and be familiar with all the
sciences.
But what good will this do if after all these improvements men are
still false to the truth?
The miseries of men are caused by disunion, and disunion arises from
the fact that men follow not truth, but falsehood, of which there is
no end. Truth is the only bond by which men may be united; and the
more sincerely men strive after the truth the nearer they approach
to true unity.
But how are men to be united in the truth, or even approach it,
if they not only fail to proclaim the truth which they possess,
but actually think it useless to do so, and pretend to believe in
something which they know to be a lie? In reality no improvement in
the condition of mankind is possible while men continue to hide the
truth from themselves, nor until they acknowledge that their unity,
and consequently their welfare, can be promoted only by the spirit
of truth; until they admit that to profess, and to act in obedience
to the truth as it has been revealed to them, is more important than
all things else.
Let all the material progress ever dreamt of by religious and
scientific men be made; let all men accept Christianity, and let all
the improvements suggested by the Bellamys and Richets, with every
possible addition and correction, be carried out; and yet if the
hypocrisy of to-day still flourishes, if men do not make known the
truth that is within them, but go on pretending to believe what they
know to be untrue, showing respect where they no longer feel it,
their condition will never improve; on the contrary, it will become
worse. The more men are raised above want, the more telegraphs,
telephones, books, newspapers, and reviews they possess, the more
numerous will be the channels for the diffusion of falsehood
and hypocrisy, and the more at variance and miserable will men
become,--and it is even so at the present time.
Let all those material changes take place, and still the position of
humanity will in no way be improved by them; but let every man, so
far as he is able, begin at once and live up to his highest ideal
of the truth or, at the least, cease to defend a lie, then indeed
should we see even in this year of 1893 such an advance in the
establishment of the truth upon earth, and in the deliverance of
mankind, as could hardly be hoped for in a hundred years.
It was not without reason that the only harsh and denunciatory words
that Christ uttered were addressed to hypocrites. It is neither
theft, nor robbery, nor murder, nor fornication, nor fraud, but
falsehood, that particular hypocritical falsehood, which destroys
in men's conscience the distinction between good and evil, which
corrupts them and takes from them the possibility of avoiding evil
and of seeking good, which deprives them of that which constitutes
the essence of a true human life,--it is this which bars the way
to all improvement. Those men who do evil, knowing not the truth,
inspire in the beholder compassion for their victims and repugnance
for themselves, but they only injure the few whom they molest.
Whereas those men who, knowing the good, yet pursue the evil,
wearing all the while the mantle of hypocrisy, commit a wrong,
not only against themselves and their victims, but also against
thousands of other men who are deceived by the falsehood under which
they conceal the wrong.
Thieves, robbers, murderers, rogues, who commit acts which they
themselves, as well as other men, know to be evil, serve as a
warning to show men what is evil, and make them hate it. Those,
however, who steal, rob, torture, and murder, justifying themselves
by pretended religious, scientific, or other motives, like the
landowners, merchants, factory-owners, and government servants of
the present time, by provoking imitation, injure not only their
victims, but thousands and millions of men who are corrupted
by their influence, and who become so blinded that they cannot
distinguish the difference between good and evil.
One fortune acquired by trading in the necessaries of life or
in articles that tend to demoralize men, or by speculations
in the stock exchange, or by the acquisition of cheap lands
which subsequently rise in value by reason of the increasing
needs of the people, or by the establishment of factories that
endanger human health and human lives, or by rendering civil or
military service to the State, or by any occupation that tends
to the demoralization of mankind,--a fortune acquired in any of
these ways, not only permitted, but approved by the leaders of
society, when, furthermore, it is supported by a show of charity,
surely demoralizes men more than millions of thefts, frauds, or
robberies,--sins committed against the laws of the land and subject
to judicial prosecution.
A single enforcement of capital punishment, ordained by men of
education and wealth, sanctioned by the approval of the Christian
clergy, and declared to be an act of justice essential to the
welfare of the State, tends far more to degrade and brutalize
mankind than hundreds and thousands of murders committed in passion
by the ignorant. A more demoralizing scene than the execution
suggested by Jukovsky, calculated as it is to excite a feeling of
religious exaltation, it would be difficult to conceive.[31]
[31] See vol. iv. of the works of Jukovsky (a Russian poet).
A war, even of the shortest duration,--with all its customary
consequences, the destruction of harvests, the thefts, the unchecked
debauchery and murders, with the usual explanations of its necessity
and justice, with the accompanying glorification and praise bestowed
upon military exploits, upon patriotism, devotion to the flag, with
the assumption of tenderness and care for the wounded,--will do more
in one year to demoralize men than thousands of robberies, arsons,
and murders committed in the course of centuries by individual men
carried away by passion.
The existence of one household, one not even extravagant beyond
the ordinary limits, esteeming itself virtuous and innocent, which
yet consumes the production of enough to support thousands of the
men who live near in poverty and distress, has a more degrading
influence on mankind than innumerable orgies of gross shopkeepers,
officers, or workmen who are addicted to drink and debauchery, and
who smash mirrors and crockery by way of amusement.
One solemn procession, one religious service, or one sermon from
the pulpit, embodying a falsehood which the preacher himself does
not believe, does infinitely more harm than thousands of frauds,
adulterations of food, etc.
Men talk of the hypocrisy of the Pharisees; but the hypocrisy
of our contemporaries far surpasses the comparatively harmless
sanctimoniousness of the Pharisees. They at least had an outward
religious law, whose fulfilment may perhaps have prevented them from
discerning their duty toward their neighbors; indeed, those duties
had not then been distinctly defined. To-day there is no such law.
(I do not consider such gross and stupid men as even now believe
that sacraments or absolution of the Pope can free them from sins.)
On the contrary, the law of the gospel, which in one form or another
we all profess, makes our duties perfectly plain. Indeed, those
precepts which were but vaguely indicated by certain of the prophets
have since been so clearly formulated, have grown to be such
truisms, that the very school-boys and hack writers repeat them.
Therefore men of our times cannot feign ignorance concerning them.
Those men who enjoy the advantages of the existing system, and who
are always protesting love for their neighbor, without suspicion
that their own lives are an injury to their neighbors, are like
the robber who, caught with an uplifted knife, his victim crying
desperately for help, protests that he did not know that he was
doing anything unpleasant to the man whom he was in the act of
robbing and about to murder. Since the denial of this robber
and murderer would be of no avail, his act being patent to all
observers, it would seem equally futile for our fellow-citizens, who
live by the sufferings of the oppressed, to assure themselves and
others that they desire the welfare of those whom they never cease
to rob, and that they had not realized the nature of the methods by
which their prosperity had been attained.
We can no longer persuade ourselves that we do not know of the
one hundred thousand men in Russia alone who have been shut up
in galleys or in prisons for the purpose of securing to us our
property and our peace; and that we do not know of the existence
of those courts of law at which we preside, to which we bring
our accusations, which sentence those men, who have attacked our
property or our lives, to the galleys, to imprisonment, or to exile,
where human beings, no worse than they who have pronounced judgment
upon them, become degraded and lost; nor that we do not know that
everything that we possess has been won and is preserved at the
expense of murder and violence. We cannot shut our eyes and pretend
that we do not see the policeman, who, armed with a revolver, paces
before our window, protecting us while we are eating our excellent
dinner, or when we are at the theater seeing a new play; nor do
not know of the existence of the soldiers who will appear armed
with guns and cartridges whenever our property is menaced. We know
perfectly well that if we finish our dinner, see the new play to its
end, enjoy a merry-making at Christmas, take a walk, go to a ball, a
race, or a hunt, we owe it to the policeman's revolver or the ball
in the soldier's musket, which will pierce the hungry belly of the
disinherited man who, with watering mouth, peeps round the corner
at our pleasures, and who might interrupt them if the policeman
or the soldiers in the barracks were not ready to appear at our
first call. Hence, as the man who is caught in the act of robbery
in broad daylight cannot deny that he threatened his victim with a
knife for the purpose of stealing his purse, it might be supposed
that we could no longer represent to ourselves and to others that
the soldiers and policemen whom we see around us are here, not for
the purpose of protecting us, but to repulse foreign enemies, to
assure public order, to adorn by their presence public rejoicings
and ceremonies. We cannot pretend we do not know that men are not
fond of starving to death. We know that they do not like to die
of hunger, being deprived of the right to earn their living from
the soil upon which they live, that they are not anxious to work
ten to fourteen hours a day underground, standing in water, or in
over-heated rooms, twelve or fourteen hours a day, or at night,
manufacturing articles which contribute to our pleasures. It would
seem impossible to deny what is so evident, and yet it is what we do
deny.
It cannot be denied that there are people of the wealthy class,
and I am glad to say that I meet them more and more frequently,
particularly in the younger generation and among women, who, on
being reminded by what means and at what a price their pleasures
are obtained, instantly admit the truth of it, and with bowed heads
exclaim: "Ah, do not tell us of it! If it is as you say, one cannot
live!" If, however, there are some who are willing to admit their
sin, though they know not how to escape from it, still, the majority
of men nowadays have become so confirmed in hypocrisy that they
boldly deny facts that are patent to every one who has eyes.
"It is all nonsense," they say. "No one forces the people to work
for the landowners or in the factories. It is a matter of mutual
accommodation. Large properties and capital are indispensable,
because they enable men to organize companies and provide work for
the laboring classes, and the work in mills and factories is by no
means so dreadful as you represent it. When real abuses are found
to exist, the government and society in general take measures to
abolish them and to render the labor of the working-men easier and
more agreeable. The working-classes are used to physical labor,
and are not as yet capable of doing anything else. The poverty
of the people is caused neither by the landowners nor by the
tyranny of the capitalists; it springs from other causes,--from
ignorance, disorder, and intemperance. We, the governing classes,
who counteract this state of poverty by wise administration; and
we, the capitalists, who counteract it by the multiplication of
useful inventions; and we, the liberals, who contribute our share
by instituting trade unions and by diffusing education,--these are
the methods by which we promote the welfare of the people, without
making any radical change in our position. We do not wish all to be
poor like the poor; we wish all to be rich like the rich.
"As to torturing and killing men for the purpose of making them
work for the rich, that is all sophistry; the troops are sent out
to quell disturbances when men, not appreciating their advantages,
rebel and disturb the peace essential for the general welfare. It
is equally necessary to restrain malefactors, for whom prisons,
gallows, and the like are established. We are anxious enough to
abolish them as far as possible ourselves, and are working for that
purpose."
Hypocrisy, which nowadays is supported by two methods, the
quasi-religious and the quasi-scientific, has attained such
proportions, that if we did not live in its atmosphere continually,
it would be impossible to believe that humanity could sink to such
depths of self-deception. Men have reached so surprising a state,
their hearts have become so hardened, that they look and do not see;
listen, and do not hear or understand.
For a long time they have been living a life that is contrary to
their conscience. Were it not for the aid of hypocrisy they would be
unable so to live, for such a life, so opposed to conscience, can
only continue because it is veiled by hypocrisy.
And the greater the difference between the practice and the
conscience of men, the more elastic becomes hypocrisy. Yet even
hypocrisy has its limits, and I believe that we have reached them.
Every man of the present day, with the Christian consciousness that
has involuntarily become his, may be likened to a sleeper who dreams
that he is doing what even in his dream he knows he ought not to do.
In the depths of his dream-consciousness he realizes his conduct,
and yet seems unable to change his course, and to cease doing that
which he is aware he should not do.
Then, in the progress of his dream, his state of mind becoming less
and less endurable, he begins to doubt the reality of what has
seemed so real, and makes a conscious effort to break the spell that
holds him.
The average man of our Christian world is in exactly the same
strait. He feels that everything going on around him is absurd,
senseless, and impossible; that the situation is becoming more and
more painful, that it has indeed reached the crisis.
It is impossible that we of the present age, endowed with the
Christian conscience that has become a part of our very flesh and
blood as it were, who live with a full consciousness of the dignity
of man and the equality of all men, who feel our need for peaceable
relations with each other and for the unity of all nations, should
go on living in such a way. It is impossible that all our pleasures,
all our satisfactions, should be purchased by the sufferings and
the lives of our brethren; impossible that we should be ready at a
moment's notice to rush upon each other like wild beasts, one nation
against another, and relentlessly destroy the lives and labor of
men, only because one foolish diplomatist or ruler says or writes
something foolish to another.
It is impossible; and yet all men of our time see that this is what
does happen every day, and all wait for the catastrophe, while the
situation grows more and more strained and painful.
And as a man in his sleep doubts the reality of his dream and longs
to awaken and return to real life, so the average man of our day
cannot, in the bottom of his heart, believe the terrible situation
in which he finds himself, and which is growing worse and worse,
to be the reality. He longs to attain to a higher reality, the
consciousness of which is already within him.
And like this sleeper, who has but to make the conscious effort
to ask himself whether it be a dream, in order to transform its
seeming hopelessness into a joyous awakening, our average man has
but to make a conscious effort and ask himself, "Is not all this
an illusion?" in order to feel himself forthwith like the awakened
sleeper, transported from an hypocritical and horrible dream-world
into a living, peaceful, and joyous real one.
And for this he has no need of any heroic achievement; he has only
to make the effort prompted by his moral consciousness.
But is man able to make this effort?
According to the existing theory, one indispensable from the point
of view of hypocrisy, man is not free and may not change his life.
"A man cannot change his life, because he is not a free agent. He
is not a free agent, because his acts are the result of preceding
causes. And whatever he may do, certain it is that preceding causes
always determine that a man must act in one way rather than in
another; therefore a man is not free to change his life,"--thus
argue the defenders of the metaphysic of hypocrisy. And they would
be perfectly right if man were an unconscious and stationary being,
incapable of apprehending the truth, and unable to advance to a
higher state by means of it. But man is a conscious being, able to
grow more and more in the knowledge of truth. Therefore if he be
not free in his acts, the causes of these acts, which consist in
the recognition simply of such and such truth, are yet within his
mastery.
So that if a man is not free to do certain acts, he is yet free to
work toward the suppression of the moral causes which prevent their
performance. He may be likened to the engineer of a locomotive, who,
though not at liberty to change the past or present motion of his
engine, is yet free to determine its future progress.
No matter what an intelligent man may do, he adopts a certain course
of action only because he acknowledges to himself that at the moment
that course alone is the right one; or because he has formerly
recognized it as such, and now continues to act as he does through
force of habit, or through mental inertia.
Whether a man eats or abstains from food, whether he works or rests,
whether he avoids danger or seeks it, he acts as he does because he
considers it to be reasonable at the time, or because previously
he saw that the truth consisted in acting in that way and not in
another.
The admission or the denial of a certain truth depends not on
outward causes, but on certain conditions that man finds within
himself. Thus frequently, with all the outward and, as it may seem,
favorable conditions for recognizing the truth, one may reject it,
while another may receive it under the most unfavorable conditions,
and without apparent motives. As it is said in the gospel: "No
man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw
him;"--that is to say, the recognition of truth, which is the cause
of all the manifestations of a man's life, does not depend on
outward conditions, but on certain inherent qualities which escape
recognition.
Therefore a man who is not free in his acts still feels himself
free in regard to the cause of his acts; that is, in regard to the
recognition or non-recognition of truth.
Thus a man who, under the influence of passion, has committed a deed
contrary to the truth he knows, still remains free in recognizing
or denying the truth; in other words, denying the truth, he may
consider his act necessary and justify himself in committing it,
or, accepting the truth, he may acknowledge his deed to be evil and
himself guilty.
Thus a gambler or a drunkard, who has succumbed to his passion, is
free to acknowledge gambling or drunkenness either as evils, or as
amusements without consequence. In the first instance, if he cannot
get rid of his passion at once, he becomes free from it gradually,
according to the depth of his conviction of its evil. In the second
instance, his passion grows and gradually deprives him of all chance
of deliverance.
So, too, with a man who, unable to endure the scorching flames for
the rescue of his friend, himself escapes from a burning house,
while he recognizes the truth that a man should save the life of his
fellow-man at the peril of his own, is yet free to look upon his
act as evil, and therefore to condemn himself for it; or, denying
this truth, to judge his act to be both natural and necessary, and
so justify himself in his own opinion. In the first instance, his
recognition of the truth, even though he has not acted in accordance
with it, helps him to prepare for a series of self-sacrificing
actions that will inevitably follow such recognition. In the second
instance, he prepares for a series of actions just as selfish.
I do not say that a man is always free to recognize or not to
recognize every truth. Certain truths there are, long since
recognized by men, and transmitted by tradition, education, and
mere force of habit until they have become second nature; and there
are other truths which men perceive as but dimly and afar. A man
is not free not to recognize the first of these; he is not free to
recognize the second. But there is a third category of truths, which
have not as yet become unquestioned motors of his activity, but have
revealed themselves to man so unmistakably that he is unable to
disregard them; he must inevitably consider them, and either accept
or reject them. It is by his relation to these truths that a man's
freedom is manifested.
Each man in his perception of truth is like a wayfarer who walks by
the aid of a lantern whose light he casts before him: he does not
see what as yet has not been revealed by its beams, he does not see
the path he has left behind, merged again in the darkness; but at
any given point he sees that which the lantern reveals, and he is
always at liberty to choose one side of the road or the other.
There exist for each man certain concealed truths, as yet unrevealed
to his mental vision; certain others, which he has experienced,
assimilated, and forgotten; and yet others, that rise up before
him demanding immediate recognition from his reason. And it is in
the recognition or the disregard of these truths that what we call
freedom becomes evident.
All the apparent difficulty of the question of man's liberty comes
from the fact that those who seek to solve it represent man as
stationary in the presence of the truth.
Undoubtedly he is not free if we look upon him as a stationary
being; if we forget that the life of all humanity is an eternal
procession from darkness to light, from the lower conception of
truth to a higher one, from truth mingled with error to purer truth.
A man would not be free if he were ignorant of all truth; neither
would he be free, nor even have any conception of liberty, if the
truth were suddenly revealed to him in its entire purity and without
any admixture of error.
But man is not a stationary being. And as he advances in life, every
individual discovers an ever increasing proportion of truth, and
thus becomes less liable to error.
The relations of man to truth are threefold. Some truths are so
familiar to him that they have become the unconscious springs of
action; others have only been dimly revealed to him; again others,
though still unfamiliar, are revealed to him so plainly that they
force themselves upon his attention, and inevitably, in one way or
another, he is obliged to consider them. He cannot ignore them, but
must either recognize or repudiate them.
And it is in the recognition or in the disregard of these truths
that man's free agency is manifested.
A man's freedom does not consist in a faculty of acting
independently of his environment and the various influences it
brings to bear upon his life, but in his power to become, through
recognizing and professing the truth that has been revealed to
him, a free and willing laborer at the eternal and infinite work
performed by God and his universe; or, in shutting his eyes to
truth, to become a slave and be forced against his will into a way
in which he is loath to go.
Not only does truth point out the direction a man's life _should_
take, but it opens the only road he _can_ take. Hence, all men will
invariably, free or not, follow the road of truth;--some willingly,
doing the work they have set themselves to do; others involuntarily,
by submitting in spite of themselves to the law of life. It is in
the power of choice that a man's freedom lies.
Freedom, in limits so narrow as these, appears to men so
insignificant that they fail to perceive it. The believers in
causation prefer to overlook it; the believers in unlimited free
will, keeping in view their own ideal, disdain a freedom to them
so insignificant. Freedom, confined between the limits of entire
ignorance of the truth, or of the knowledge of only a part of it,
does not seem to them to be freedom, the more so that whether a man
is or is not willing to recognize the truth revealed unto him, he
will inevitably be forced to obey it in life.
A horse harnessed to a load in company with other horses is not free
to remain in one place. If he does not pull the load, the load will
strike him and force him to move in the direction it is going, thus
compelling him to advance. Still, in spite of this limitation of
freedom, the horse is still free to pull the load of his own accord,
or be pushed forward by it. The same reasoning can be applied to
human freedom.
Be this freedom great or small as compared with the chimerical
freedom for which we sigh, it is the only true freedom, and through
it alone is to be found all the happiness accessible to man. And not
only does this freedom promote the happiness of men, but it is the
only means through which the work of the world can be accomplished.
According to the doctrine of Christ, a man who limits his
observation of life to the sphere in which there is no freedom--to
the sphere of effects--that is, of acts--does not live a true
life. He only lives a true life who has transferred his life
into the sphere in which freedom lies,--into the domain of first
causes,--that is to say, by the recognition and practice of the
truth revealed to him.
The man who consecrates his life to sensual acts is ever performing
acts that depend on temporary causes beyond his control. Of
himself he does nothing; it only seems to him that he is acting
independently, whereas in reality all that he imagines he is doing
by himself is done through him by a superior force; he is not the
creator of life, but its slave. But the man who devotes his life to
the acknowledgment and practice of the truth revealed to him unites
himself with the source of universal life, and accomplishes, not
personal, individual acts, that depend on the conditions of time and
space, but acts that have no causes, but are in themselves causes of
all else, and have an endless and unlimited significance.
Because of their setting aside the essence of true life, which
consists in the recognition and practice of the truth, and directing
their efforts toward the improvement of the external conditions
of life, men of the pagan life-conception may be likened to
passengers on a steamer, who should, in their anxiety to reach their
destination, extinguish the engine-fires, and instead of making use
of steam and screw, try during a storm to row with oars which cannot
reach the water.
The Kingdom of God is attained by effort, and it is only those who
make the effort that do attain it. It is this effort, which consists
in sacrificing outward conditions for the sake of the truth, by
which the Kingdom of God is attained,--an effort which can and ought
to be made now, in our own epoch.
Men have but to understand this: that they must cease to care for
material and external matters, in which they are not free; let them
apply one hundredth part of the energy now used by them in outward
concerns to those in which they are free,--to the recognition and
profession of the truth that confronts them, to the deliverance of
themselves and others from the falsehood and hypocrisy which conceal
the truth,--and then the false system of life which now torments us,
which threatens us with still greater suffering, will be destroyed
at once without struggle. Then the Kingdom of Heaven, at least in
that first stage for which men through the development of their
consciousness are already prepared, will be established.
As one shake is sufficient to precipitate into crystals a liquid
saturated with salt, so at the present time it may be that only the
least effort is needed in order that the truth, already revealed
to us, should spread among hundreds, thousands, millions of men,
and a public opinion become established in conformity with the
existing consciousness, and the entire social organization become
transformed. It depends upon us to make this effort.
If only each of us would try to understand and recognize the
Christian truth, which in the most varied forms surrounds us on
all sides, pleading to be admitted into our hearts; if we would
cease to lie and pretend that we do not see this truth, or that
we are anxious to fulfil it, excepting in the one thing that it
really demands; if we would only recognize this truth which calls
us, and would fearlessly profess it,--we should find forthwith that
hundreds, thousands, and millions of men are in the same position as
ourselves, fearing like ourselves to stand alone in its recognition,
and waiting only to hear its avowal from others.
If men would only cease to be hypocrites they would perceive at once
that this cruel organization of society, which alone hampers them
and yet appears to them like something immutable, necessary, and
sacred, established by God, is already wavering, and is maintained
only by the hypocrisy and the falsehood of ourselves and our
fellow-men.
But if it be true that it depends only on ourselves to change the
existing order of life, have we the right to do it without knowing
what we shall put in its place? What will become of the world if the
present system be destroyed?
"What is there beyond the walls of the world we leave behind us?
"Fear seizes us,--emptiness, space, freedom....--how is one to go
on, not knowing whither? How is one to lose, without the hope of
gain?...
"Had Columbus reasoned thus he never would have weighed anchor. It
was madness to attempt to cross an unknown ocean, to set sail for a
country whose very existence was doubtful. But he discovered a new
world through this madness. To be sure, if people had only to move
from one furnished house into another and a more commodious one, it
would be an easy matter, but the trouble lies in there being no one
to prepare the new apartments. The future looks more uncertain still
than the ocean,--it promises nothing,--it will only be what men and
circumstances make it.
"If you are content with the old world, try to preserve it; it is
sick, and will not live long. But if you can no longer live in the
eternal conflict between your convictions and life, thinking one way
and acting another, take it upon yourselves to leave the shelter
of the blanched and ruinous arches of the Middle Ages. I am aware
that this is not an easy matter. It is hard to part with all one has
been accustomed to from birth. Men are ready for great sacrifices,
but not those which the new life demands of them. Are they ready
to sacrifice their present civilization, their mode of life,
their religion, their conventional morality? Are they ready to be
deprived of all the results of such prolonged efforts, the results
we have boasted of for three centuries, of all the conveniences and
attractions of our existence, to give the preference to wild youth
rather than to civilized senility, to pull down the palace built
by our fathers simply for the pleasure of laying the foundation
of a new house, which, without doubt, will not be completed till
long after our time."[32] Thus wrote, almost half a century ago, a
Russian author, who, with penetrating vision, clearly discerned even
at that time what is recognized by every man to-day who reflects a
little,--the impossibility of continuing life on the former basis,
and the necessity of establishing some new mode of existence.
[32] Herzen, vol. v., p. 55.
It is plain from the simplest and most ordinary point of view that
it is folly to remain under a roof that threatens to fall, and
that one must leave it. Indeed, it is difficult to imagine a more
miserable situation than that of the present Christian world,
with its nations arrayed in arms one against the other, with its
ever increasing taxes for the purpose of supporting its growing
armaments, with the burning hatred of the working-classes for the
rich, with war suspended above all like the sword of Damocles ready
to fall, as it may, at any moment.
It is doubtful whether any revolution could be more disastrous than
the present social order, or rather disorder, with its perpetual
victims of overwork, misery, drunkenness, dissipation, with all the
horrors of impending war that in one year will sacrifice more lives
than all the revolutions of the present century.
What will become of mankind if each one fulfils that which God
demands through the conscience that is in him. Shall I be safe if,
under the orders of my master, I accomplish in his great workshop
the tasks he has set me, although, ignorant of his final plans, I
may think it strange? Nor is it alone the question of the future
that troubles men when they hesitate to do the master's bidding.
They are concerned about the question as to how they are to live
without the familiar conditions which we call science, art,
civilization, culture. We feel individually all the burden of our
present way of living; we see that were this order of things to
continue, it would inevitably ruin us; and yet we are anxious to
have these conditions continue, to have our science, our art, our
civilization, and culture remain unchanged. It is as though a man
who dwells in an old house, suffering from cold and discomfort, who
is moreover aware that its walls may tumble at any moment, should
consent to the remodeling of it, only on condition that he may be
allowed to remain there, a condition that is equivalent to a refusal
to have his dwelling rebuilt. "What, if I should leave my house,"
he says, "I should be temporarily deprived of its comforts; the
new house may not be built after all, or it may be constructed on
a new plan, which will lack the conveniences to which I have been
accustomed!" But if the materials and the workmen are ready, it is
probable that the new house will be built, and in a better manner
than the old one; while it is not only probable but certain that
the old house will soon fall into ruins, crushing those who remain
within its walls. In order that the old, everyday conditions of life
may disappear and make room for new and better ones, we must surely
leave behind the old conditions, which are at length become fatal
and impossible, and issue forth to meet the future.
"But science, art, civilization, and culture will cease to be!" But
if all these are only diverse manifestations of truth, the impending
change is to be accomplished for the sake of a further advance
toward truth and its realization. "How, then, can the manifestations
of truth disappear, in consequence of further realization of truth?"
The manifestations of truth will be different, better, loftier, the
error that has been in them will perish, while the verity that is in
them will remain and flourish with renewed vigor.
Return to yourselves, sons of men, and have faith in the gospel, and
in its doctrine of eternal happiness! If you heed not this warning,
you shall all perish like the men slain by Pilate, like those upon
whom the tower of Siloam fell; like millions of other men, who slew
and were slain, who executed and suffered execution, who tortured
and were tortured; as perished the man who so foolishly filled his
granaries, counting on a long life, on the very night when his soul
was required of him. Return, sons of men, and believe in the words
which Christ uttered 1800 years ago, words which He repeats to-day
with greater force, warning us that the evil day He foretold is at
hand, and that our life has reached its last descent of folly and
wickedness.
Now, after so many centuries of futile effort to protect ourselves
by the methods of the pagan system of violence, it should be evident
to every man that all such effort, far from insuring our safety,
tends only to add a new element of danger both to individual and
social existence.
No matter by what names we may be called, nor what garments we may
wear, nor in the presence of what priest we may be anointed, nor
how many millions our subjects may number, nor how many guards
may be posted on our journey, nor how many policemen may protect
our property, nor how many so-called criminals, revolutionists, or
anarchists we may execute; no matter what exploits we may perform,
nor what states we may establish, nor what fortresses and towers
we may erect, from the Tower of Babel to the Eiffel Tower,--we
have before us two ever present and unavoidable conditions, that
deprive our mode of life of all significance: (1) death, that may
overtake each of us at any moment, and (2) the transitory nature
of all our undertakings, that disappear, leaving no trace behind
them. No matter what we may do, found kingdoms, build palaces and
monuments, write poems and songs,--all is but fleeting and leaves no
trace behind. Therefore no matter how much we may attempt to conceal
this from ourselves, we cannot fail to perceive that the true
significance of our life lies neither in our individual, physical
existence, subjected to unavoidable suffering and death, nor in any
institution or social organization.
Whoever you are, you who read these lines, reflect upon your
position and your duties, not upon the position of landowner,
merchant, judge, emperor, president, minister, priest, or
soldier, which you may assume but for a time, not upon the
imaginary duties which these positions impose upon you, but upon
your actual and eternal position as a being, who, after a whole
eternity of non-existence, is called by the will of Some One from
unconsciousness into life, and who may at any moment return whence
he came by the same will. Consider your duties! Not your imaginary
duties of landowner in regard to your estate, nor of merchant to
your capital, nor of emperor, minister, or governor to the State,
but of your real duties, of a being called forth into life and
endowed with love and reason. Do that which He who has sent you
into this world, and to whom you will shortly return, demands of
you. Are you doing what he requires? Are you doing right when, as
landowner or manufacturer, you take the products of the labor of
the poor, and establish your life on this spoliation; or when, as
governor or judge, you do violence in condemning men to death; or
when, as soldier, you prepare for war, for fighting, robbery, and
murder,--are you doing right?
You say that the world is as you find it, that it is inevitable
that it should be as it is, that what you do you are compelled to
do. But can it be that, having so strongly rooted an aversion to
the suffering of men, to violence, to murder; having such a need of
loving your fellow-men, and of being loved by them; seeing clearly,
too, that the greatest good possible to men comes from acknowledging
human brotherhood, from one serving another: can it be that your
heart tells you all this, that you are taught it by your reason,
that science repeats it to you, and yet regardless of it, on the
strength of some mysterious and complicated argument, you are forced
to contradict it all in your daily conduct? Is it possible that,
being a landowner or a capitalist, you should establish your life on
the oppression of the people; that, being an emperor or a president,
you should command armies, and be a leader of murderers; that,
being a functionary of State, you should take from the poor their
hard-earned money for your own benefit, or for the benefit of the
rich; that, being a judge or juror, you should condemn erring men to
torture and death, because the truth has not been revealed to them;
or, above all, is it possible that you, a youth, should enter the
army, doing that upon which all the evil of the world is founded,
that, renouncing your own will, all your human sympathy, you should
engage at the will of others to murder those whom they bid you
murder?
It is impossible!
If you are told that all this is essential for the support of the
existing system of life; that this system, with its pauperism,
famine, prisons, executions, armies, wars, is necessary for society,
and that if it were to be abolished worse evils would follow, you
are told so only by those who benefit by this system; while those
who suffer from it,--and their numbers are ten times greater,--all
think and say the opposite. And at the bottom of your heart you
know that this is false,--that the existing system has had its day,
and must inevitably be remodeled on new foundations; and that there
is no need whatsoever to support it by the sacrifice of human life.
Even supposing that the existing system is necessary, how is it
that you should have to support it by trampling upon all finer
feelings? But who has made you a guardian of this crumbling
structure? Neither has the State, nor society, nor has any one
requested you individually to support it by occupying your position
of landowner, merchant, emperor, priest, or soldier, and you are
well aware that you have accepted and are holding it, not for
purposes of self-denial, for the good of your fellow-men, but for
your own selfish interest; for your greed of gain, vainglory,
ambition, through your indolence or your cowardice. If you do not
desire this position you should not persist in doing what is cruel,
false, and contemptible in order to retain it. If you would once
refrain from these things which you do continually for the purpose
of retaining it, you would lose it at once. If you are a ruler or
an official, make only an attempt to cease polite lying, cease to
take part in violences and executions; if you are a priest, desist
from deceiving; if a soldier, cease killing; if a land-owner or
manufacturer, cease defending your property by roguery and violence;
and forthwith you will lose the position which, as you say, is
forced upon you and seems to you burdensome.
It cannot be that a man should be placed against his will in a
position contrary to conscience.
If you are put in such a position, it is not because it is necessary
for some one to be there, but only because you are willing to accept
it. And therefore, knowing that such a position is directly opposed
to the mandates of your heart, your reason, your faith, and even to
the teaching of that science you believe in, you cannot but pause
to consider, if you wish to keep it, and especially if you try to
justify it, if you are doing what you ought to do.
You might run the risk if you had but the time to see your mistake
and correct it, and if you ran the risk for something worth having.
But when you know for certain that you are liable to die at any
moment, without the slightest possibility either for yourself or for
those whom you have drawn in with you of rectifying your mistake;
and, moreover, since you know that no matter what those about you
may accomplish in the material organization of the world, it will
all very shortly disappear as certainly as you yourself, leaving no
trace behind,--it is surely obvious that you have no inducement to
run the risk of making a mistake so terrible.
This would seem perfectly plain and simple if we did not veil with
hypocrisy the truth that is indubitably revealed to us.
Share what you have with others; do not amass riches; be not vain;
do not rob, torture, or murder men; do not to others what you would
not that others should do to you,--these things have been said
not eighteen hundred but five thousand years ago, and there can
be no doubt of the truth of them. Save for hypocrisy, it would be
impossible, even if one did not obey these rules, not to acknowledge
that they ought to be obeyed, and that those who do not obey them do
wrong.
But you say that there is still the general well-being, for the sake
of which one should deviate from these rules. It is allowable for
the general well-being to kill, torture, and rob. "It is better that
one man should perish than a whole nation," you say, like Caiaphas,
when you are signing death-warrants; or you load your gun to shoot
your fellow-man, who is to perish for the general good; or you
imprison him or take away his goods.
You say that you do these cruel things because you are a part of
society, of the State, and must serve your government and carry out
its laws, as landowner, judge, emperor, or soldier. But if you are
a part of the State and have duties in consequence, you are also a
partaker of the infinite life of God's universe, and have higher
duties in consequence of that.
As your duties to your family or to society are always subject to
the higher duties that depend upon your citizenship in the State, so
your duties of citizenship are subject to the duties arising from
your relations to the life of the universe, from your sonship to
God. And as it would be unwise to cut down telegraph poles in order
to furnish fuel for the benefit of a family or a few people, because
this would be breaking the laws that protect the welfare of the
State; so it is equally unwise, in order to promote the welfare of
the State, to execute or murder a man, because this is breaking the
immutable laws which preserve the welfare of the world.
The obligations of citizenship must be subject to the higher and
eternal obligations on your part in the everlasting life of God, and
must not contradict them. As it was said eighteen hundred years ago
by the disciples of Christ, "Whether it be right in the sight of God
to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye."[33] "We ought to
obey God rather than men."[34]
[33] Acts iv. 19.
[34] Acts v. 29.
You are told to believe that in order to maintain an ever changing
system, established but yesterday by a few men in a corner of the
globe, you should commit violent deeds that are against the fixed
and eternal order established by God or reason. Can it be possible?
Do not fail, then, to reflect upon your position of land-owner,
merchant, judge, emperor, president, minister, priest, or
soldier--associated with violence, oppression, deceit, torture, and
murder; refuse to recognize the lawfulness of these crimes. I do
not mean that if you are a landowner you should forthwith give your
land to the poor; or if a capitalist, your money or your factory to
your workmen; or if a czar, a minister, a magistrate, a judge, or a
general, you should forthwith abdicate all your advantages; or if a
soldier, whose occupation in its very nature is based on violence,
you should at once refuse to continue longer a soldier, despite
all the dangers of such a refusal. Should you do this, it will
indeed be an heroic act; but it may happen--and most probably--that
you will not be able to do it. You have connections, a family,
subordinates, chiefs; you may be surrounded by temptations so
strong that you cannot overcome them; but to acknowledge the truth
to be the truth, and not to lie--that you are always able to do.
You can refrain from affirming that you continue to be a landowner
or factory-owner, a merchant, an artist, an author, because you
are thus useful to men; from declaring that you are a governor, an
attorney-general, a czar, not because it is agreeable or you are
accustomed to be such, but for the good of men; from saying that you
remain a soldier, not through fear of punishment, but because you
consider the army indispensable for the protection of men's lives.
To keep from speaking thus falsely before yourself and others--this
you are always able to do, and not only able, but in duty bound to
do, because in this alone--in freeing yourself from falsehood and in
working out the truth--lies the highest duty of your life. And do
but this and it will be sufficient for the situation to change at
once of itself.
One only thing in which you are free and all-powerful has been given
you; all others are beyond you. It is this,--to know the truth and
to profess it. And it is only because of other miserable and erring
men like yourself that you have become a soldier, an emperor, a
landowner, a capitalist, a priest, or a general; that you commit
evil deeds so obviously contrary to the dictates of your heart and
reason; that you torture, rob, and murder men, establishing your
life on their sufferings; and that, above all, instead of performing
your paramount duty of acknowledging and professing the truth which
is known to you, you pretend not to know it, concealing it from
yourself and others, doing the very opposite of what you have been
called to do.
And under what conditions are you doing this? Being liable to die
at any moment, you sign a death-warrant, declare war or take part
in it, pass judgment, torture and rob workmen, live in luxury
surrounded by misery, and teach weak and trusting men that all
this is right and for you is a matter of duty, while all the time
you are in danger of your life being destroyed by a bullet or a
bacillus, and you may be deprived forever of the power to rectify or
counteract the evil you have done to others and to yourself; having
wasted a life given you but once in all eternity, having left undone
in it the one thing for which it was given you.
No matter how trite it may appear to state it, nor how we may
hypocritically deceive ourselves, nothing can destroy the certainty
of the simple and obvious truth that external conditions can
never render safe this life of ours, so fraught with unavoidable
suffering, and ended infallibly by death, that human life can have
no other meaning than the constant fulfilment of that for which the
Almighty Power has sent us here, and for which He has given us one
sure guide in this life, namely, our conscious reason.
This Power does not require from us what is unreasonable and
impossible,--the organization of our temporal, material life,
the life of society, or of the State. He demands of us only what
is reasonable and possible,--to serve the Kingdom of God, which
establishes the unity of mankind, a unity possible only in the
truth; to recognize and profess the truth revealed to us, which it
is always in our power to do.
"Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all
these things shall be added unto you."[35]
[35] Matt. vi. 33.
The only significance of life consists in helping to establish
the Kingdom of God; and this can be done only by means of the
acknowledgment and profession of the truth by each one of us. "The
kingdom of God cometh not with observation: neither shall they say,
Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold the kingdom of God is within
you."[36]
[36] Luke xvii. 20, 21.
WHAT IS ART?
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE
The fundamental thought expressed in this book leads inevitably
to conclusions so new, so unexpected, and so contrary to what is
usually maintained in literary and artistic circles, that although
it is clearly and emphatically expressed (and this I hope has
not been lost in translation), most readers who wish to possess
themselves of it will have to read the work carefully, and to digest
it slowly.
Especially the introductory Chapters II., III., IV., and V.,
need careful perusal by any who, having adopted one or other of
the current theories on beauty and art, may find it difficult to
abandon a preconceived view, and to clear their minds for a fair
appreciation of what is new to them.
The first four chapters raise the problem, and tell us briefly
what has been said by previous writers. Chapter III. gives (in
highly condensed form) the substance of the teaching of some sixty
philosophers on this subject, and since many of them were extremely
confused, the chapter cannot, in the nature of things, be easy
reading.
I should like to remark, in passing, that though Tolstoï in this
chapter (presumably for convenience of verification) refers chiefly
to the compilations of Schasler, Kralik, and Knight, he has gone
behind these authorities to the primary sources. To give a single
instance: in the paragraph on Darwin, the foot-note refers us to
Knight, but the remark that the origin of the art of music may be
traced back to the call of the males to the females in the animal
world will be found in Darwin, but will not be found in Knight.
In Chapter V. we come to Tolstoï's definition of art, which
definition should be kept well in mind while reading the rest of the
book.
No doubt most of those to whom it is an end in itself, who live by
it, or make it their chief occupation, will read this book (or leave
it unread) and go on in their former way, much as Pharaoh, of old,
hardened his heart, and did not sympathize with what Moses had to
say on the labor question. But for those of us who have felt that
art is too valuable a matter to be lost out of our lives, and who,
in their quest for social justice, have met the reproach that they
were sacrificing the pleasures and advantages of art, this book is
of inestimable value, in that it solves a perplexed question of
far-reaching importance to practical life.
To this class of readers neither the masterly elucidation of
the former theories contained in the opening chapters, nor the
explanation of how it has come about that such great importance
is attached to the activity we call art (Chapters VI. and VII.),
nor the explanation and illustrations of the perversion that art
has undergone, nor even the elucidation of the terrible evils this
perversion is producing (XVII.), will equal in significance the
remaining chapters of the book. These show us what to look for
in art, how to distinguish it from counterfeits (XV., XVI., and
XVIII.), treat of the true art of the future (XIX.), and explain how
science and art are linked together in man's life, are directed by
his perception of the meaning of life, and inevitably react on all
he thinks and feels.
THE AUTHOR'S PREFACE
This book of mine, "What is Art?" appears now for the first time
in its true form. More than one edition has already been issued in
Russia, but in each case it has been so mutilated by the "Censor,"
that I request all who are interested in my views on art only to
judge of them by the work in its present shape. The causes which led
to the publication of the book--with my name attached to it--in a
mutilated form were the following: In accordance with a decision I
arrived at long ago,--not to submit my writings to the "Censorship"
(which I consider to be an immoral and irrational institution),
but to print them only in the shape in which they were written,--I
intended not to attempt to print this work in Russia. However, my
good acquaintance, Professor Grote, editor of a Moscow psychological
magazine, having heard of the contents of my work, asked me to
print it in his magazine, and promised me that he would get the
book through the "Censor's" office unmutilated if I would but agree
to a few very unimportant alterations, merely toning down certain
expressions. I was weak enough to agree to this, and it has resulted
in a book appearing under my name, from which not only have some
essential thoughts been excluded, but into which the thoughts of
other men--even thoughts utterly opposed to my own convictions--have
been introduced.
The thing occurred in this way. First, Grote softened my
expressions, and in some cases weakened them. For instance, he
replaced the words: _always_ by _sometimes_, _all_ by _some_,
_Church_ religion by _Roman Catholic_ religion, "_Mother of God_"
by _Madonna_, _patriotism_ by _pseudo-patriotism_, _palaces_
by _palatii_,[37] etc., and I did not consider it necessary
to protest. But when the book was already in type, the Censor
required that whole sentences should be altered, and that instead
of what I said about the evil of landed property, a remark should
be substituted on the evils of a landless proletariate.[38] I
agreed to this also, and to some further alterations. It seemed
not worth while to upset the whole affair for the sake of one
sentence, and when one alteration had been agreed to it seemed not
worth while to protest against a second and a third. So, little by
little, expressions crept into the book which altered the sense
and attributed things to me that I could not have wished to say.
So that by the time the book was printed it had been deprived of
some part of its integrity and sincerity. But there was consolation
in the thought that the book, even in this form, if it contains
something that is good, would be of use to Russian readers whom
it would otherwise not have reached. Things, however, turned out
otherwise. _Nous comptions sans notre hôte._ After the legal term
of four days had already elapsed, the book was seized, and, on
instructions received from Petersburg, it was handed over to the
"Spiritual Censor." Then Grote declined all further participation
in the affair, and the "Spiritual Censor" proceeded to do what he
would with the book. The "Spiritual Censorship" is one of the most
ignorant, venal, stupid, and despotic institutions in Russia. Books
which disagree in any way with the recognized state religion of
Russia, if once it gets hold of them, are almost always totally
suppressed and burnt; which is what happened to all my religious
works when attempts were made to print them in Russia. Probably
a similar fate would have overtaken this work also, had not the
editors of the magazine employed all means to save it. The result
of their efforts was that the "Spiritual Censor," a priest who
probably understands art and is interested in art as much as I
understand or am interested in church services, but who gets a good
salary for destroying whatever is likely to displease his superiors,
struck out all that seemed to him to endanger his position, and
substituted his thoughts for mine wherever he considered it
necessary to do so. For instance, where I speak of Christ going
to the Cross for the sake of the truth He professed, the "Censor"
substituted a statement that Christ died for mankind, _i.e_. he
attributed to me an assertion of the dogma of the Redemption, which
I consider to be one of the most untrue and harmful of Church
dogmas. After correcting the book in this way, the "Spiritual
Censor" allowed it to be printed.
[37] Tolstoï's remarks on Church religion were re-worded so as to
seem to relate only to the Western Church, and his disapproval of
luxurious life was made to apply, not, say, to Queen Victoria or
Nicholas II., but to the Cæsars or the Pharaohs.--TR.
[38] The Russian peasant is usually a member of a village commune,
and has therefore a right to a share in the land belonging to the
village. Tolstoï disapproves of the order of society which allows
less land for the support of a village full of people than is
sometimes owned by a single landed proprietor. The "Censor" will not
allow disapproval of this state of things to be expressed, but is
prepared to admit that the laws and customs, say, of England--where
a yet more extreme form of landed property exists, and the men who
actually labor on the land usually possess none of it--deserve
criticism.--TR.
To protest in Russia is impossible--no newspaper would publish such
a protest; and to withdraw my book from the magazine, and place the
editor in an awkward position with the public, was also not possible.
So the matter has remained. A book has appeared under my name
containing thoughts attributed to me which are not mine.
I was persuaded to give my article to a Russian magazine in order
that my thoughts, which may be useful, should become the possession
of Russian readers; and the result has been that my name is affixed
to a work from which it might be assumed that I quite arbitrarily
assert things contrary to the general opinion, without adducing my
reasons; that I only consider false patriotism bad, but patriotism
in general a very good feeling; that I merely deny the absurdities
of the Roman Catholic Church and disbelieve in the Madonna, but
that I believe in the Orthodox Eastern faith and in the "Mother of
God"; that I consider all the writings collected in the Bible to be
holy books, and see the chief importance of Christ's life in the
Redemption of mankind by His death.
I have narrated all this in such detail because it strikingly
illustrates the indubitable truth that all compromise with
institutions of which your conscience disapproves,--compromises
which are usually made for the sake of the general good,--instead
of producing the good you expected, inevitably lead you, not only
to acknowledge the institution you disapprove of, but also to
participate in the evil that institution produces.
I am glad to be able by this statement at least to do something to
correct the error into which I was led by my compromise.
I have also to mention that besides reinstating the parts excluded
by the Censor from the Russian editions, other corrections and
additions of importance have been made in this edition.
_29th March, 1898._
WHAT IS ART?
CHAPTER I
Take up any one of our ordinary newspapers, and you will find a part
devoted to the theater and music. In almost every number you will
find a description of some art exhibition, or of some particular
picture, and you will always find reviews of new works of art that
have appeared, of volumes of poems, of short stories, or of novels.
Promptly, and in detail, as soon as it has occurred, an account is
published of how such and such an actress or actor played this or
that rôle in such and such a drama, comedy, or opera; and of the
merits of the performance, as well as of the contents of the new
drama, comedy, or opera, with its defects and merits. With as much
care and detail, or even more, we are told how such and such an
artist has sung a certain piece, or has played it on the piano or
violin, and what were the merits and defects of the piece and of the
performance. In every large town there is sure to be at least one,
if not more than one, exhibition of new pictures, the merits and
defects of which are discussed in the utmost detail by critics and
connoisseurs.
New novels and poems, in separate volumes or in the magazines,
appear almost every day, and the newspapers consider it their
duty to give their readers detailed accounts of these artistic
productions.
For the support of art in Russia (where for the education of the
people only a hundredth part is spent of what would be required to
give every one the opportunity of instruction) the government grants
millions of roubles in subsidies to academies, conservatoires, and
theaters. In France twenty million francs are assigned for art, and
similar grants are made in Germany and England.
In every large town enormous buildings are erected for museums,
academies, conservatoires, dramatic schools, and for performances
and concerts. Hundreds of thousands of workmen--carpenters, masons,
painters, joiners, paperhangers, tailors, hairdressers, jewelers,
molders, type-setters--spend their whole lives in hard labor to
satisfy the demands of art, so that hardly any other department of
human activity, except the military, consumes so much energy as this.
Not only is enormous labor spent on this activity, but in it, as in
war, the very lives of men are sacrificed. Hundreds of thousands
of people devote their lives from childhood to learning to twirl
their legs rapidly (dancers), or to touch notes and strings very
rapidly (musicians), or to draw with paint and represent what
they see (artists), or to turn every phrase inside out and find a
rhyme to every word. And these people, often very kind and clever,
and capable of all sorts of useful labor, grow savage over their
specialized and stupefying occupations, and become one-sided and
self-complacent specialists, dull to all the serious phenomena
of life, and skilful only at rapidly twisting their legs, their
tongues, or their fingers.
But even this stunting of human life is not the worst. I remember
being once at the rehearsal of one of the most ordinary of the new
operas which are produced at all the opera houses of Europe and
America.
I arrived when the first act had already commenced. To reach the
auditorium I had to pass through the stage entrance. By dark
entrances and passages, I was led through the vaults of an enormous
building, past immense machines for changing the scenery and for
illuminating; and there in the gloom and dust I saw workmen busily
engaged. One of these men, pale, haggard, in a dirty blouse, with
dirty, work-worn hands and cramped fingers, evidently tired and out
of humor, went past me, angrily scolding another man. Ascending by
a dark stair, I came out on the boards behind the scenes. Amid
various poles and rings and scattered scenery, decorations and
curtains, stood and moved dozens, if not hundreds, of painted and
dressed-up men, in costumes fitting tight to their thighs and
calves, and also women, as usual, as nearly nude as might be. These
were all singers, or members of the chorus, or ballet-dancers,
awaiting their turns. My guide led me across the stage and, by means
of a bridge of boards across the orchestra (in which perhaps a
hundred musicians of all kinds, from kettledrum to flute and harp,
were seated), to the dark pit-stalls.
On an elevation, between two lamps with reflectors, and in an
arm-chair placed before a music-stand, sat the director of the
musical part, _bâton_ in hand, managing the orchestra and singers,
and, in general, the production of the whole opera.
The performance had already commenced, and on the stage a procession
of Indians who had brought home a bride was being presented. Besides
men and women in costume, two other men in ordinary clothes bustled
and ran about on the stage; one was the director of the dramatic
part, and the other, who stepped about in soft shoes and ran from
place to place with unusual agility, was the dancing-master, whose
salary per month exceeded what ten laborers earn in a year.
These three directors arranged the singing, the orchestra, and
the procession. The procession, as usual, was enacted by couples,
with tinfoil halberds on their shoulders. They all came from one
place, and walked round and round again, and then stopped. The
procession took a long time to arrange: first the Indians with
halberds came on too late; then too soon; then at the right time,
but crowded together at the exit; then they did not crowd, but
arranged themselves badly at the sides of the stage; and each
time the whole performance was stopped and recommenced from the
beginning. The procession was introduced by a recitative, delivered
by a man dressed up like some variety of Turk, who, opening his
mouth in a curious way, sang, "Home I bring the bri-i-ide." He
sings and waves his arm (which is of course bare) from under his
mantle. The procession commences, but here the French horn, in
the accompaniment of the recitative, does something wrong; and the
director, with a shudder as if some catastrophe had occurred, raps
with his stick on the stand. All is stopped, and the director,
turning to the orchestra, attacks the French horn, scolding him in
the rudest terms, as cabmen abuse each other, for taking the wrong
note. And again the whole thing recommences. The Indians with their
halberds again come on, treading softly in their extraordinary
boots; again the singer sings, "Home I bring the bri-i-ide." But
here the pairs get too close together. More raps with the stick,
more scolding, and a recommencement. Again, "Home I bring the
bri-i-ide," again the same gesticulation with the bare arm from
under the mantle, and again the couples, treading softly with
halberds on their shoulders, some with sad and serious faces, some
talking and smiling, arrange themselves in a circle and begin to
sing. All seems to be going well, but again the stick raps, and
the director, in a distressed and angry voice, begins to scold the
men and women of the chorus. It appears that when singing they had
omitted to raise their hands from time to time in sign of animation.
"Are you all dead, or what? Cows that you are! Are you corpses,
that you can't move?" Again they recommence, "Home I bring the
bri-i-ide," and again, with sorrowful faces, the chorus-women sing,
first one and then another of them raising their hands. But two
chorus-girls speak to each other,--again a more vehement rapping
with the stick. "Have you come here to talk? Can't you gossip at
home? You there in red breeches, come nearer. Look toward me!
Recommence!" Again, "Home I bring the bri-i-ide." And so it goes
on for one, two, three hours. The whole of such a rehearsal lasts
six hours on end. Raps with the stick, repetitions, placings,
corrections of the singers, of the orchestra, of the procession, of
the dancers,--all seasoned with angry scolding. I heard the words,
"asses," "fools," "idiots," "swine," addressed to the musicians
and singers at least forty times in the course of one hour. And
the unhappy individual to whom the abuse is addressed,--flautist,
horn-blower, or singer,--physically and mentally demoralized,
does not reply, and does what is demanded of him. Twenty times is
repeated the one phrase, "Home I bring the bri-i-ide," and twenty
times the striding about in yellow shoes with a halberd over the
shoulder. The conductor knows that these people are so demoralized
that they are no longer fit for anything but to blow trumpets and
walk about with halberds and in yellow shoes, and that they are also
accustomed to dainty, easy living, so that they will put up with
anything rather than lose their luxurious life. He therefore gives
free vent to his churlishness, especially as he has seen the same
thing done in Paris and Vienna, and knows that this is the way the
best conductors behave, and that it is a musical tradition of great
artists to be so carried away by the great business of their art
that they cannot pause to consider the feelings of other artists.
It would be difficult to find a more repulsive sight. I have seen
one workman abuse another for not supporting the weight piled upon
him when goods were being unloaded, or, at hay-stacking, the village
elder scold a peasant for not making the rick right, and the man
submitted in silence. And, however unpleasant it was to witness the
scene, the unpleasantness was lessened by the consciousness that the
business in hand was needful and important, and that the fault for
which the head man scolded the laborer was one which might spoil a
needful undertaking.
But what was being done here? For what, and for whom? Very likely
the conductor was tired out, like the workman I passed in the
vaults; it was even evident that he was; but who made him tire
himself? And for what was he tiring himself? The opera he was
rehearsing was one of the most ordinary of operas for people who are
accustomed to them, but also one of the most gigantic absurdities
that could possibly be devised. An Indian king wants to marry; they
bring him a bride; he disguises himself as a minstrel; the bride
falls in love with the minstrel and is in despair, but afterwards
discovers that the minstrel is the king, and every one is highly
delighted.
That there never were, or could be, such Indians, and that they
were not only unlike Indians, but that what they were doing was
unlike anything on earth except other operas, was beyond all manner
of doubt; that people do not converse in such a way as recitative,
and do not place themselves at fixed distances, in a quartet,
waving their arms to express their emotions; that nowhere, except
in theaters, do people walk about in such a manner, in pairs, with
tinfoil halberds and in slippers; that no one ever gets angry in
such a way, or is affected in such a way, or laughs in such a way,
or cries in such a way; and that no one on earth can be moved by
such performances; all this is beyond the possibility of doubt.
Instinctively the question presents itself: For whom is this being
done? Whom _can_ it please? If there are, occasionally, good
melodies in the opera, to which it is pleasant to listen, they could
have been sung simply, without these stupid costumes and all the
processions and recitatives and hand-wavings.
The ballet, in which half-naked women make voluptuous movements,
twisting themselves into various sensual wreathings, is simply a
lewd performance.
So one is quite at a loss as to whom these things are done for. The
man of culture is heartily sick of them, while to a real working-man
they are utterly incomprehensible. If any one can be pleased by
these things (which is doubtful), it can only be some young footman
or depraved artisan, who has contracted the spirit of the upper
classes but is not yet satiated with their amusements, and wishes to
show his breeding.
And all this nasty folly is prepared, not simply, nor with kindly
merriment, but with anger and brutal cruelty.
It is said that it is all done for the sake of art, and that art
is a very important thing. But is it true that art is so important
that such sacrifices should be made for its sake? This question is
especially urgent, because art, for the sake of which the labor of
millions, the lives of men, and, above all, love between man and
man, are being sacrificed,--this very art is becoming something more
and more vague and uncertain to human perception.
Criticism, in which the lovers of art used to find support for their
opinions, has latterly become so self-contradictory, that, if we
exclude from the domain of art all that to which the critics of
various schools themselves deny the title, there is scarcely any art
left.
The artists of various sects, like the theologians of the various
sects, mutually exclude and destroy themselves. Listen to the
artists of the schools of our times, and you will find, in all
branches, each set of artists disowning others. In poetry the old
romanticists deny the parnassiens and the decadents; the parnassiens
disown the romanticists and the decadents; the decadents disown
all their predecessors and the symbolists; the symbolists disown
all their predecessors and _les mages_; and _les mages_ disown
all, all their predecessors. Among novelists we have naturalists,
psychologists, and "nature-ists," all rejecting each other. And it
is the same in dramatic art, in painting, and in music. So that art,
which demands such tremendous labor-sacrifices from the people,
which stunts human lives and transgresses against human love, is not
only _not_ a thing clearly and firmly defined, but is understood in
such contradictory ways by its own devotees that it is difficult
to say what is meant by art, and especially what is good, useful
art,--art for the sake of which we might condone such sacrifices as
are being offered at its shrine.
CHAPTER II
For the production of every ballet, circus, opera, operetta,
exhibition, picture, concert, or printed book, the intense and
unwilling labor of thousands and thousands of people is needed at
what is often harmful and humiliating work. It were well if artists
made all they require for themselves, but, as it is, they all need
the help of workmen, not only to produce art, but also for their own
usually luxurious maintenance. And, one way or other, they get it;
either through payments from rich people, or through subsidies given
by government (in Russia, for instance, in grants of millions of
roubles to theaters, conservatoires, and academies). This money is
collected from the people, some of whom have to sell their only cow
to pay the tax, and who never get those æsthetic pleasures which art
gives.
It was all very well for a Greek or Roman artist, or even for a
Russian artist of the first half of our century (when there were
still slaves, and it was considered right that there should be),
with a quiet mind to make people serve him and his art; but in our
day, when in all men there is at least some dim perception of the
equal rights of all, it is impossible to constrain people to labor
unwillingly for art, without first deciding the question whether it
is true that art is so good and so important an affair as to redeem
this evil.
If not, we have the terrible probability to consider, that while
fearful sacrifices of the labor and lives of men, and of morality
itself, are being made to art, that same art may be not only useless
but even harmful.
And therefore it is necessary for a society in which works of art
arise and are supported, to find out whether all that professes to
be art is really art; whether (as is presupposed in our society) all
that which is art is good; and whether it is important and worth
those sacrifices which it necessitates. It is still more necessary
for every conscientious artist to know this, that he may be sure
that all he does has a valid meaning; that it is not merely an
infatuation of the small circle of people among whom he lives which
excites in him the false assurance that he is doing a good work; and
that what he takes from others for the support of his often very
luxurious life, will be compensated for by those productions at
which he works. And that is why answers to the above questions are
especially important in our time.
What is this art, which is considered so important and necessary for
humanity that for its sake these sacrifices of labor, of human life,
and even of goodness may be made?
"What is art? What a question! Art is architecture, sculpture,
painting, music, and poetry in all its forms," usually replies the
ordinary man, the art amateur, or even the artist himself, imagining
the matter about which he is talking to be perfectly clear, and
uniformly understood by everybody. But in architecture, one inquires
further, are there not simple buildings which are not objects of
art, and buildings with artistic pretensions which are unsuccessful
and ugly and therefore cannot be considered as works of art? Wherein
lies the characteristic sign of a work of art?
It is the same in sculpture, in music, and in poetry. Art, in all
its forms, is bounded on one side by the practically useful, and on
the other by unsuccessful attempts at art. How is art to be marked
off from each of these? The ordinary educated man of our circle,
and even the artist who has not occupied himself especially with
æsthetics, will not hesitate at this question either. He thinks the
solution has been found long ago, and is well known to every one.
"Art is such activity as produces beauty," says such a man.
If art consists in that, then is a ballet or an operetta art? you
inquire.
"Yes," says the ordinary man, though with some hesitation, "a good
ballet or a graceful operetta is also art, in so far as it manifests
beauty."
But without even asking the ordinary man what differentiates the
"good" ballet and the "graceful" operetta from their opposites
(a question he would have much difficulty in answering), if you
ask him whether the activity of costumiers and hairdressers, who
ornament the figures and faces of the women for the ballet and
the operetta, is art; or the activity of Worth, the dressmaker;
of scent-makers and men cooks,--then he will, in most cases, deny
that their activity belongs to the sphere of art. But in this the
ordinary man makes a mistake, just because he is an ordinary man
and not a specialist, and because he has not occupied himself with
æsthetic questions. Had he looked into these matters, he would
have seen in the great Renan's book, "Marc Aurele," a dissertation
showing that the tailor's work is art, and that those who do not
see in the adornment of woman an affair of the highest art are very
small-minded and dull. "_C'est le grand art_," says Renan. Moreover,
he would have known that in many æsthetic systems--for instance,
in the æsthetics of the learned Professor Kralik, "Weltschönheit,
Versuch einer allgemeinen Æsthetik, von Richard Kralik," and in "Les
Problèmes de l'Esthétique Contemporaine," by Guyau--the arts of
costume, of taste, and of touch are included.
"_Es Folgt nun ein Fünfblatt von Künsten, die der subjectiven
Sinnlichkeit entkeimen_" (There results then a pentafoliate of arts,
growing out of the subjective perceptions), says Kralik (p. 175).
"_Sie sind die ästhetische Behandlung der fünf Sinne._" (They are
the æsthetic treatment of the five senses.)
These five arts are the following:--
_Die Kunst des Geschmacksinns_--The art of the sense of taste (p.
175).
_Die Kunst des Geruchsinns_--The art of the sense of smell (p. 177).
_Die Kunst des Tastsinns_--The art of the sense of touch (p. 180).
_Die Kunst des Gehörsinns_--The art of the sense of hearing (p. 182).
_Die Kunst des Gesichtsinns_--The art of the sense of sight (p. 184).
Of the first of these--_die Kunst des Geschmacksinns_--he says:
"_Man hält zwar gewöhnlich nur zwei oder höchstens drei Sinne für
würdig, den Stoff künstlerischer Behandlung abzugeben, aber ich
glaube nur mit bedingtem Recht. Ich will kein allzugrosses Gewicht
darauf legen, dass der gemeine Sprachgebrauch manch andere Künste,
wie zum Beispiel die Kochkunst kennt._"[39]
[39] Only two, or at most three, senses are generally held worthy
to supply matter for artistic treatment, but I think this opinion
is only conditionally correct. I will not lay too much stress on
the fact that our common speech recognizes many other arts, as, for
instance, the art of cookery.
And further: "_Und es ist doch gewiss eine ästhetische Leistung,
wenn es der Kochkunst gelingt ans einem thierischen Kadaver einen
Gegenstand des Geschmacks in jedem Sinne zu machen. Der Grundsatz
der Kunst des Geschmacksinns (die weiter ist als die sogenannte
Kochkunst) ist also dieser: Es soll alles Geniessbare als Sinnbild
einer Idee behandelt werden und in jedesmaligem Einklang zur
auszudrückenden Idee._"[40]
[40] And yet it is certainly an æsthetic achievement when the art of
cooking succeeds in making of an animal's corpse an object in all
respects tasteful. The principle of the Art of Taste (which goes
beyond the so-called Art of Cookery) is therefore this: All that is
eatable should be treated as the symbol of some Idea, and always in
harmony with the Idea to be expressed.
This author, like Renan, acknowledges a _Kostümkunst_ (Art of
Costume) (p. 200), etc.
Such is also the opinion of the French writer, Guyau, who is highly
esteemed by some authors of our day. In his book, "Les Problèmes
de l'Esthétique Contemporaine," he speaks seriously of touch,
taste, and smell as giving, or being capable of giving, æsthetic
impressions: "_Si la couleur manque au toucher, il nous fournit en
revanche une notion que l'œil seul ne peut nous donner, et qui a
une valeur esthétique considérable, celle du_ doux, _du_ soyeux,
_du_ poli. _Ce qui caractérise la beauté du velours, c'est sa
douceur au toucher non moins que son brillant. Dans l'idée que nous
nous faisons de la beauté d'une femme, le velouté de sa peau entre
comme élément essentiel._"
"_Chacun de nous probablement avec un peu d'attention se rappellera
des jouissances du goût, qui ont été de véritables jouissances
esthétiques._"[41] And he recounts how a glass of milk drunk by him
in the mountains gave him æsthetic enjoyment.
[41] If the sense of touch lacks color, it gives us, on the
other hand, a notion which the eye alone cannot afford, and one
of considerable æsthetic value, namely, that of _softness_,
_silkiness_, _polish_. The beauty of velvet is characterized not
less by its softness to the touch than by its luster. In the idea
we form of a woman's beauty, the softness of her skin enters as an
essential element.
Each of us, probably, with a little attention, can recall pleasures
of taste which have been real æsthetic pleasures.
So it turns out that the conception of art, as consisting in making
beauty manifest, is not at all so simple as it seemed, especially
now, when in this conception of beauty are included our sensations
of touch and taste and smell, as they are by the latest æsthetic
writers.
But the ordinary man either does not know, or does not wish to know,
all this, and is firmly convinced that all questions about art may
be simply and clearly solved by acknowledging beauty to be the
subject-matter of art. To him it seems clear and comprehensible that
art consists in manifesting beauty, and that a reference to beauty
will serve to explain all questions about art.
But what is this beauty which forms the subject-matter of art? How
is it defined? What is it?
As is always the case, the more cloudy and confused the conception
conveyed by a word, with the more _aplomb_ and self-assurance do
people use that word, pretending that what is understood by it is so
simple and clear that it is not worth while even to discuss what it
actually means.
This is how matters of orthodox religion are usually dealt with,
and this is how people now deal with the conception of beauty.
It is taken for granted that what is meant by the word beauty is
known and understood by every one. And yet not only is this not
known, but, after whole mountains of books have been written on
the subject by the most learned and profound thinkers during one
hundred and fifty years (ever since Baumgarten founded æsthetics in
the year 1750), the question, What is beauty? remains to this day
quite unsolved, and in each new work on æsthetics it is answered
in a new way. One of the last books I read on æsthetics is a not
ill-written booklet by Julius Mithalter, called "Rätsel des Schönen"
(The Enigma of the Beautiful). And that title precisely expresses
the position of the question, What is beauty? After thousands of
learned men have discussed it during one hundred and fifty years,
the meaning of the word beauty remains an enigma still. The Germans
answer the question in their manner, though in a hundred different
ways. The physiologist-æstheticians, especially the Englishmen,
Herbert Spencer, Grant Allen, and his school, answer it, each in
his own way; the French eclectics, and the followers of Guyau and
Taine, also each in his own way; and all these people know all the
preceding solutions given by Baumgarten, and Kant, and Schelling,
and Schiller, and Fichte, and Winckelmann, and Lessing, and Hegel,
and Schopenhauer, and Hartmann, and Schasler, and Cousin, and
Lévêque, and others.
What is this strange conception "beauty," which seems so simple
to those who talk without thinking, but in defining which all the
philosophers of various tendencies and different nationalities can
come to no agreement during a century and a half? What is this
conception of beauty, on which the dominant doctrine of art rests?
In Russian, by the word _krasota_ (beauty) we mean only that which
pleases the sight. And though latterly people have begun to speak of
"an ugly deed," or of "beautiful music," it is not good Russian.
A Russian of the common folk, not knowing foreign languages, will
not understand you if you tell him that a man who has given his last
coat to another, or done anything similar, has acted "beautifully,"
that a man who has cheated another has done an "ugly" action, or
that a song is "beautiful."
In Russian a deed may be kind and good, or unkind and bad. Music may
be pleasant and good, or unpleasant and bad; but there can be no
such thing as "beautiful" or "ugly" music.
Beautiful may relate to a man, a horse, a house, a view, or a
movement. Of actions, thoughts, character, or music, if they please
us, we may say that they are good, or, if they do not please us,
that they are not good. But beautiful can be used only concerning
that which pleases the sight. So that the word and conception "good"
includes the conception of "beautiful," but the reverse is not
the case; the conception "beauty" does not include the conception
"good." If we say "good" of an article which we value for its
appearance, we thereby say that the article is beautiful; but if we
say it is "beautiful," it does not at all mean that the article is a
good one.
Such is the meaning ascribed by the Russian language, and therefore
by the sense of the people, to the words and conceptions "good" and
"beautiful."
In all the European languages, _i.e._ the languages of those nations
among whom the doctrine has spread that beauty is the essential
thing in art, the words "beau," "schön," "beautiful," "bello,"
etc., while keeping their meaning of beautiful in form, have come
to also express "goodness," "kindness," _i.e._ have come to act as
substitutes for the word "good."
So that it has become quite natural in those languages to use such
expressions as "belle ame," "schöne Gedanken," of "beautiful deed."
Those languages no longer have a suitable word wherewith expressly
to indicate beauty of form, and have to use a combination of words
such as "beau par la forme," "beautiful to look at," etc., to convey
that idea.
Observation of the divergent meanings which the words "beauty" and
"beautiful" have in Russian on the one hand, and in those European
languages now permeated by this æsthetic theory on the other hand,
shows us that the word "beauty" has, among the latter, acquired a
special meaning, namely, that of "good."
What is remarkable, moreover, is that since we Russians have begun
more and more to adopt the European view of art, the same evolution
has begun to show itself in our language also, and some people
speak and write quite confidently, and without causing surprise, of
beautiful music and ugly actions, or even thoughts; whereas forty
years ago, when I was young, the expressions "beautiful music"
and "ugly actions" were not only unusual, but incomprehensible.
Evidently this new meaning given to beauty by European thought
begins to be assimilated by Russian society.
And what really is this meaning? What is this "beauty" as it is
understood by the European peoples?
In order to answer this question, I must here quote at least a
small selection of those definitions of beauty most generally
adopted in existing æsthetic systems. I especially beg the reader
not to be overcome by dullness, but to read these extracts through,
or, still better, to read some one of the erudite æsthetic authors.
Not to mention the voluminous German æstheticians, a very good
book for this purpose would be either the German book by Kralik,
the English work by Knight, or the French one by Lévêque. It is
necessary to read one of the learned æsthetic writers in order to
form at firsthand a conception of the variety in opinion and the
frightful obscurity which reigns in this region of speculation; not,
in this important matter, trusting to another's report.
This, for instance, is what the German æsthetician Schasler says
in the preface to his famous, voluminous, and detailed work on
æsthetics:--
"Hardly in any sphere of philosophic science can we find such
divergent methods of investigation and exposition, amounting even to
self-contradiction, as in the sphere of æsthetics. On the one hand,
we have elegant phraseology without any substance, characterized
in great part by most one-sided superficiality; and on the other
hand, accompanying undeniable profundity of investigation and
richness of subject-matter, we get a revolting awkwardness of
philosophic terminology, infolding the simplest thoughts in an
apparel of abstract science, as though to render them worthy to
enter the consecrated palace of the system; and finally, between
these two methods of investigation and exposition there is a third,
forming, as it were, the transition from one to the other, a method
consisting of eclecticism, now flaunting an elegant phraseology, and
now a pedantic erudition.... A style of exposition that falls into
none of these three defects but it is truly concrete, and, having
important matter, expresses it in clear and popular philosophic
language, can nowhere be found less frequently than in the domain of
æsthetics."[42]
[42] M. Schasler, "Kritische Geschichte der Æsthetik," 1872, vol.
i., p. 13.
It is only necessary, for instance, to read Schasler's own book to
convince oneself of the justice of this observation of his.
On the same subject the French writer Véron, in the preface to
his very good work on æsthetics, says: "_Il n'y a pas de science,
qui ait été plus que l'esthétique livrée aux rêveries des
métaphysiciens. Depuis Platon jusqu'aux doctrines officielles de nos
jours, on a fait de l'art je ne sais quel amalgame de fantaisies
quintessenciées, et de mystères transcendantaux qui trouvent leur
expression suprême dans la conception absolue du Beau idéal,
prototype immuable et divin des choses réelles_" ("L'Esthétique,"
1878, p. 5).[43]
[43] There is no science which, more than æsthetics, has been handed
over to the reveries of the metaphysicians. From Plato down to the
received doctrines of our day, people have made of art a strange
amalgam of quintessential fancies and transcendental mysteries,
which find their supreme expression in the conception of an absolute
ideal Beauty, immutable and divine prototype of actual things.
If the reader will only be at the pains to peruse the following
extracts, defining beauty, taken from the chief writers on
æsthetics, he may convince himself that this censure is thoroughly
deserved.
I shall not quote the definitions of beauty attributed to
the ancients,--Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, etc., down to
Plotinus,--because, in reality, the ancients had not that conception
of beauty separated from goodness which forms the basis and aim of
æsthetics in our time. By referring the judgments of the ancients on
beauty to our conception of it, as is usually done in æsthetics, we
give the words of the ancients a meaning which is not theirs.[44]
[44] See on this matter Benard's admirable book, "L'Esthétique
d'Aristote," also Walter's "Geschichte der Æsthetik in Altertum."
CHAPTER III
I begin with the founder of æsthetics, Baumgarten (1714-1762).
According to Baumgarten,[45] the object of logical knowledge is
Truth, the object of æsthetic (_i.e._ sensuous) knowledge is Beauty.
Beauty is the Perfect (the Absolute) recognized through the senses;
Truth is the Perfect perceived through reason; Goodness is the
Perfect reached by moral will.
[45] Schasler, p. 361.
Beauty is defined by Baumgarten as a correspondence, _i.e._ an order
of the parts in their mutual relations to each other and in their
relation to the whole. The aim of beauty itself is to please and
excite a desire, "_Wohlgefallen und Erregung eines Verlangens_." (A
position precisely the opposite of Kant's definition of the nature
and sign of beauty.)
With reference to the manifestations of beauty, Baumgarten considers
that the highest embodiment of beauty is seen by us in nature, and
he therefore thinks that the highest aim of art is to copy nature.
(This position also is directly contradicted by the conclusions of
the latest æstheticians.)
Passing over the unimportant followers of Baumgarten,--Maier,
Eschenburg, and Eberhard,--who only slightly modified the doctrine
of their teacher by dividing the pleasant from the beautiful, I will
quote the definitions given by writers who came immediately after
Baumgarten, and defined beauty quite in another way. These writers
were Sulzer, Mendelssohn, and Moritz. They, in contradiction to
Baumgarten's main position, recognize as the aim of art, not beauty,
but goodness. Thus Sulzer (1720-1777) says that only that can be
considered beautiful which contains goodness. According to his
theory, the aim of the whole life of humanity is welfare in social
life. This is attained by the education of the moral feelings, to
which end art should be subservient. Beauty is that which evokes and
educates this feeling.
Beauty is understood almost in the same way by Mendelssohn
(1729-1786). According to him, art is the carrying forward of the
beautiful, obscurely recognized by feeling, till it becomes the true
and good. The aim of art is moral perfection.[46]
[46] Schasler, p. 369.
For the æstheticians of this school, the ideal of beauty is a
beautiful soul in a beautiful body. So that these æstheticians
completely wipe out Baumgarten's division of the Perfect (the
Absolute), into the three forms of Truth, Goodness, and Beauty; and
Beauty is again united with the Good and the True.
But this conception is not only not maintained by the later
æstheticians, but the æsthetic doctrine of Winckelmann arises, again
in complete opposition. This divides the mission of art from the aim
of goodness in the sharpest and most positive manner, makes external
beauty the aim of art, and even limits it to visible beauty.
According to the celebrated work of Winckelmann (1717-1767), the law
and aim of all art is beauty only, beauty quite separated from and
independent of goodness. There are three kinds of beauty: (1) beauty
of form, (2) beauty of idea, expressing itself in the position of
the figure (in plastic art), (3) beauty of expression, attainable
only when the two first conditions are present. This beauty of
expression is the highest aim of art, and is attained in antique
art; modern art should therefore aim at imitating ancient art.[47]
[47] Schasler, pp. 388-390.
Art is similarly understood by Lessing, Herder, and afterwards by
Goethe and by all the distinguished æstheticians of Germany till
Kant, from whose day, again, a different conception of art commences.
Native æsthetic theories arose during this period in England,
France, Italy, and Holland, and they, though not taken from the
German, were equally cloudy and contradictory. And all these
writers, just like the German æstheticians, founded their theories
on a conception of the Beautiful, understanding beauty in the sense
of a something existing absolutely, and more or less intermingled
with Goodness or having one and the same root. In England, almost
simultaneously with Baumgarten, even a little earlier, Shaftesbury,
Hutcheson, Home, Burke, Hogarth, and others, wrote on art.
According to Shaftesbury (1670-1713), "That which is beautiful
is harmonious and proportionable, what is harmonious and
proportionable is true, and what is at once both beautiful and true
is of consequence agreeable and good."[48] Beauty, he taught, is
recognized by the mind only. God is fundamental beauty; beauty and
goodness proceed from the same fount.
[48] Knight, "Philosophy of the Beautiful," i., pp. 165, 166.
So that, although Shaftesbury regards beauty as being something
separate from goodness, they again merge into something inseparable.
According to Hutcheson (1694-1747--"Inquiry into the Original of our
Ideas of Beauty and Virtue"), the aim of art is beauty, the essence
of which consists in evoking in us the perception of uniformity amid
variety. In the recognition of what is art we are guided by "an
internal sense." This internal sense may be in contradiction to the
ethical one. So that, according to Hutcheson, beauty does not always
correspond with goodness, but separates from it and is sometimes
contrary to it.[49]
[49] Schasler, p. 289. Knight, pp. 168, 169.
According to Home, Lord Kames (1696-1782), beauty is that which is
pleasant. Therefore beauty is defined by taste alone. The standard
of true taste is that the maximum of richness, fullness, strength,
and variety of impression should be contained in the narrowest
limits. That is the ideal of a perfect work of art.
According to Burke (1729-1797--"Philosophical Inquiry into the
Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful"), the sublime
and beautiful, which are the aim of art, have their origin in the
promptings of self-preservation and of society. These feelings,
examined in their source, are means for the maintenance of the race
through the individual. The first (self-preservation) is attained by
nourishment, defense, and war; the second (society) by intercourse
and propagation. Therefore self-defense, and war, which is bound
up with it, is the source of the sublime; sociability, and the
sex-instinct, which is bound up with it, is the source of beauty.[50]
[50] R. Kralik, "Weltschönheit, Versuch einer allgemeinen Æsthetik,"
pp. 304-306.
Such were the chief English definitions of art and beauty in the
eighteenth century.
During that period, in France, the writers on art were Père André
and Batteux, with Diderot, D'Alembert, and, to some extent,
Voltaire, following later.
According to Père André ("Essai sur le Beau," 1741), there are three
kinds of beauty,--divine beauty, natural beauty, and artificial
beauty.[51]
[51] Knight, p. 101.
According to Batteux (1713-1780), art consists in imitating the
beauty of nature, its aim being enjoyment.[52] Such is also
Diderot's definition of art.
[52] Schasler, p. 316.
The French writers, like the English, consider that it is taste that
decides what is beautiful. And the laws of taste are not only not
laid down, but it is granted that they cannot be settled. The same
view was held by D'Alembert and Voltaire.[53]
[53] Knight, pp. 102-104.
According to the Italian æsthetician of that period, Pagano, art
consists in uniting the beauties dispersed in nature. The capacity
to perceive these beauties is taste, the capacity to bring them
into one whole is artistic genius. Beauty commingles with goodness,
so that beauty is goodness made visible, and goodness is inner
beauty.[54]
[54] R. Kralik, p. 124.
According to the opinion of other Italians: Muratori
(1672-1750),--"_Riflessioni sopra il buon gusto intorno le science
e le arti_,"--and especially Spaletti,[55]--"_Saggio sopra la
bellezza_" (1765),--art amounts to an egotistical sensation, founded
(as with Burke) on the desire for self-preservation and society.
[55] Spaletti, Schasler, p. 328.
Among Dutch writers, Hemsterhuis (1720-1790), who had an influence
on the German æstheticians and on Goethe, is remarkable. According
to him, beauty is that which gives most pleasure, and that gives
most pleasure which gives us the greatest number of ideas in the
shortest time. Enjoyment of the beautiful, because it gives the
greatest quantity of perceptions in the shortest time, is the
highest notion to which man can attain.[56]
[56] Schasler, pp. 331-333.
Such were the æsthetic theories outside Germany during the last
century. In Germany, after Winckelmann, there again arose a
completely new æsthetic theory, that of Kant (1724-1804), which,
more than all others, clears up what this conception of beauty, and
consequently of art, really amounts to.
The æsthetic teaching of Kant is founded as follows: Man has a
knowledge of nature outside him and of himself in nature. In
nature, outside himself, he seeks for truth; in himself, he seeks
for goodness. The first is an affair of pure reason, the other of
practical reason (free will). Besides these two means of perception,
there is yet the judging capacity (_Urteilskraft_), which forms
judgments without reasonings and produces pleasure without desire
(_Urtheil ohne Begriff und Vergnügen ohne Begehren_). This capacity
is the basis of æsthetic feeling. Beauty, according to Kant, in
its subjective meaning is that which, in general and necessarily,
without reasonings and without practical advantage, pleases. In its
objective meaning it is the form of a suitable object, in so far as
that object is perceived without any conception of its utility.[57]
[57] Schasler, pp. 525-528.
Beauty is defined in the same way by the followers of Kant, among
whom was Schiller (1759-1805). According to Schiller, who wrote much
on æsthetics, the aim of art is, as with Kant, beauty, the source of
which is pleasure without practical advantage. So that art may be
called a game, not in the sense of an unimportant occupation, but in
the sense of a manifestation of the beauties of life itself without
other aim than that of beauty.[58]
[58] Knight, pp. 61-63.
Besides Schiller, the most remarkable of Kant's followers in the
sphere of æsthetics was Wilhelm Humboldt, who, though he added
nothing to the definition of beauty, explained various forms of
it,--the drama, music, the comic, etc.[59]
[59] Schasler, pp. 740-743.
After Kant, besides the second-rate philosophers, the writers on
æsthetics were Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, and their followers.
Fichte (1762-1814) says that perception of the beautiful proceeds
from this: the world--_i.e._ nature--has two sides: it is the
sum of our limitations, and it is the sum of our free idealistic
activity. In the first aspect the world is limited, in the second
aspect it is free. In the first aspect every object is limited,
distorted, compressed, confined--and we see deformity; in the second
we perceive its inner completeness, vitality, regeneration--and
we see beauty. So that the deformity or beauty of an object,
according to Fichte, depends on the point of view of the observer.
Beauty therefore exists, not in the world, but in the beautiful
soul (_schöner Geist_). Art is the manifestation of this beautiful
soul, and its aim is the education, not only of the mind--that is
the business of the _savant_, not only of the heart--that is the
affair of the moral preacher, but of the whole man. And so the
characteristic of beauty lies, not in anything external, but in the
presence of a beautiful soul in the artist.[60]
[60] Schasler, pp, 769-771.
Following Fichte, and in the same direction, Friedrich Schlegel and
Adam Müller also defined beauty. According to Schlegel (1772-1829),
beauty in art is understood too incompletely, one-sidedly, and
disconnectedly. Beauty exists, not only in art, but also in nature
and in love; so that the truly beautiful is expressed by the union
of art, nature, and love. Therefore, as inseparably one with
æsthetic art, Schlegel acknowledges moral and philosophic art.[61]
[61] Schasler, pp. 786, 787.
According to Adam Müller (1779-1829), there are two kinds of beauty:
the one, general beauty, which attracts people as the sun attracts
the planet--this is found chiefly in antique art; and the other,
individual beauty, which results from the observer himself becoming
a sun, attracting beauty--this is the beauty of modern art. A world
in which all contradictions are harmonized is the highest beauty.
Every work of art is a reproduction of this universal harmony.[62]
The highest art is the art of life.[63]
[62] Kralik, p. 148.
[63] Kralik, p. 820.
Next after Fichte and his followers came a contemporary of his, the
philosopher Schelling (1775-1854), who has had a great influence
on the æsthetic conceptions of our times. According to Schelling's
philosophy, art is the production or result of that conception of
things by which the subject becomes its own object, or the object
its own subject. Beauty is the perception of the infinite in the
finite. And the chief characteristic of works of art is unconscious
infinity. Art is the uniting of the subjective with the objective,
of nature with reason, of the unconscious with the conscious, and
therefore art is the highest means of knowledge. Beauty is the
contemplation of things in themselves as they exist in the prototype
(_In den Urbildern_). It is not the artist who by his knowledge or
skill produces the beautiful, but the idea of beauty in him itself
produces it.[64]
[64] Schasler, pp. 828, 829, 834-841.
Of Schelling's followers the most noticeable was Solger
(1780-1819--"Vorlesungen über Æsthetik"). According to him, the idea
of beauty is the fundamental idea of everything. In the world we see
only distortions of the fundamental idea, but art, by imagination,
may lift itself to the height of this idea. Art is therefore akin to
creation.[65]
[65] Schasler, p. 891.
According to another follower of Schelling, Krause (1781-1832),
true, positive beauty is the manifestation of the Idea in an
individual form; art is the actualization of the beauty existing in
the sphere of man's free spirit. The highest stage of art is the art
of life, which directs its activity toward the adornment of life so
that it may be a beautiful abode for a beautiful man.[66]
[66] Schasler, p. 917.
After Schelling and his followers came the new æsthetic doctrine
of Hegel, which is held to this day, consciously by many, but by
the majority unconsciously. This teaching is not only no clearer or
better defined than the preceding ones, but is, if possible, even
more cloudy and mystical.
According to Hegel (1770-1831), God manifests himself in nature
and in art in the form of beauty. God expresses himself in two
ways: in the object and in the subject, in nature and in spirit.
Beauty is the shining of the Idea through matter. Only the soul,
and what pertains to it, is truly beautiful; and therefore the
beauty of nature is only the reflection of the natural beauty of
the spirit--the beautiful has only a spiritual content. But the
spiritual must appear in sensuous form. The sensuous manifestation
of spirit is only appearance (_schein_), and this appearance is
the only reality of the beautiful. Art is thus the production of
this appearance of the Idea, and is a means, together with religion
and philosophy, of bringing to consciousness and of expressing the
deepest problems of humanity and the highest truths of the spirit.
Truth and beauty, according to Hegel, are one and the same thing;
the difference being only that truth is the Idea itself as it exists
in itself, and is thinkable. The Idea, manifested externally,
becomes to the apprehension not only true but beautiful. The
beautiful is the manifestation of the Idea.[67]
[67] Schasler, pp. 946, 1085, 984, 985, 990.
Following Hegel came his many adherents, Weisse, Arnold Ruge,
Rosenkrantz, Theodor Vischer, and others.
According to Weisse (1801-1867), art is the introduction
(_Einbildung_) of the absolute spiritual reality of beauty into
external, dead, indifferent matter, the perception of which latter,
apart from the beauty brought into it, presents the negation of all
existence in itself (_Negation alles Fürsichseins_).
In the idea of truth, Weisse explains, lies a contradiction between
the subjective and the objective sides of knowledge, in that an
individual _I_ discerns the Universal. This contradiction can be
removed by a conception that should unite into one the universal and
the individual, which fall asunder in our conceptions of truth. Such
a conception would be reconciled (_aufgehoben_) truth. Beauty is
such a reconciled truth.[68]
[68] Schasler, pp. 966, 655, 956.
According to Ruge (1802-1880), a strict follower of Hegel, beauty is
the Idea expressing itself. The spirit, contemplating itself, either
finds itself expressed completely, and then that full expression
of itself is beauty; or incompletely, and then it feels the need
to alter this imperfect expression of itself, and becomes creative
art.[69]
[69] Schasler, p. 1017.
According to Vischer (1807-1887), beauty is the Idea in the form
of a finite phenomenon. The Idea itself is not indivisible, but
forms a system of ideas, which may be represented by ascending and
descending lines. The higher the idea, the more beauty it contains;
but even the lowest contains beauty, because it forms an essential
link of the system. The highest form of the Idea is personality, and
therefore the highest art is that which has for its subject-matter
the highest personality.[70]
[70] Schasler, pp. 1065, 1066.
Such were the theories of the German æstheticians in the Hegelian
direction, but they did not monopolize æsthetic dissertations. In
Germany, side by side and simultaneously with the Hegelian theories,
there appeared theories of beauty not only independent of Hegel's
position (that beauty is the manifestation of the Idea), but
directly contrary to this view, denying and ridiculing it. Such was
the line taken by Herbart and, more particularly, by Schopenhauer.
According to Herbart (1776-1841), there is not, and cannot be, any
such thing as beauty existing in itself. What does exist is only
our opinion, and it is necessary to find the base of this opinion
(_Ästhetisches Elementarurtheil_). Such bases are connected with our
impressions. There are certain relations which we term beautiful;
and art consists in finding these relations, which are simultaneous
in painting, the plastic art, and architecture, successive and
simultaneous in music, and purely successive in poetry. In
contradiction to the former æstheticians, Herbart holds that objects
are often beautiful which express nothing at all, as, for instance,
the rainbow, which is beautiful for its lines and colors, and not
for its mythological connection with Iris or Noah's rainbow.[71]
[71] Schasler, pp. 1097-1100.
Another opponent of Hegel was Schopenhauer, who denied Hegel's whole
system, his æsthetics included.
According to Schopenhauer (1788-1860), Will objectivizes itself
in the world on various planes; and although the higher the plane
on which it is objectivized the more beautiful it is, yet each
plane has its own beauty. Renunciation of one's individuality and
contemplation of one of these planes of manifestation of Will gives
us a perception of beauty. All men, says Schopenhauer, possess the
capacity to objectivize the Idea on different planes. The genius of
the artist has this capacity in a higher degree, and therefore makes
a higher beauty manifest.[72]
[72] Schasler, pp. 1124, 1107.
After these more eminent writers there followed, in Germany, less
original and less influential ones, such as Hartmann, Kirkmann,
Schnasse, and, to some extent, Helmholtz (as an æsthetician),
Bergmann, Jungmann, and an innumerable host of others.
According to Hartmann (1842), beauty lies, not in the external
world, nor in "the thing in itself," neither does it reside in the
soul of man, but it lies in the "seeming" (_Schein_) produced by the
artist. The thing in itself is not beautiful, but is transformed
into beauty by the artist.[73]
[73] Knight, pp. 81, 82.
According to Schnasse (1798-1875), there is no perfect beauty in the
world. In nature there is only an approach toward it. Art gives what
nature cannot give. In the energy of the free _ego_, conscious of
harmony not found in nature, beauty is disclosed.[74]
[74] Knight, p. 83.
Kirkmann wrote on experimental æsthetics. All aspects of history
in his system are joined by pure chance. Thus, according to
Kirkmann (1802-1884), there are six realms of history: The realm of
Knowledge, of Wealth, of Morality, of Faith, of Politics, and of
Beauty; and activity in the last-named realm is art.[75]
[75] Schasler, p. 1121.
According to Helmholtz (1821), who wrote on beauty as it relates to
music, beauty in musical productions is attained only by following
unalterable laws. These laws are not known to the artist; so that
beauty is manifested by the artist unconsciously, and cannot be
subjected to analysis.[76]
[76] Knight, pp. 85, 86.
According to Bergmann (1840) ("Ueber das Schöne," 1887), to
define beauty objectively is impossible. Beauty is only perceived
subjectively, and therefore the problem of æsthetics is to define
what pleases whom.[77]
[77] Knight, p. 88.
According to Jungmann (d. 1885), firstly, beauty is a suprasensible
quality of things; secondly, beauty produces in us pleasure by
merely being contemplated; and, thirdly, beauty is the foundation of
love.[78]
[78] Knight, p. 88.
The æsthetic theories of the chief representatives of France,
England, and other nations in recent times have been the following:--
In France, during this period, the prominent writers on æsthetics
were Cousin, Jouffroy, Pictet, Ravaisson, Lévêque.
Cousin (1792-1867) was an eclectic, and a follower of the German
idealists. According to his theory, beauty always has a moral
foundation. He disputes the doctrine that art is imitation and
that the beautiful is what pleases. He affirms that beauty may be
defined objectively, and that it essentially consists in variety in
unity.[79]
[79] Knight, p. 112.
After Cousin came Jouffroy (1796-1842), who was a pupil of Cousin's
and also a follower of the German æstheticians. According to his
definition, beauty is the expression of the invisible by those
natural signs which manifest it. The visible world is the garment by
means of which we see beauty.[80]
[80] Knight, p. 116.
The Swiss writer Pictet repeated Hegel and Plato, supposing beauty
to exist in the direct and free manifestation of the divine Idea
revealing itself in sense forms.[81]
[81] Knight, pp. 118, 119.
Lévêque was a follower of Schelling and Hegel. He holds that beauty
is something invisible behind nature--a force or spirit revealing
itself in ordered energy.[82]
[82] Knight, pp. 123, 124.
Similar vague opinions about the nature of beauty were expressed by
the French metaphysician Ravaisson, who considered beauty to be the
ultimate aim and purpose of the world. "_La beauté la plus divine et
principalement la plus parfaite contient le secret du monde._"[83]
And again, "_Le monde entier est l'œuvre d'une beauté absolue, qui
n'est la cause des choses que par l'amour qu'elle met en elles._"
[83] "La Philosophie en France," p. 232.
I purposely abstain from translating these metaphysical expressions,
because, however cloudy the Germans may be, the French, once
they absorb the theories of the Germans and take to imitating
them, far surpass them in uniting heterogeneous conceptions
into one expression, and putting forward one meaning or another
indiscriminately. For instance, the French philosopher Renouvier,
when discussing beauty, says, "_Ne craignons pas de dire qu'une
vérité qui ne serait pas belle, ne serait qu'un jeu logique de notre
esprit et que la seule vérité solide et digne de ce nom c'est la
beauté._"[84]
[84] "Du Fondement de l'Induction."
Besides the æsthetic idealists who wrote and still write under the
influence of German philosophy, the following recent writers have
also influenced the comprehension of art and beauty in France:
Taine, Guyau, Cherbuliez, Coster, and Véron.
According to Taine (1828-1893), beauty is the manifestation of the
essential characteristic of any important idea more completely than
it is expressed in reality.[85]
[85] "Philosophie de l'Art," vol. i., 1893, p. 47.
Guyau (1854-1888) taught that beauty is not something exterior
to the object itself,--is not, as it were, a parasitic growth on
it,--but is itself the very blossoming forth of that on which it
appears. Art is the expression of reasonable and conscious life,
evoking in us both the deepest consciousness of existence and
the highest feelings and loftiest thoughts. Art lifts man from
his personal life into the universal life by means, not only of
participation in the same ideas and beliefs, but also by means of
similarity in feeling.[86]
[86] Knight, pp. 139-141.
According to Cherbuliez, art is an activity, (1) satisfying our
innate love of forms (_apparences_), (2) endowing these forms with
ideas, (3) affording pleasure alike to our senses, heart, and
reason. Beauty is not inherent in objects, but is an act of our
souls. Beauty is an illusion; there is no absolute beauty. But what
we consider characteristic and harmonious appears beautiful to us.
Coster held that the ideas of the beautiful, the good, and the true
are innate. These ideas illuminate our minds and are identical with
God, who is Goodness, Truth, and Beauty. The idea of Beauty includes
unity of essence, variety of constitutive elements, and order, which
brings unity into the various manifestations of life.[87]
[87] Knight, p. 134.
For the sake of completeness, I will further cite some of the very
latest writings upon art.
"La Psychologie du Beau et de l'Art, par Mario Pilo" (1895), says
that beauty is a product of our physical feelings. The aim of art
is pleasure, but this pleasure (for some reason) he considers to be
necessarily highly moral.
The "Essai sur l'Art Contemporain, par Fierens Gevaert" (1897), says
that art rests on its connection with the past, and on the religious
ideal of the present which the artist holds when giving to his work
the form of his individuality.
Then again, Sar Peladan's "L'Art Idealiste et Mystique" (1894),
says that beauty is one of the manifestations of God. "_Il n'y
a pas d'autre Réalité que Dieu, il n'y a pas d'autre Vérité que
Dieu, il n'y a pas d'autre Beauté que Dieu_" (p. 33). This book
is very fantastic and very illiterate, but is characteristic in
the positions it takes up, and noticeable on account of a certain
success it is having with the younger generation in France.
All the æsthetics diffused in France up to the present time are
similar in kind, but among them Véron's "L'Esthétique" (1878) forms
an exception, being reasonable and clear. That work, though it does
not give an exact definition of art, at least rids æsthetics of the
cloudy conception of an absolute beauty.
According to Véron (1825-1889), art is the manifestation of emotion
transmitted externally by a combination of lines, forms, colors, or
by a succession of movements, sounds, or words subjected to certain
rhythms.[88]
[88] "L'Esthétique," p. 106.
In England, during this period, the writers on æsthetics define
beauty more and more frequently, not by its own qualities, but by
taste; and the discussion about beauty is superseded by a discussion
on taste.
After Reid (1704-1796), who acknowledged beauty as being entirely
dependent on the spectator, Alison, in his "Essay on the Nature and
Principles of Taste" (1790), proved the same thing. From another
side this was also asserted by Erasmus Darwin (1731-1802), the
grandfather of the celebrated Charles Darwin.
He says that we consider beautiful that which is connected in our
conception with what we love. Richard Knight's work, "An Analytical
Inquiry into the Principles of Taste," also tends in the same
direction.
Most of the English theories of æsthetics are on the same lines. The
prominent writers on æsthetics in England during the present century
have been Charles Darwin (to some extent), Herbert Spencer, Grant
Allen, Ker, and Knight.
According to Charles Darwin (1809-1882--"Descent of Man," 1871),
beauty is a feeling natural not only to man, but also to animals,
and consequently to the ancestors of man. Birds adorn their
nests and esteem beauty in their mates. Beauty has an influence
on marriages. Beauty includes a variety of diverse conceptions.
The origin of the art of music is the call of the males to the
females.[89]
[89] Knight, p. 238.
According to Herbert Spencer (b. 1820), the origin of art is
play, a thought previously expressed by Schiller. In the lower
animals all the energy of life is expended in life-maintenance
and race-maintenance; in man, however, there remains, after these
needs are satisfied, some superfluous strength. This excess is
used in play, which passes over into art. Play is an imitation
of real activity; so is art. The sources of æsthetic pleasure are
threefold: (1) That "which exercises the faculties affected in the
most complete ways, with the fewest drawbacks from exercise," (2)
"the difference of a stimulus in large amount, which awakens a glow
of agreeable feeling," (3) the partial revival of the same, with
special combinations.[90]
[90] Knight, pp. 239, 240.
In Todhunter's "Theory of the Beautiful" (1872), beauty is
infinite loveliness, which we apprehend both by reason and by the
enthusiasm of love. The recognition of beauty as being such depends
on taste; there can be no criterion for it. The only approach
to a definition is found in culture. (What culture is, is not
defined.) Intrinsically, art--that which affects us through lines,
colors, sounds, or words--is not the product of blind forces, but
of reasonable ones, working, with mutual helpfulness toward a
reasonable aim. Beauty is the reconciliation of contradictions.[91]
[91] Knight, pp. 240-243.
Grant Allen is a follower of Spencer, and in his "Physiological
Æsthetics" (1877) he says that beauty has a physical origin.
Æsthetic pleasures come from the contemplation of the beautiful, but
the conception of beauty is obtained by a physiological process.
The origin of art is play; when there is a superfluity of physical
strength man gives himself to play; when there is a superfluity
of receptive power man gives himself to art. The beautiful is
that which affords the maximum of stimulation with the minimum of
waste. Differences in the estimation of beauty proceed from taste.
Taste can be educated. We must have faith in the judgments "of the
finest-nurtured and most discriminative" men. These people form the
taste of the next generation.[92]
[92] Knight, pp. 250-252.
According to Ker's "Essay on the Philosophy of Art" (1883), beauty
enables us to make part of the objective world intelligible to
ourselves without being troubled by reference to other parts
of it, as is inevitable for science. So that art destroys the
opposition between the one and the many, between the law and its
manifestation, between the subject and its object, by uniting them.
Art is the revelation and vindication of freedom, because it is free
from the darkness and incomprehensibility of finite things.[93]
[93] Knight, pp. 258, 259.
According to Knight's "Philosophy of the Beautiful," Part II.
(1893), beauty is (as with Schelling) the union of object and
subject, the drawing forth from nature of that which is cognate to
man, and the recognition in oneself of that which is common to all
nature.
The opinions on beauty and on art here mentioned are far from
exhausting what has been written on the subject. And every day fresh
writers on æsthetics arise, in whose disquisitions appear the same
enchanted confusion and contradictoriness in defining beauty. Some,
by inertia, continue the mystical æsthetics of Baumgarten and Hegel
with sundry variations; others transfer the question to the region
of subjectivity, and seek for the foundation of the beautiful in
questions of taste; others--the æstheticians of the very latest
formation--seek the origin of beauty in the laws of physiology; and
finally, others again investigate the question quite independently
of the conception of beauty. Thus Sully, in his "Sensation and
Intuition: Studies in Psychology and Æsthetics" (1874), dismisses
the conception of beauty altogether, art, by his definition, being
the production of some permanent object or passing action fitted
to supply active enjoyment to the producer, and a pleasurable
impression to a number of spectators or listeners, quite apart from
any personal advantage derived from it.[94]
[94] Knight, p. 243.
CHAPTER IV
To what do these definitions of beauty amount? Not reckoning the
thoroughly inaccurate definitions of beauty which fail to cover
the conception of art, and which suppose beauty to consist either
in utility, or in adjustment to a purpose, or in symmetry, or in
order, or in proportion, or in smoothness, or in harmony of the
parts, or in unity amid variety, or in various combinations of
these--not reckoning these unsatisfactory attempts at objective
definition, all the æsthetic definitions of beauty lead to two
fundamental conceptions. The first is that beauty is something
having an independent existence (existing in itself), that it is one
of the manifestations of the absolutely Perfect, of the Idea, of
the Spirit, of Will, or of God; the other is that beauty is a kind
of pleasure received by us, not having personal advantage for its
object.
The first of these definitions was accepted by Fichte, Schelling,
Hegel, Schopenhauer, and the philosophizing Frenchmen, Cousin,
Jouffroy, Ravaisson, and others, not to enumerate the second-rate
æsthetic philosophers. And this same objective-mystical definition
of beauty is held by a majority of the educated people of our day.
It is a conception very widely spread, especially among the elder
generation.
The second view, that beauty is a certain kind of pleasure received
by us, not having personal advantage for its aim, finds favor
chiefly among the English æsthetic writers, and is shared by the
other part of our society, principally by the younger generation.
So there are (and it could not be otherwise) only two definitions
of beauty: the one objective, mystical, merging this conception
into that of the highest perfection, God--a fantastic definition,
founded on nothing; the other, on the contrary, a very simple and
intelligible subjective one, which considers beauty to be that which
pleases (I do not add to the word "pleases" the words "without the
aim of advantage," because "pleases" naturally presupposes the
absence of the idea of profit).
On the one hand, beauty is viewed as something mystical and very
elevated, but unfortunately at the same time very indefinite, and
consequently embracing philosophy, religion, and life itself (as in
the theories of Schelling and Hegel, and their German and French
followers); or, on the other hand (as necessarily follows from the
definition of Kant and his adherents), beauty is simply a certain
kind of disinterested pleasure received by us. And this conception
of beauty, although it seems very clear is, unfortunately, again
inexact; for it widens out on the other side, _i.e._ it includes the
pleasure derived from drink, from food, from touching a delicate
skin, etc., as is acknowledged by Guyau, Kralik, and others.
It is true that, following the development of the æsthetic doctrines
on beauty, we may notice that, though at first (in the times when
the foundations of the science of æsthetics were being laid) the
metaphysical definition of beauty prevailed, yet the nearer we get
to our own times the more does an experimental definition (recently
assuming a physiological form) come to the front, so that at last
we even meet with such æstheticians as Véron and Sully, who try to
escape entirely from the conception of beauty. But such æstheticians
have very little success, and with the majority of the public, as
well as of artists and the learned, a conception of beauty is firmly
held which agrees with the definitions contained in most of the
æsthetic treatises, _i.e._ which regards beauty either as something
mystical or metaphysical, or as a special kind of enjoyment.
What, then, is this conception of beauty, so stubbornly held to by
people of our circle and day as furnishing a definition of art?
In the subjective aspect, we call beauty that which supplies us with
a particular kind of pleasure.
In the objective aspect, we call beauty something absolutely
perfect, and we acknowledge it to be so only because we receive,
from the manifestation of this absolute perfection, a certain kind
of pleasure; so that this objective definition is nothing but
the subjective conception differently expressed. In reality both
conceptions of beauty amount to one and the same thing; namely,
the reception by us of a certain kind of pleasure; _i.e._ we call
"beauty" that which pleases us without evoking in us desire.
Such being the position of affairs, it would seem only natural
that the science of art should decline to content itself with a
definition of art based on beauty (_i.e._ on that which pleases),
and seek a general definition, which should apply to all artistic
productions, and by reference to which we might decide whether a
certain article belonged to the realm of art or not. But no such
definition is supplied, as the reader may see from those summaries
of the æsthetic theories which I have given, and as he may discover
even more clearly from the original æsthetic works, if he will be
at the pains to read them. All attempts to define absolute beauty
in itself--whether as an imitation of nature, or as suitability to
its object, or as a correspondence of parts, or as symmetry, or as
harmony, or as unity in variety, etc.--either define nothing at all,
or define only some traits of some artistic productions, and are far
from including all that everybody has always held, and still holds,
to be art.
There is no objective definition of beauty. The existing definitions
(both the metaphysical and the experimental) amount only to one and
the same subjective definition, which (strange as it seems to say
so) is, that art is that which makes beauty manifest, and beauty
is that which pleases (without exciting desire). Many æstheticians
have felt the insufficiency and instability of such a definition,
and, in order to give it a firm basis, have asked themselves why
a thing pleases. And they have converted the discussion on beauty
into a question concerning taste, as did Hutcheson, Voltaire,
Diderot, and others. But all attempts to define what taste is must
lead to nothing, as the reader may see both from the history of
æsthetics and experimentally. There is and can be no explanation
of why one thing pleases one man and displeases another, or _vice
versa_. So that the whole existing science of æsthetics fails to
do what we might expect from it, being a mental activity calling
itself a science; namely, it does not define the qualities and laws
of art, or of the beautiful (if that be the content of art), or
the nature of taste (if taste decides the question of art and its
merit), and then, on the basis of such definitions, acknowledge as
art those productions which correspond to these laws, and reject
those which do not come under them. But this science of æsthetics
consists in first acknowledging a certain set of productions to be
art (because they please us), and then framing such a theory of art
that all those productions which please a certain circle of people
should fit into it. There exists an art canon, according to which
certain productions favored by our circle are acknowledged as being
art,--Phidias, Sophocles, Homer, Titian, Raphael, Bach, Beethoven,
Dante, Shakespear, Goethe, and others,--and the æsthetic laws must
be such as to embrace all these productions. In æsthetic literature
you will incessantly meet with opinions on the merit and importance
of art, founded not on any certain laws by which this or that is
held to be good or bad, but merely on the consideration whether this
art tallies with the art canon we have drawn up.
The other day I was reading a far from ill-written book by Folgeldt.
Discussing the demand for morality in works of art, the author
plainly says that we must not demand morality in art. And in proof
of this he advances the fact that if we admit such a demand,
Shakespear's "Romeo and Juliet," and Goethe's "Wilhelm Meister,"
would not fit into the definition of good art; but since both these
books are included in our canon of art, he concludes that the demand
is unjust. And therefore it is necessary to find a definition of art
which shall fit the works; and instead of a demand for morality,
Folgeldt postulates as the basis of art a demand for the important
(_Bedeutungsvolles_).
All the existing æsthetic standards are built on this plan. Instead
of giving a definition of true art, and then deciding what is and
what is not good art by judging whether a work conforms or does
not conform to the definition, a certain class of works, which
for some reason please a certain circle of people, is accepted as
being art, and a definition of art is then devised to cover all
these productions. I recently came upon a remarkable instance of
this method in a very good German work, "The History of Art in the
Nineteenth Century," by Muther. Describing the pre-Raphaelites, the
Decadents and the Symbolists (who are already included in the canon
of art), he not only does not venture to blame their tendency, but
earnestly endeavors to widen his standard so that it may include
them all, they appearing to him to represent a legitimate reaction
from the excesses of realism. No matter what insanities appear in
art, when once they find acceptance among the upper classes of our
society, a theory is quickly invented to explain and sanction them;
just as if there had never been periods in history when certain
special circles of people recognized and approved false, deformed,
and insensate art which subsequently left no trace and has been
utterly forgotten. And to what lengths the insanity and deformity
of art may go, especially when, as in our days, it knows that it is
considered infallible, may be seen by what is being done in the art
of our circle to-day.
So that the theory of art, founded on beauty, expounded by
æsthetics, and, in dim outline, professed by the public, is nothing
but the setting up as good of that which has pleased and pleases us,
_i.e._ pleases a certain class of people.
In order to define any human activity, it is necessary to understand
its sense and importance. And, in order to do that, it is primarily
necessary to examine that activity in itself, in its dependence on
its causes, and in connection with its effects, and not merely in
relation to the pleasure we can get from it.
If we say that the aim of any activity is merely our pleasure, and
define it solely by that pleasure, our definition will evidently be
a false one. But this is precisely what has occurred in the efforts
to define art. Now, if we consider the food question, it will not
occur to anyone to affirm that the importance of food consists
in the pleasure we receive when eating it. Every one understands
that the satisfaction of our taste cannot serve as a basis for our
definition of the merits of food, and that we have therefore no
right to presuppose that the dinners with cayenne pepper, Limburg
cheese, alcohol, etc., to which we are accustomed and which please
us, form the very best human food.
And in the same way, beauty, or that which pleases us, can in no
sense serve as the basis for the definition of art; nor can a series
of objects which afford us pleasure serve as the model of what art
should be.
To see the aim and purpose of art in the pleasure we get from it, is
like assuming (as is done by people of the lowest moral development,
_e.g._ by savages) that the purpose and aim of food is the pleasure
derived when consuming it.
Just as people who conceive the aim and purpose of food to be
pleasure cannot recognize the real meaning of eating, so people
who consider the aim of art to be pleasure cannot realize its true
meaning and purpose, because they attribute to an activity, the
meaning of which lies in its connection with other phenomena of
life, the false and exceptional aim of pleasure. People come to
understand that the meaning of eating lies in the nourishment of
the body only when they cease to consider that the object of that
activity is pleasure. And it is the same with regard to art. People
will come to understand the meaning of art only when they cease to
consider that the aim of that activity is beauty, _i.e._ pleasure.
The acknowledgment of beauty (_i.e._ of a certain kind of pleasure
received from art) as being the aim of art, not only fails to assist
us in finding a definition of what art is, but, on the contrary, by
transferring the question into a region quite foreign to art (into
metaphysical, psychological, physiological, and even historical
discussions as to why such a production pleases one person, and
such another displeases or pleases some one else), it renders such
definition impossible. And since discussions as to why one man
likes pears and another prefers meat do not help toward finding a
definition of what is essential in nourishment, so the solution
of questions of taste in art (to which the discussions on art
involuntarily come), not only does not help to make clear what this
particular human activity which we call art really consists in, but
renders such elucidation quite impossible, until we rid ourselves
of a conception which justifies every kind of art, at the cost of
confusing the whole matter.
To the question, What is this art, to which is offered up the labor
of millions, the very lives of men, and even morality itself? we
have extracted replies from the existing æsthetics, which all amount
to this that the aim of art is beauty, that beauty is recognized
by the enjoyment it gives, and that artistic enjoyment is a good
and important thing, because it _is_ enjoyment. In a word, that
enjoyment is good because it is enjoyment. Thus, what is considered
the definition of art is no definition at all, but only a shuffle
to justify existing art. Therefore, however strange it may seem to
say so, in spite of the mountains of books written about art, no
exact definition of art has been constructed. And the reason of this
is that the conception of art has been based on the conception of
beauty.
CHAPTER V
What is art, if we put aside the conception of beauty, which
confuses the whole matter? The latest and most comprehensible
definitions of art, apart from the conception of beauty, are the
following: (1 _a_) Art is an activity arising even in the animal
kingdom, and springing from sexual desire and the propensity to
play (Schiller, Darwin, Spencer), and (1 _b_) accompanied by a
pleasurable excitement of the nervous system (Grant Allen). This is
the physiological-evolutionary definition. (2) Art is the external
manifestation, by means of lines, colors, movements, sounds, or
words, of emotions felt by man (Véron). This is the experimental
definition. According to the very latest definition (Sully), (3) Art
is "the production of some permanent object or passing action, which
is fitted, not only to supply an active enjoyment to the producer,
but to convey a pleasurable impression to a number of spectators or
listeners, quite apart from any personal advantage to be derived
from it."
Notwithstanding the superiority of these definitions to the
metaphysical definitions which depended on the conception of
beauty, they are yet far from exact. (1 _a_) The first, the
physiological-evolutionary definition, is inexact, because, instead
of speaking about the artistic activity itself, which is the real
matter in hand, it treats of the derivation of art. The modification
of it (1 _b_), based on the physiological effects on the human
organism, is inexact, because within the limits of such definition
many other human activities can be included, as has occurred in
the neo-æsthetic theories, which reckon as art the preparation of
handsome clothes, pleasant scents, and even of victuals.
The experimental definition (2), which makes art consist in the
expression of emotions, is inexact, because a man may express his
emotions by means of lines, colors, sounds, or words, and yet may
not act on others by such expression; and then the manifestation of
his emotions is not art.
The third definition (that of Sully) is inexact, because in the
production of objects or actions affording pleasure to the producer
and a pleasant emotion to the spectators or hearers apart from
personal advantage may be included the showing of conjuring tricks
or gymnastic exercises, and other activities which are not art.
And, further, many things, the production of which does not afford
pleasure to the producer, and the sensation received from which
is unpleasant, such as gloomy, heartrending scenes in a poetic
description or a play, may nevertheless be undoubted works of art.
The inaccuracy of all these definitions arises from the fact that
in them all (as also in the metaphysical definitions) the object
considered is the pleasure art may give, and not the purpose it may
serve in the life of man and of humanity.
In order correctly to define art, it is necessary, first of all,
to cease to consider it as a means to pleasure, and to consider it
as one of the conditions of human life. Viewing it in this way, we
cannot fail to observe that art is one of the means of intercourse
between man and man.
Every work of art causes the receiver to enter into a certain
kind of relationship both with him who produced, or is producing,
the art, and with all those who, simultaneously, previously, or
subsequently, receive the same artistic impression.
Speech, transmitting the thoughts and experiences of men, serves as
a means of union among them, and art acts in a similar manner. The
peculiarity of this latter means of intercourse, distinguishing it
from intercourse by means of words, consists in this, that whereas
by words a man transmits his thoughts to another, by means of art he
transmits his feelings.
The activity of art is based on the fact that a man, receiving
through his sense of hearing or sight another man's expression
of feeling, is capable of experiencing the emotion which moved
the man who expressed it. To take the simplest example: one man
laughs, and another, who hears, becomes merry; or a man weeps, and
another, who hears, feels sorrow. A man is excited or irritated, and
another man, seeing him, comes to a similar state of mind. By his
movements, or by the sounds of his voice, a man expresses courage
and determination, or sadness and calmness, and this state of mind
passes on to others. A man suffers, expressing his sufferings by
groans and spasms, and this suffering transmits itself to other
people; a man expresses his feeling of admiration, devotion, fear,
respect, or love to certain objects, persons, or phenomena, and
others are infected by the same feelings of admiration, devotion,
fear, respect, or love to the same objects, persons, and phenomena.
And it is on this capacity of man to receive another man's
expression of feeling, and experience those feelings himself, that
the activity of art is based.
If a man infects another or others, directly, immediately, by his
appearance, or by the sounds he gives vent to at the very time he
experiences the feeling; if he causes another man to yawn when he
himself cannot help yawning, or to laugh or cry when he himself
is obliged to laugh or cry, or to suffer when he himself is
suffering--that does not amount to art.
Art begins when one person, with the object of joining another
or others to himself in one and the same feeling, expresses that
feeling by certain external indications. To take the simplest
example: a boy, having experienced, let us say, fear on encountering
a wolf, relates that encounter; and, in order to evoke in others
the feeling he has experienced, describes himself, his condition
before the encounter, the surroundings, the wood, his own
light-heartedness, and then the wolf's appearance, its movements,
the distance between himself and the wolf, etc. All this, if only
the boy, when telling the story, again experiences the feelings he
had lived through and infects the hearers and compels them to feel
what the narrator had experienced, is art. If even the boy had not
seen a wolf but had frequently been afraid of one, and if, wishing
to evoke in others the fear he had felt, he invented an encounter
with a wolf, and recounted it so as to make his hearers share the
feelings he experienced when he feared the wolf, that also would be
art. And just in the same way it is art if a man, having experienced
either the fear of suffering or the attraction of enjoyment (whether
in reality or in imagination), expresses these feelings on canvas or
in marble so that others are infected by them. And it is also art if
a man feels or imagines to himself feelings of delight, gladness,
sorrow, despair, courage, or despondency, and the transition from
one to another of these feelings, and expresses these feelings by
sounds, so that the hearers are infected by them, and experience
them as they were experienced by the composer.
The feelings with which the artist infects others may be most
various,--very strong or very weak, very important or very
insignificant, very bad or very good: feelings of love for native
land, self-devotion and submission to fate or to God expressed
in a drama, raptures of lovers described in a novel, feelings of
voluptuousness expressed in a picture, courage expressed in a
triumphal march, merriment evoked by a dance, humor evoked by a
funny story, the feeling of quietness transmitted by an evening
landscape or by a lullaby, or the feeling of admiration evoked by a
beautiful arabesque--it is all art.
If only the spectators or auditors are infected by the feelings
which the author has felt, it is art.
_To evoke in oneself a feeling one has once experienced, and having
evoked it in oneself, then, by means of movements, lines, colors,
sounds, or forms expressed in words, so to transmit that feeling
that others may experience the same feeling--this is the activity of
art._
_Art is a human activity, consisting in this, that one man
consciously, by means of certain external signs, hands on to others
feelings he has lived through, and that other people are infected by
these feelings, and also experience them._
Art is not, as the metaphysicians say, the manifestation of some
mysterious Idea of beauty, or God; it is not, as the æsthetical
physiologists say, a game in which man lets off his excess of
stored-up energy; it is not the expression of man's emotions by
external signs; it is not the production of pleasing objects; and,
above all, it is not pleasure; but it is a means of union among
men, joining them together in the same feelings, and indispensable
for the life and progress toward well-being of individuals and of
humanity.
As, thanks to man's capacity to express thoughts by words, every man
may know all that has been done for him in the realms of thought by
all humanity before his day, and can, in the present, thanks to this
capacity to understand the thoughts of others, become a sharer in
their activity, and can himself hand on to his contemporaries and
descendants the thoughts he has assimilated from others, as well as
those which have arisen within himself; so, thanks to man's capacity
to be infected with the feelings of others by means of art, all that
is being lived through by his contemporaries is accessible to him,
as well as the feelings experienced by men thousands of years ago,
and he has also the possibility of transmitting his own feelings to
others.
If people lacked this capacity to receive the thoughts conceived
by the men who preceded them, and to pass on to others their own
thoughts, men would be like wild beasts, or like Kaspar Hauser.[95]
[95] "The foundling of Nuremberg," found in the market-place of
that town on 26th May, 1828, apparently some sixteen years old.
He spoke little, and was almost totally ignorant even of common
objects. He subsequently explained that he had been brought up in
confinement underground, and visited by only one man, whom he saw
but seldom.--TR.
And if men lacked this other capacity of being infected by art,
people might be almost more savage still, and, above all, more
separated from, and more hostile to, one another.
And therefore the activity of art is a most important one, as
important as the activity of speech itself, and as generally
diffused.
We are accustomed to understand art to be only what we hear and see
in theaters, concerts, and exhibitions; together with buildings,
statues, poems, novels.... But all this is but the smallest part of
the art by which we communicate with each other in life. All human
life is filled with works of art of every kind,--from cradle-song,
jest, mimicry, the ornamentation of houses, dress, and utensils, up
to church services, buildings, monuments, and triumphal processions.
It is all artistic activity. So that by art, in the limited sense of
the word, we do not mean all human activity transmitting feelings,
but only that part which we for some reason select from it and to
which we attach special importance.
This special importance has always been given by all men to that
part of this activity which transmits feelings flowing from
their religious perception, and this small part of art they have
specifically called art, attaching to it the full meaning of the
word.
That was how men of old--Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle--looked on
art. Thus did the Hebrew prophets and the ancient Christians regard
art; thus it was, and still is, understood by the Mahommedans,
and thus is it still understood by religious folk among our own
peasantry.
Some teachers of mankind--as Plato in his "Republic," and people
such as the primitive Christians, the strict Mahommedans, and the
Buddhists--have gone so far as to repudiate all art.
People viewing art in this way (in contradiction to the prevalent
view of to-day, which regards any art as good if only it affords
pleasure) considered, and consider, that art (as contrasted with
speech, which need not be listened to) is so highly dangerous in its
power to infect people against their wills, that mankind will lose
far less by banishing all art than by tolerating each and every art.
Evidently such people were wrong in repudiating all art, for they
denied that which cannot be denied,--one of the indispensable means
of communication, without which mankind could not exist. But not
less wrong are the people of civilized European society of our class
and day, in favoring any art if it but serves beauty, _i.e._ gives
people pleasure.
Formerly, people feared lest among the works of art there might
chance to be some causing corruption, and they prohibited art
altogether. Now, they only fear lest they should be deprived of any
enjoyment art can afford, and patronize any art. And I think the
last error is much grosser than the first, and that its consequences
are far more harmful.
CHAPTER VI
But how could it happen that that very art, which in ancient times
was merely tolerated (if tolerated at all), should have come, in our
times, to be invariably considered a good thing if only it affords
pleasure?
It has resulted from the following causes. The estimation of the
value of art (_i.e._ of the feelings it transmits) depends on men's
perception of the meaning of life; depends on what they consider to
be the good and the evil of life. And what is good and what is evil
is defined by what are termed religions.
Humanity unceasingly moves forward from a lower, more partial, and
obscure understanding of life, to one more general and more lucid.
And in this, as in every movement, there are leaders,--those who
have understood the meaning of life more clearly than others,--and
of these advanced men there is always one who has, in his words and
by his life, expressed this meaning more clearly, accessibly, and
strongly than others. This man's expression of the meaning of life,
together with those superstitions, traditions, and ceremonies which
usually form themselves round the memory of such a man, is what
is called a religion. Religions are the exponents of the highest
comprehension of life accessible to the best and foremost men at
a given time in a given society; a comprehension toward which,
inevitably and irresistibly, all the rest of that society must
advance. And therefore only religions have always served, and still
serve, as bases for the valuation of human sentiments. If feelings
bring men nearer the ideal their religion indicates, if they are in
harmony with it and do not contradict it, they are good; if they
estrange men from it and oppose it, they are bad.
If the religion places the meaning of life in worshiping one God
and fulfilling what is regarded as His will, as was the case among
the Jews, then the feelings flowing from love to that God, and
to His law, successfully transmitted through the art of poetry
by the prophets, by the psalms, or by the epic of the book of
Genesis, is good, high art. All opposing that, as, for instance,
the transmission of feelings of devotion to strange gods, or of
feelings incompatible with the law of God, would be considered bad
art. Or if, as was the case among the Greeks, the religion places
the meaning of life in earthly happiness, in beauty and in strength,
then art successfully transmitting the joy and energy of life
would be considered good art, but art which transmitted feelings
of effeminacy or despondency would be bad art. If the meaning of
life is seen in the well-being of one's nation, or in honoring
one's ancestors and continuing the mode of life led by them, as
was the case among the Romans and the Chinese respectively, then
art transmitting feelings of joy at sacrificing one's personal
well-being for the common weal, or at exalting one's ancestors and
maintaining their traditions, would be considered good art, but
art expressing feelings contrary to this would be regarded as bad.
If the meaning of life is seen in freeing oneself from the yoke of
animalism, as is the case among the Buddhists, then art successfully
transmitting feelings that elevate the soul and humble the flesh
will be good art, and all that transmits feelings strengthening the
bodily passions will be bad art.
In every age, and in every human society, there exists a religious
sense, common to that whole society, of what is good and what is
bad, and it is this religious conception that decides the value of
the feelings transmitted by art. And therefore, among all nations,
art which transmitted feelings considered to be good by this general
religious sense was recognized as being good and was encouraged;
but art which transmitted feelings considered to be bad by this
general religious conception, was recognized as being bad, and was
rejected. All the rest of the immense field of art by means of which
people communicate one with another, was not esteemed at all, and
was only noticed when it ran counter to the religious conception of
its age, and then merely to be repudiated. Thus it was among all
nations,--Greeks, Jews, Indians, Egyptians, and Chinese,--and so it
was when Christianity appeared.
The Christianity of the first centuries recognized as productions
of good art only legends, lives of saints, sermons, prayers, and
hymn-singing, evoking love of Christ, emotion at His life, desire to
follow His example, renunciation of worldly life, humility, and the
love of others; all productions transmitting feelings of personal
enjoyment they considered to be bad, and therefore rejected: for
instance, tolerating plastic representations only when they were
symbolical, they rejected all the pagan sculptures.
This was so among the Christians of the first centuries, who
accepted Christ's teaching, if not quite in its true form, at least
not in the perverted, paganized form in which it was accepted
subsequently.
But besides this Christianity, from the time of the wholesale
conversion of nations by order of the authorities, as in the days of
Constantine, Charlemagne, and Vladimir, there appeared another, a
Church Christianity, which was nearer to paganism than to Christ's
teaching. And this Church Christianity, in accordance with its own
teaching, estimated quite otherwise the feelings of people and the
productions of art which transmitted those feelings.
This Church Christianity not only did not acknowledge the
fundamental and essential positions of true Christianity,--the
immediate relationship of each man to the Father, the consequent
brotherhood and equality of all men, and the substitution of
humility and love in place of every kind of violence,--but, on the
contrary, having set up a heavenly hierarchy similar to the pagan
mythology, and having introduced the worship of Christ, of the
Virgin, of angels, of apostles, of saints, and of martyrs, and not
only of these divinities themselves, but also of their images, it
made blind faith in the Church and its ordinances the essential
point of its teaching.
However foreign this teaching may have been to true Christianity;
however degraded, not only in comparison with true Christianity,
but even with the life-conception of Romans such as Julian and
others,--it was, for all that, to the barbarians who accepted it,
a higher doctrine than their former adoration of gods, heroes, and
good and bad spirits. And therefore this teaching was a religion
to them, and on the basis of that religion the art of the time
was assessed. And art transmitting pious adoration of the Virgin,
Jesus, the saints and the angels, a blind faith in and submission
to the Church, fear of torments and hope of blessedness in a life
beyond the grave, was considered good; all art opposed to this was
considered bad.
The teaching on the basis of which this art arose was a perversion
of Christ's teaching, but the art which sprang up on this perverted
teaching was nevertheless a true art, because it corresponded to the
religious view of life held by the people among whom it arose.
The artists of the Middle Ages, vitalized by the same source of
feeling--religion--as the mass of the people, and transmitting,
in architecture, sculpture, painting, music, poetry or drama, the
feelings and states of mind they experienced, were true artists;
and their activity, founded on the highest conceptions accessible
to their age and common to the entire people, though, for our times
a mean art, was, nevertheless a true one, shared by the whole
community.
And this was the state of things until, in the upper, rich, more
educated classes of European society, doubt arose as to the truth
of that understanding of life which was expressed by Church
Christianity. When, after the Crusades and the maximum development
of papal power and its abuses, people of the rich classes became
acquainted with the wisdom of the classics, and saw, on the one
hand, the reasonable lucidity of the teaching of the ancient sages,
and, on the other hand, the incompatibility of the Church doctrine
with the teaching of Christ, they lost all possibility of continuing
to believe the Church teaching.
If, in externals, they still kept to the forms of Church teaching,
they could no longer believe in it, and held to it only by inertia
and for the sake of influencing the masses, who continued to believe
blindly in Church doctrine, and whom the upper classes, for their
own advantage, considered it necessary to support in those beliefs.
So that a time came when Church Christianity ceased to be the
general religious doctrine of all Christian people; some--the
masses--continued blindly to believe in it, but the upper
classes--those in whose hands lay the power and wealth, and
therefore the leisure to produce art and the means to stimulate
it--ceased to believe in that teaching.
In respect to religion, the upper circles of the Middle Ages found
themselves in the same position in which the educated Romans were
before Christianity arose, _i.e._ they no longer believed in the
religion of the masses, but had no beliefs to put in place of the
worn-out Church doctrine which for them had lost its meaning.
There was only this difference: that whereas for the Romans,
who lost faith in their emperor-gods and household-gods, it was
impossible to extract anything further from all the complex
mythology they had borrowed from all the conquered nations, and it
was consequently necessary to find a completely new conception of
life, the people of the Middle Ages, when they doubted the truth of
the Church teaching, had no need to seek a fresh one. That Christian
teaching which they professed in a perverted form as Church doctrine
had mapped out the path of human progress so far ahead that they
had but to rid themselves of those perversions which hid the
teaching announced by Christ, and to adopt its real meaning--if not
completely, then at least in some greater degree than that in which
the Church had held it. And this was partially done, not only in the
reformations of Wyclif, Huss, Luther, and Calvin, but by all that
current of non-Church Christianity represented in earlier times by
the Paulicians, the Bogomili,[96] and, afterward, by the Waldenses
and the other non-Church Christians who were called heretics. But
this could be, and was, done chiefly by poor people--who did not
rule. A few of the rich and strong, like Francis of Assisi and
others, accepted the Christian teaching in its full significance,
even though it undermined their privileged positions. But most
people of the upper classes (though in the depth of their souls
they had lost faith in the Church teaching) could not or would not
act thus, because the essence of that Christian view of life, which
stood ready to be adopted when once they rejected the Church faith,
was a teaching of the brotherhood (and therefore the equality) of
man, and this negatived those privileges on which they lived, in
which they had grown up and been educated, and to which they were
accustomed. Not, in the depth of their hearts, believing in the
Church teaching,--which had outlived its age and had no longer any
true meaning for them,--and not being strong enough to accept true
Christianity, men of these rich, governing classes--popes, kings,
dukes, and all the great ones of the earth--were left without any
religion, with but the external forms of one, which they supported
as being profitable and even necessary for themselves, since these
forms screened a teaching which justified those privileges which
they made use of. In reality, these people believed in nothing, just
as the Romans of the first centuries of our era believed in nothing.
But at the same time these were the people who had the power and the
wealth, and these were the people who rewarded art and directed it.
[96] Eastern sects well known in early Church history, who rejected
the Church's rendering of Christ's teaching, and were cruelly
persecuted.--TR.
And, let it be noticed, it was just among these people that there
grew up an art esteemed, not according to its success in expressing
men's religious feelings, but in proportion to its beauty,--in other
words, according to the enjoyment it gave.
No longer able to believe in the Church religion, whose falsehood
they had detected, and incapable of accepting true Christian
teaching, which denounced their whole manner of life, these rich and
powerful people, stranded without any religious conception of life,
involuntarily returned to that pagan view of things which places
life's meaning in personal enjoyment. And then took place among the
upper classes what is called the "Renaissance of science and art,"
and which was really not only a denial of every religion, but also
an assertion that religion is unnecessary.
The Church doctrine is so coherent a system that it cannot be
altered or corrected without destroying it altogether. As soon
as doubt arose with regard to the infallibility of the Pope (and
this doubt was then in the minds of all educated people), doubt
inevitably followed as to the truth of tradition. But doubt as to
the truth of tradition is fatal not only to popery and Catholicism,
but also to the whole Church creed, with all its dogmas: the
divinity of Christ, the resurrection, and the Trinity; and it
destroys the authority of the Scriptures, since they were considered
to be inspired only because the tradition of the Church decided it
so.
So that the majority of the highest classes of that age, even the
popes and the ecclesiastics, really believed in nothing at all.
In the Church doctrine these people did not believe, for they saw
its insolvency; but neither could they follow Francis of Assisi,
Keltchitsky,[97] and most of the heretics, in acknowledging the
moral, social teaching of Christ, for that teaching undermined their
social position. And so these people remained without any religious
view of life. And, having none, they could have no standard
wherewith to estimate what was good and what was bad art but that of
personal enjoyment. And, having acknowledged their criterion of what
was good to be pleasure, _i.e._ beauty, these people of the upper
classes of European society went back in their comprehension of art
to the gross conception of the primitive Greeks which Plato had
already condemned. And conformably to this understanding of life, a
theory of art was formulated.
[97] Keltchitsky, a Bohemian of the fifteenth century, was the
author of a remarkable book, "The Net of Faith," directed against
Church and State. It is mentioned in Tolstoï's "The Kingdom of God
is Within You."--TR.
CHAPTER VII
From the time that people of the upper classes lost faith in Church
Christianity, beauty (_i.e._ the pleasure received from art) became
their standard of good and bad art. And, in accordance with that
view, an æsthetic theory naturally sprang up among those upper
classes justifying such a conception,--a theory according to which
the aim of art is to exhibit beauty. The partizans of this æsthetic
theory, in confirmation of its truth, affirmed that it was no
invention of their own, but that it existed in the nature of things,
and was recognized even by the ancient Greeks. But this assertion
was quite arbitrary, and has no foundation other than the fact that
among the ancient Greeks, in consequence of the low grade of their
moral ideal (as compared with the Christian), their conception of
the good, τὸ ἀγαθόν, was not yet sharply divided from their
conception of the beautiful, τὸ καλόν.
That highest perfection of goodness (not only not identical with
beauty, but, for the most part, contrasting with it) which was
discerned by the Jews even in the times of Isaiah, and fully
expressed by Christianity, was quite unknown to the Greeks. They
supposed that the beautiful must necessarily also be the good. It is
true that their foremost thinkers--Socrates, Plato, Aristotle--felt
that goodness may happen not to coincide with beauty. Socrates
expressly subordinated beauty to goodness; Plato, to unite the two
conceptions, spoke of spiritual beauty; while Aristotle demanded
from art that it should have a moral influence on people κάθαρσις).
But, notwithstanding all this, they could not quite dismiss the
notion that beauty and goodness coincide.
And consequently, in the language of that period, a compound word
(καλο-κἀγαθία, beauty-goodness) came into use to express that notion.
Evidently the Greek sages began to draw near to that perception of
goodness which is expressed in Buddhism and in Christianity, and
they got entangled in defining the relation between goodness and
beauty. Plato's reasonings about beauty and goodness are full of
contradictions. And it was just this confusion of ideas that those
Europeans of a later age, who had lost all faith, tried to elevate
into a law. They tried to prove that this union of beauty and
goodness is inherent in the very essence of things; that beauty and
goodness must coincide; and that the word and conception καλο-κἀγαθία
(which had a meaning for Greeks, but has none at all for Christians)
represents the highest ideal of humanity. On this misunderstanding
the new science of æsthetics was built up. And, to justify its
existence, the teachings of the ancients on art were so twisted as
to make it appear that this invented science of æsthetics had
existed among the Greeks.
In reality, the reasoning of the ancients on art was quite unlike
ours. As Benard, in his book on the æsthetics of Aristotle, quite
justly remarks, "_Pour qui veut y regarder de près, la théorie du
beau et celle de l'art sont tout à fait séparées dans Aristote,
comme elles le sont dans Platon et chez tous leurs successeurs_"
("L'Esthétique d'Aristote et de ses Successeurs," Paris, 1889, p.
28).[98] And indeed the reasoning of the ancients on art not only
does not confirm our science of æsthetics, but rather contradicts
its doctrine of beauty. But nevertheless all the æsthetic
guides, from Schasler to Knight, declare that the science of the
beautiful--æsthetic science--was commenced by the ancients, by
Socrates, Plato, Aristotle; and was continued, they say, partially
by the Epicureans and Stoics: by Seneca and Plutarch, down to
Plotinus. But it is supposed that this science, by some unfortunate
accident, suddenly vanished in the fourth century, and stayed away
for about 1500 years, and only after these 1500 years had passed did
it revive in Germany, 1750 A.D., in Baumgarten's doctrine.
[98] Any one examining closely may see that the theory of beauty and
that of art are quite separated in Aristotle as they are in Plato
and in all their successors.
After Plotinus, says Schasler, fifteen centuries passed away during
which there was not the slightest scientific interest felt for the
world of beauty and art. These one and a half thousand years, says
he, have been lost to æsthetics, and have contributed nothing toward
the erection of the learned edifice of this science.[99]
[99] Die Lücke von fünf Jahrhunderten, welche zwischen den
Kunst-philosophischen Betrachtungen des Plato und Aristoteles und
die des Plotins fällt, kann zwar auffällig erscheinen; dennoch kann
man eigentlich nicht sagen, dass in dieser Zwischenzeit überhaupt
von ästhetischen Dingen nicht die Rede gewesen; oder dass gar ein
völliger Mangel an Zusammenhang zwischen den Kunst-anschauungen
des letztgenannten Philosophen und denen der ersteren existire.
Freilich wurde die von Aristoteles begründete Wissenschaft in Nichts
dadurch gefördert; immerhin aber zeigt sich in jener Zwischenzeit
noch ein gewisses Interesse für ästhetische Fragen. Nach Plotin
aber, die wenigen, ihm in der Zeit nahestehenden Philosophen,
wie Longin, Augustin, u. s. f. kommen, wie wir gesehen, kaum in
Betracht und schliessen sich übrigens in ihrer Anschauungsweise an
ihn an,--vergehen nicht fünf, sondern _fünfzehn Jahrhunderte_, in
denen von irgend einer wissenschaftlichen Interesse für die Welt des
Schönen und der Kunst nichts zu spüren ist.
Diese anderthalbtausend Jahre, innerhalb deren der Weltgeist durch
die mannigfachsten Kämpfe hindurch zu einer völlig neuen Gestaltung
des Lebens sich durcharbeitete, sind für die Aesthetik, hinsichtlich
des weiteren Ausbaus dieser Wissenschaft verloren.--MAX SCHASLER.
In reality nothing of the kind happened. The science of æsthetics,
the science of the beautiful, neither did nor could vanish, because
it never existed. Simply, the Greeks (just like everybody else,
always and everywhere) considered art (like everything else) good
only when it served goodness (as they understood goodness), and
bad when it was in opposition to that goodness. And the Greeks
themselves were so little developed morally, that goodness and
beauty seemed to them to coincide. On that obsolete Greek view
of life was erected the science of æsthetics, invented by men
of the eighteenth century, and especially shaped and mounted in
Baumgarten's theory. The Greeks (as any one may see who will read
Benard's admirable book on Aristotle and his successors and Walter's
work on Plato) never had a science of æsthetics.
Æsthetic theories arose about one hundred and fifty years ago among
the wealthy classes of the Christian European world, and arose
simultaneously among different nations,--German, Italian, Dutch,
French, and English. The founder and organizer of it, who gave it a
scientific, theoretic form, was Baumgarten.
With a characteristically German, external exactitude, pedantry,
and symmetry, he devised and expounded this extraordinary theory.
And, notwithstanding its obvious insolidity, nobody else's theory
so pleased the cultured crowd, or was accepted so readily and with
such an absence of criticism. It so suited the people of the upper
classes, that to this day, notwithstanding its entirely fantastic
character and the arbitrary nature of its assertions, it is repeated
by learned and unlearned as though it were something indubitable and
self-evident.
_Habent sua fata libelli pro capite lectoris_, and so, or even
more so, theories _habent sua fata_ according to the condition of
error in which that society is living, among whom and for whom the
theories are invented. If a theory justifies the false position
in which a certain part of a society is living, then, however
unfounded or even obviously false the theory may be, it is accepted,
and becomes an article of faith to that section of society. Such,
for instance, was the celebrated and unfounded theory, expounded
by Malthus, of the tendency of that population of the world to
increase in geometrical progression, but of the means of sustenance
to increase only in arithmetical progression, and of the consequent
over-population of the world; such, also, was the theory (an
outgrowth of the Malthusian) of selection and struggle for existence
as the basis of human progress. Such, again, is Marx's theory, which
regards the gradual destruction of small private production by large
capitalistic production, now going on around us, as an inevitable
decree of fate. However unfounded such theories are, however
contrary to all that is known and confessed by humanity, and however
obviously immoral they may be, they are accepted with credulity,
pass uncriticized, and are preached, perchance for centuries, until
the conditions are destroyed which they served to justify, or until
their absurdity has become too evident. To this class belongs this
astonishing theory of the Baumgartenian Trinity,--Goodness, Beauty,
and Truth,--according to which it appears that the very best that
can be done by the art of nations after 1900 years of Christian
teaching, is to choose as the ideal of their life the ideal that
was held by a small, semi-savage, slave-holding people who lived
2000 years ago, who imitated the nude human body extremely well, and
erected buildings pleasant to look at. All these incompatibilities
pass completely unnoticed. Learned people write long, cloudy
treatises on beauty as a member of the æsthetic trinity of Beauty,
Truth, and Goodness: _das Schöne_, _das Wahre_, _das Gute_; _le
Beau_, _le Vrai_, _le Bon_, are repeated, with capital letters, by
philosophers, æstheticians, and artists, by private individuals,
by novelists, and by _feuilletonistes_, and they all think, when
pronouncing these sacrosanct words, that they speak of something
quite definite and solid--something on which they can base their
opinions. In reality, these words not only have no definite meaning,
but they hinder us in attaching any definite meaning to existing
art; they are wanted only for the purpose of justifying the false
importance we attribute to an art that transmits every kind of
feeling, if only those feelings afford us pleasure.
CHAPTER VIII
But if art is a human activity having for its purpose the
transmission to others of the highest and best feelings to which
men have risen, how could it be that humanity for a certain rather
considerable period of its existence (from the time people ceased
to believe in Church doctrine down to the present day) should exist
without this important activity, and, instead of it, should put up
with an insignificant artistic activity only affording pleasure?
In order to answer this question, it is necessary, first of all, to
correct the current error people make in attributing to our art the
significance of true, universal art. We are so accustomed, not only
naïvely to consider the Circassian family the best stock of people,
but also the Anglo-Saxon race the best race if we are Englishmen or
Americans, or the Teutonic if we are Germans, or the Gallo-Latin
if we are French, or the Slavonic if we are Russians, that, when
speaking of our own art, we feel fully convinced, not only that our
art is true art, but even that it is the best and only true art.
But in reality our art is not only not the only art (as the Bible
once was held to be the only book), but it is not even the art of
the whole of Christendom--only of a small section of that part of
humanity. It was correct to speak of a national Jewish, Grecian, or
Egyptian art, and one may speak of a now-existing Chinese, Japanese,
or Indian art shared in by a whole people. Such art, common to a
whole nation, existed in Russia till Peter the First's time, and
existed in the rest of Europe until the thirteenth or fourteenth
century; but since the upper classes of European society, having
lost faith in the Church teaching, did not accept real Christianity
but remained without any faith, one can no longer speak of an art
of the Christian nations in the sense of the whole of art. Since
the upper classes of the Christian nations lost faith in Church
Christianity, the art of those upper classes has separated itself
from the art of the rest of the people, and there have been two
arts,--the art of the people and genteel art. And therefore the
answer to the question, How it could occur that humanity lived for
a certain period without real art, replacing it by art which served
enjoyment only? is, that not all humanity, nor even any considerable
portion of it, lived without real art, but only the highest
classes of European Christian society, and even they only for a
comparatively short time,--from the commencement of the Renaissance
down to our own day.
And the consequence of this absence of true art showed itself,
inevitably, in the corruption of that class which nourished itself
on the false art. All the confused, unintelligible theories of art,
all the false and contradictory judgments on art, and particularly
the self-confident stagnation of our art in its false path, all
arise from the assertion, which has come into common use and is
accepted as an unquestioned truth, but is yet amazingly and palpably
false, the assertion, namely, that the art of our upper classes[100]
is the whole of art, the true, the only, the universal art. And
although this assertion (which is precisely similar to the assertion
made by religious people of the various Churches who consider that
theirs is the only true religion) is quite arbitrary and obviously
unjust, yet it is calmly repeated by all the people of our circle
with full faith in its infallibility.
[100] The contrast made is between the classes and the masses;
between those who do not and those who do earn their bread by
productive manual labor; the middle classes being taken as an
offshoot of the upper classes.--TR.
The art we have is the whole of art, the real, the only art, and yet
two-thirds of the human race (all the peoples of Asia and Africa)
live and die knowing nothing of this sole and supreme art. And even
in our Christian society hardly one per cent of the people make
use of this art which we speak of as being the _whole_ of art;
the remaining ninety-nine per cent live and die, generation after
generation, crushed by toil, and never tasting this art, which,
moreover, is of such a nature that, if they could get it, they would
not understand anything of it. We, according to the current æsthetic
theory, acknowledge art as one of the highest manifestations of
the Idea, God, Beauty, or as the highest spiritual enjoyment;
furthermore, we hold that all people have equal rights, if not to
material, at any rate to spiritual well-being; and yet ninety-nine
per cent of our European population live and die, generation after
generation, crushed by toil, much of which toil is necessary for the
production of our art which they never use, and we, nevertheless,
calmly assert that the art which we produce is the real, true, only
art--all of art!
To the remark that if our art is the true art every one should have
the benefit of it, the usual reply is that if not everybody at
present makes use of existing art, the fault lies, not in the art,
but in the false organization of society; that one can imagine to
oneself, in the future, a state of things in which physical labor
will be partly superseded by machinery, partly lightened by its just
distribution, and that labor for the production of art will be taken
in turns; that there is no need for some people always to sit below
the stage moving the decorations, winding up the machinery, working
at the piano or French horn, and setting type and printing books,
but that the people who do all this work might be engaged only a
few hours per day, and in their leisure time might enjoy all the
blessings of art.
That is what the defenders of our exclusive art say. But I think
they do not themselves believe it. They cannot help knowing that
fine art can arise only on the slavery of the masses of the people,
and can continue only as long as that slavery lasts, and they
cannot help knowing that only under conditions of intense labor
for the workers, can specialists--writers, musicians, dancers, and
actors--arrive at that fine degree of perfection to which they
do attain, or produce their refined works of art; and only under
the same conditions can there be a fine public to esteem such
productions. Free the slaves of capital, and it will be impossible
to produce such refined art.
But even were we to admit the inadmissible, and say that means may
be found by which art (that art which among us is considered to be
art) may be accessible to the whole people, another consideration
presents itself showing that fashionable art cannot be the whole
of art, viz., the fact that it is completely unintelligible to the
people. Formerly men wrote poems in Latin, but now their artistic
productions are as unintelligible to the common folk as if they were
written in Sanscrit. The usual reply to this is, that if the people
do not now understand this art of ours, it only proves that they are
undeveloped, and that this has been so at each fresh step forward
made by art. First it was not understood, but afterward people got
accustomed to it.
"It will be the same with our present art; it will be understood
when everybody is as well educated as we are--the people of the
upper classes--who produce this art," say the defenders of our
art. But this assertion is evidently even more unjust than the
former; for we know that the majority of the productions of the
art of the upper classes, such as various odes, poems, dramas,
cantatas, pastorals, pictures, etc., which delighted the people of
the upper classes when they were produced, never were afterward
either understood or valued by the great masses of mankind, but have
remained, what they were at first, a mere pastime for rich people
of their time, for whom alone they ever were of any importance. It
is also often urged, in proof of the assertion that the people will
some day understand our art, that some productions of so-called
"classical" poetry, music, or painting, which formerly did not
please the masses, do--now that they have been offered to them
from all sides--begin to please these same masses; but this only
shows that the crowd, especially the half-spoilt town crowd, can
easily (its taste having been perverted) be accustomed to any
sort of art. Moreover, this art is not produced by these masses,
nor even chosen by them, but is energetically thrust upon them
in those public places in which art is accessible to the people.
For the great majority of working-people, our art, besides being
inaccessible on account of its costliness, is strange in its very
nature, transmitting, as it does, the feelings of people far removed
from those conditions of laborious life which are natural to the
great body of humanity. That which is enjoyment to a man of the
rich classes is incomprehensible, as a pleasure, to a working-man,
and evokes in him, either no feeling at all, or only a feeling
quite contrary to that which it evokes in an idle and satiated man.
Such feelings as form the chief subjects of present-day art--say,
for instance, honor,[101] patriotism, and amorousness--evoke in a
working-man only bewilderment and contempt, or indignation. So that
even if a possibility were given to the laboring classes, in their
free time, to see, to read, and to hear all that forms the flower of
contemporary art (as is done to some extent, in towns, by means of
picture galleries, popular concerts, and libraries), the working-man
(to the extent to which he is a laborer, and has not begun to pass
into the ranks of those perverted by idleness) would be able to make
nothing of our fine art, and if he did understand it, that which
he understood would not elevate his soul, but would certainly, in
most cases, pervert it. To thoughtful and sincere people there can,
therefore, be no doubt that the art of our upper classes never can
be the art of the whole people. But if art is an important matter, a
spiritual blessing, essential for all men ("like religion," as the
devotees of art are fond of saying), then it should be accessible
to every one. And if, as in our day, it is not accessible to all
men, then one of two things: either art is not the vital matter it
is represented to be, or that art which we call art is not the real
thing.
[101] Dueling is still customary among the higher circles in Russia,
as in other continental countries.--TR.
The dilemma is inevitable, and therefore clever and immoral people
avoid it by denying one side of it, viz., denying that the common
people have a right to art. These people simply and boldly speak
out (what lies at the heart of the matter), and say that the
participators in and utilizers of what, in their esteem, is highly
beautiful art, _i.e._ art furnishing the greatest enjoyment, can
only be "schöne Geister," "the elect," as the romanticists called
them, the "Uebermenschen," as they are called by the followers of
Nietzsche; the remaining vulgar herd, incapable of experiencing
these pleasures, must serve the exalted pleasures of this superior
breed of people. The people who express these views at least do not
pretend, and do not try, to combine the incombinable, but frankly
admit, what is the case, that our art is an art of the upper classes
only. So essentially art has been, and is, understood by every one
engaged on it in our society.
CHAPTER IX
The unbelief of the upper classes of the European world had this
effect--that instead of an artistic activity aiming at transmitting
the highest feelings to which humanity has attained,--those flowing
from religious perception,--we have an activity which aims at
affording the greatest enjoyment to a certain class of society. And
of all the immense domain of art, that part has been fenced off, and
is alone called art, which affords enjoyment to the people of this
particular circle.
Apart from the moral effects on European society of such a
selection from the whole sphere of art of what did not deserve
such a valuation, and the acknowledgment of it as important art,
this perversion of art has weakened art itself, and well-nigh
destroyed it. The first great result was that art was deprived of
the infinite, varied, and profound religious subject-matter proper
to it. The second result was that having only a small circle of
people in view, it lost its beauty of form and became affected and
obscure; and the third and chief result was that it ceased to be
either natural or even sincere, and became thoroughly artificial and
brain-spun.
The first result--the impoverishment of subject-matter--followed
because only that is a true work of art which transmits fresh
feelings not before experienced by man. As thought-product is only
then real thought-product when it transmits new conceptions and
thoughts, and does not merely repeat what was known before, so also
an art-product is only then a genuine art-product when it brings a
new feeling (however insignificant) into the current of human life.
This explains why children and youths are so strongly impressed by
those works of art which first transmit to them feelings they had
not before experienced.
The same powerful impression is made on people by feelings which
are quite new, and have never before been expressed by man. And it
is the source from which such feelings flow of which the art of the
upper classes has deprived itself by estimating feelings, not in
conformity with religious perception, but according to the degree
of enjoyment they afford. There is nothing older and more hackneyed
than enjoyment, and there is nothing fresher than the feelings
springing from the religious consciousness of each age. It could
not be otherwise: man's enjoyment has limits established by his
nature, but the movement forward of humanity, that which is voiced
by religious perception, has no limits. At every forward step taken
by humanity--and such steps are taken in consequence of the greater
and greater elucidation of religious perception--men experience new
and fresh feelings. And therefore only on the basis of religious
perception (which shows the highest level of life-comprehension
reached by the men of a certain period) can fresh emotion, never
before felt by man, arise. From the religious perception of the
ancient Greeks flowed the really new, important, and endlessly
varied feelings expressed by Homer and the tragic writers. It was
the same among the Jews, who attained the religious conception of a
single God,--from that perception flowed all those new and important
emotions expressed by the prophets. It was the same for the poets
of the Middle Ages, who if they believed in a heavenly hierarchy,
believed also in the Catholic commune; and it is the same for a
man of to-day who has grasped the religious conception of true
Christianity,--the brotherhood of man.
The variety of fresh feelings flowing from religious perception
is endless, and they are all new; for religious perception is
nothing else than the first indication of that which is coming into
existence, viz., the new relation of man to the world around him.
But the feelings flowing from the desire for enjoyment are, on
the contrary, not only limited, but were long ago experienced and
expressed. And therefore the lack of belief of the upper classes of
Europe has left them with an art fed on the poorest subject-matter.
The impoverishment of the subject-matter of upper-class art was
further increased by the fact that, ceasing to be religious, it
ceased also to be popular, and this again diminished the range of
feelings which it transmitted. For the range of feelings experienced
by the powerful and the rich, who have no experience of labor
for the support of life, is far poorer, more limited, and more
insignificant than the range of feelings natural to working-people.
People of our circle, æstheticians, usually think and say just
the contrary of this. I remember how Gontchareff, the author,
a very clever and educated man, but a thorough townsman and an
æsthetician, said to me that after Tourgenieff's "Memoirs of a
Sportsman" there was nothing left to write about in peasant life.
It was all used up. The life of working-people seemed to him so
simple that Tourgenieff's peasant stories had used up all there
was to describe. The life of our wealthy people, with their
love-affairs and dissatisfaction with themselves, seemed to him
full of inexhaustible subject-matter. One hero kissed his lady on
her palm, another on her elbow, and a third somewhere else. One man
is discontented through idleness, and another because people don't
love him. And Gontchareff thought that in this sphere there is no
end of variety. And this opinion--that the life of working-people is
poor in subject-matter, but that our life, the life of the idle, is
full of interest--is shared by very many people in our society. The
life of a laboring man, with its endlessly varied forms of labor,
and the dangers connected with this labor on sea and underground;
his migrations, the intercourse with his employers, overseers, and
companions, and with men of other religions and other nationalities;
his struggles with nature and with wild beasts, the associations
with domestic animals, the work in the forest, on the steppe, in
the field, the garden, the orchard; his intercourse with wife and
children, not only as with people near and dear to him, but as
with co-workers and helpers in labor, replacing him in time of
need; his concern in all economic questions, not as matters of
display or discussion, but as problems of life for himself and his
family; his pride in self-suppression and service to others, his
pleasures of refreshment; and with all these interests permeated
by a religious attitude toward these occurrences--all this to us,
who have not these interests and possess no religious perception,
seems monotonous in comparison with those small enjoyments and
insignificant cares of our life,--a life, not of labor nor of
production, but of consumption and destruction of that which others
have produced for us. We think the feelings experienced by people of
our day and our class are very important and varied; but in reality
almost all the feelings of people of our class amount to but three
very insignificant and simple feelings,--the feeling of pride, the
feeling of sexual desire, and the feeling of weariness of life.
These three feelings, with their outgrowths, form almost the only
subject-matter of the art of the rich classes.
At first, at the very beginning of the separation of the
exclusive art of the upper classes from universal art, its chief
subject-matter was the feeling of pride. It was so at the time of
the Renaissance and after it, when the chief subject of works of art
was the laudation of the strong,--popes, kings, and dukes: odes and
madrigals were written in their honor, and they were extolled in
cantatas and hymns; their portraits were painted, and their statues
carved, in various adulatory ways. Next, the element of sexual
desire began more and more to enter into art, and (with very few
exceptions, and in novels and dramas almost without exception) it
has now become an essential feature of every art-product of the rich
classes.
The third feeling transmitted by the art of the rich--that of
discontent with life--appeared yet later in modern art. This
feeling, which, at the commencement of the present century,
was expressed only by exceptional men: by Byron, by Leopardi,
and afterward by Heine, has latterly become fashionable, and
is expressed by most ordinary and empty people. Most justly
does the French critic Doumic characterize the works of the new
writers: "_C'est la lassitude de vivre, le mépris de l'époque
présente, le regret d'un autre temps aperçu à travers l'illusion
de l'art, le goût du paradoxe, le besoin de se singulariser, une
aspiration de raffinés vers la simplicité, l'adoration enfantine du
merveilleux, la séduction maladive de la rêverie, l'ébranlement des
nerfs,--surtout l'appel exaspéré de la sensualité_" ("Les Jeunes,"
René Doumic).[102] And, as a matter of fact, of these three feelings
it is sensuality, the lowest (accessible not only to all men, but
even to all animals), which forms the chief subject-matter of works
of art of recent times.
[102] It is the weariness of life, contempt for the present epoch,
regret for another age seen through the illusion of art, a taste
for paradox, a desire to be singular, a sentimental aspiration
after simplicity, an infantine adoration of the marvelous, a sickly
tendency toward reverie, a shattered condition of nerves, and, above
all, the exasperated demand of sensuality.
From Boccaccio to Marcel Prévost, all the novels, poems, and verses
invariably transmit the feeling of sexual love in its different
forms. Adultery is not only the favorite, but almost the only theme
of all the novels. A performance is not a performance unless, under
some pretense, women appear with naked busts and limbs. Songs and
_romances_--all are expressions of lust, idealized in various
degrees.
A majority of the pictures by French artists represent female
nakedness in various forms. In recent French literature there is
hardly a page or a poem in which nakedness is not described, and
in which, relevantly or irrelevantly, their favorite thought and
word _nu_ is not repeated a couple of times. There is a certain
writer, René de Gourmond, who gets printed, and is considered
talented. To get an idea of the new writers, I read his novel,
"Les Chevaux de Diomède." It is a consecutive and detailed account
of the sexual connections some gentleman had with various women.
Every page contains lust-kindling descriptions. It is the same in
Pierre Lou s' book, "Aphrodite," which met with success; it is the
same in a book I lately chanced upon, Huysmans' "Certains," and,
with but few exceptions, it is the same in all the French novels.
They are all the productions of people suffering from erotic mania.
And these people are evidently convinced that as their whole life,
in consequence of their diseased condition, is concentrated on
amplifying various sexual abominations, therefore the life of all
the world is similarly concentrated. And these people, suffering
from erotic mania, are imitated throughout the whole artistic world
of Europe and America.
Thus in consequence of the lack of belief and the exceptional manner
of life of the wealthy classes, the art of those classes became
impoverished in its subject-matter, and has sunk to the transmission
of the feelings of pride, discontent with life, and, above all, of
sexual desire.
CHAPTER X
In consequence of their unbelief, the art of the upper classes
became poor in subject-matter. But besides that, becoming
continually more and more exclusive, it became at the same time
continually more and more involved, affected, and obscure.
When a universal artist (such as were some of the Grecian artists
or the Jewish prophets) composed his work, he naturally strove to
say what he had to say in such a manner that his production should
be intelligible to all men. But when an artist composed for a small
circle of people placed in exceptional conditions, or even for a
single individual and his courtiers,--for popes, cardinals, kings,
dukes, queens, or for a king's mistress,--he naturally only aimed
at influencing these people, who were well known to him, and lived
in exceptional conditions familiar to him. And this was an easier
task, and the artist was involuntarily drawn to express himself
by allusions comprehensible only to the initiated, and obscure to
every one else. In the first place, more could be said in this way;
and secondly, there is (for the initiated) even a certain charm in
the cloudiness of such a manner of expression. This method, which
showed itself both in euphemism and in mythological and historical
allusions, came more and more into use, until it has, apparently,
at last reached its utmost limits in the so-called art of the
Decadents. It has come, finally, to this: that not only is haziness,
mysteriousness, obscurity, and exclusiveness (shutting out the
masses) elevated to the rank of a merit and a condition of poetic
art, but even incorrectness, indefiniteness, and lack of eloquence
are held in esteem.
Théophile Gautier, in his preface to the celebrated "Fleurs du Mal,"
says that Baudelaire, as far as possible, banished from poetry
eloquence, passion, and truth too strictly copied ("_l'éloquence, la
passion, et la vérité calquée trop exactement_").
And Baudelaire not only expressed this, but maintained his thesis
in his verses, and yet more strikingly in the prose of his "Petits
Poèmes en Prose," the meanings of which have to be guessed like a
rebus, and remain for the most part undiscovered.
The poet Verlaine (who followed next after Baudelaire, and was also
esteemed great) even wrote an "Art Poétique," in which he advises
this style of composition:--
_De la musique avant toute chose,
Et pour cela préfère l'Impair
Plus vague et plus soluble dans l'air,
Sans rien en lui qui pèse ou qui pose._
_Il faut aussi que tu n'ailles point
Choisir tes mots sans quelque méprise:
Rien de plus cher que la chanson grise
Où l'Indécis au Précis se joint._
And again:--
_De la musique encore et toujours!
Que ton vers soit la chose envolée
Qu'on sent qui fuit d'une âme en allée
Vers d'autres cieux à d'autres amours._
_Que ton vers soit la bonne aventure
Eparse au vent crispé du matin,
Qui va fleurant la menthe et le thym....
Et tout le reste est littérature._[103]
[103]
Music, music before all things
The eccentric still prefer,
Vague in air, and nothing weighty,
Soluble. Yet do not err,
Choosing words; still do it lightly,
Do it too with some contempt;
Dearest is the song that's tipsy,
Clearness, dimness not exempt.
* * * *
Music always, now and ever
Be thy verse the thing that flies
From a soul that's gone, escaping,
Gone to other loves and skies.
Gone to other loves and regions,
Following fortunes that allure,
Mint and thyme and morning crispness....
All the rest's mere literature.
After these two comes Mallarmé, considered the most important of the
young poets, and he plainly says that the charm of poetry lies in
our having to guess its meaning--that in poetry there should always
be a puzzle:--
_Je pense qu'il faut qu'il n'y ait qu'allusion_, says he. _La
contemplation des objets, l'image s'envolant des rêveries suscitées
par eux, sont le chant: les Parnassiens, eux, prennent la chose
entièrement et la montrent; par là ils manquent de mystère; ils
retirent aux esprits cette joie délicieuse de croire qu'ils créent._
Nommer un objet, c'est supprimer les trois quarts de la jouissance
du poème, qui est faite du bonheur de deviner peu à peu: le
suggérer, voilà le rêve. _C'est le par fait usage de ce mystère qui
constitue le symbole: évoquer petit à petit un objet pour montrer un
état d'âme, ou, inversement, choisir un objet et en dégager un état
d'âme, par une sèrie de déchiffrements._
.... _Si un être d'une intelligence moyenne, et d'une préparation
littéraire insuffisante, ouvre par hasard un livre ainsi fait et
prétend en jouir, il y a malentendu, il faut remettre les choses à
leur place._ Il doit y avoir toujours énigme en poèsie, _et c'est
le but de la littérature, il n'y en a pas d'autre,--d'évoquer les
objets_.--"Enquête sur l'Évolution Littéraire," Jules Huret, pp. 60,
61.[104]
[104] I think there should be nothing but allusions. The
contemplation of objects, the flying image of reveries evoked by
them, are the song. The Parnassiens state the thing completely, and
show it, and thereby lack mystery; they deprive the mind of that
delicious joy of imagining that it creates. To _name an object is to
take three-quarters from the enjoyment of the poem, which consists
in the happiness of guessing little by little: to suggest, that is
the dream_. It is the perfect use of this mystery that constitutes
the symbol: little by little, to evoke an object in order to show a
state of the soul; or, inversely, to choose an object, and from it
to disengage a state of the soul by a series of decipherings.
.... If a being of mediocre intelligence and insufficient literary
preparation chance to open a book made in this way and pretends to
enjoy it, there is a misunderstanding--things must be returned to
their places. _There should always be an enigma in poetry_, and the
aim of literature--it has no other--is to evoke objects.
Thus is obscurity elevated into a dogma among the new poets. As the
French critic Doumic (who has not yet accepted the dogma) quite
correctly says:--
"_Il serait temps aussi d'en finir avec cette fameuse 'théorie de
l'obscurite' que la nouvelle école a élevée, en effet, à la hauteur
d'un dogme._"--"Les Jeunes, par René Doumic."[105]
[105] It were time also to have done with this famous "theory of
obscurity," which the new school have practically raised to the
height of a dogma.
But it is not French writers only who think thus. The poets of
all other countries think and act in the same way: German, and
Scandinavian, and Italian, and Russian, and English. So also do
the artists of the new period in all branches of art: in painting,
in sculpture, and in music. Relying on Nietzsche and Wagner, the
artists of the new age conclude that it is unnecessary for them to
be intelligible to the vulgar crowd; it is enough for them to evoke
poetic emotion in "the finest nurtured," to borrow a phrase from an
English æsthetician.
In order that what I am saying may not seem to be mere assertion,
I will quote at least a few examples from the French poets who
have led this movement. The name of these poets is legion. I have
taken French writers, because they, more decidedly than any others,
indicate the new direction of art, and are imitated by most European
writers.
Besides those whose names are already considered famous, such as
Baudelaire and Verlaine, here are the names of a few of them: Jean
Moréas, Charles Morice, Henri de Régnier, Charles Vignier, Adrien
Remacle, René Ghil, Maurice Maeterlinck, G. Albert Aurier, Rémy de
Gourmont, Saint-Pol-Roux-le-Magnifique, Georges Rodenbach, le comte
Robert de Montesquiou-Fezensac. These are Symbolists and Decadents.
Next we have the "Magi": Joséphin Péladan, Paul Adam, Jules Bois, M.
Papus, and others.
Besides these, there are yet one hundred and forty-one others, whom
Doumic mentions in the book referred to above.
Here are some examples from the work of those of them who are
considered to be the best, beginning with that most celebrated man,
acknowledged to be a great artist worthy of a monument--Baudelaire.
This is a poem from his celebrated "Fleurs du Mal":--
No. XXIV
_Je t'adore à l'égal de la voûte nocturne,
O vase de tristesse, ô grande taciturne,
Et t'aime d'autant plus, belle, que tu me fuis,
Et que tu me parais, ornement de mes nuits,
Plus ironiquement accumuler les lieues
Qui séparent mes bras des immensités bleues._
_Je m'avance à l'attaque, et je grimpe aux assauts,
Comme après un cadavre un chœur de vermisseaux,
Et je chéris, ô bête implacable et cruelle,
Jusqu'à cette froideur par où tu m'es plus belle!_[106]
[106] For translation, see Appendix IV.
And this is another by the same writer:--
No. XXXVI
_DUELLUM_
_Deux guerriers ont couru l'un sur l'autre; leurs armes
Ont éclaboussé l'air de lueurs et de sang.
Ces jeux, ces cliquetis du fer sont les vacarmes
D'une jeunesse en proie à l'amour vagissant._
_Les glaives sont brisés! comme notre jeunesse,
Ma chère! Mais les dents, les ongles acérés,
Vengent bientôt l'épée et la dague traîtresse.
O fureur des cœurs mûrs par l'amour ulcérés!_
_Dans le ravin hanté des chats-pards et des onces
Nos héros, s'étreignant méchamment, ont roulé,
Et leur peau fleurira l'aridité des ronces._
_Ce gouffre, c'est l'enfer, de nos amis peuplé!
Roulons-y sans remords, amazone inhumaine,
Afin d'éterniser l'ardeur de notre haine!_[107]
[107] For translation, see Appendix IV.
To be exact, I should mention that the collection contains verses
less comprehensible than these, but not one poem which is plain
and can be understood without a certain effort--an effort seldom
rewarded; for the feelings which the poet transmits are evil and
very low ones. And these feelings are always, and purposely,
expressed by him with eccentricity and lack of clearness. This
premeditated obscurity is especially noticeable in his prose, where
the author could, if he liked, speak plainly.
Take, for instance, the first piece from his "Petits Poèmes":--
_L'ETRANGER_
_Qui aimes-tu le mieux, homme énigmatique, dis? ton père, ta
mère, ta sœur, ou ton frère?_
_Je n'ai ni père, ni mère, ni sœur, ni frère._
_Tes amis?_
_Vous vous servez là d'une parole dont le sens m'est restê
jusqu'à ce jour inconnu._
_Ta patrie?_
_J'ignore sous quelle latitude elle est située._
_La beauté?_
_Je l'aimerais volontiers, desse et immortelle._
_L'or?_
_Je le hais comme vous haïssez Dieu._
_Et qu'aimes-tu donc, extraordinaire étranger?_
_J'aime les nuages .... les nuages qui passent .... là bas, ....
les merveilleux nuages!_[108]
The piece called "La Soupe et les Nuages" is probably intended to
express the unintelligibility of the poet even to her whom he loves.
This is the piece in question:--
_Ma petite folle bien-aimée me donnait à dîner, et par la
fenêtre ouverte de la salle à manger je contemplais les
mouvantes architectures que Dieu fait avec les vapeurs, les
merveilleuses constructions de l'impalpable. Et je me disais,
à travers ma contemplation: "Toutes ces fantasmagories sont
presque aussi belles que les yeux de ma belle bien-aimée, la
petite folle monstrueuse aux yeux verts."_
_Et tout à coup je reçus un violent coup de poing dans le dos,
et j'entendis une voix rauque et charmante, une voix hystérique
et comme enrouée par l'eau-de-vie, la voix de ma chère petite
bien-aimée, qui me disait, "Allez-vous bientôt manger votre
soupe, s.... b.... de marchand de nuages?"_[108]
[108] For translation, see Appendix IV.
However artificial these two pieces may be, it is still possible,
with some effort, to guess at what the author meant them to express,
but some of the pieces are absolutely incomprehensible--at least to
me. "Le Galant Tireur" is a piece I was quite unable to understand.
_LE GALANT TIREUR_
_Comme la voiture traversait le bois, il la fit arrêter dans le
voisinage d'un tir, disant qu'il lui serait agréable de tirer
quelques balles pour tuer le Temps. Tuer ce monstre-là, n'est-ce
pas l'occupation la plus ordinaire et la plus légitime de
chacun?--Et il offrit galamment la main à sa chère, délicieuse
et exécrable femme, à cette mystérieuse femme à laquelle il
doit tant de plaisirs, tant de douleurs, et peut-être aussi une
grande partie de son génie._
_Plusieurs balles frappèrent loin du but proposè, l'une d'elles
s'enfonça même dans le plafond; et comme la charmante créature
riait follement, se moquant de la maladresse de son époux,
celui-ci se tourna brusquement vers elle, et lui dit: "Observez
cette poupée, là-bas, à droite, qui porte le nez en l'air et qui
a la mine si hautaine. Eh bien! cher ange_, je me figure que
c'est vous." _Et il ferma les yeux et il lâcha la détente. La
poupée fut nettement décapitée._
_Alors s'inclinant vers sa chère, sa délicieuse, son exécrable
femme, son inévitable et impitoyable Muse, et lui baisant
respectueusement la main, il ajouta: "Ah! mon cher ange, combien
je vous remercie de mon adresse!"_[109]
[109] For translation, see Appendix IV.
The productions of another celebrity, Verlaine, are not less
affected and unintelligible. This, for instance, is the first poem
in the section called "Ariettes Oubliés."
"_Le vent dans la plaine
Suspend son haleine._"--FAVART.
_C'est l'extase langoureuse,
C'est la fatigue amoureuse,
C'est tous les frissons des bois
Parmi l'étreinte des brises,
C'est, vers les ramures grises,
Le chœur des petites voix._
_O le frêle et frais murmure!
Cela gazouille et susurre,
Cela ressemble au cri doux
Que l'herbe agitée expire....
Tu dirais, sous l'eau qui vire,
Le roulis sourd des cailloux._
_Cette âme qui se lamente
En cette plainte dormante
C'est la nôtre, n'est-ce pas?_
_La mienne, dis, et la tienne,
Dont s'exhale l'humble antienne
Par ce tiède soir, tout bas?_[110]
[110] For translation, see Appendix IV.
What "_chœur des petites voix_"? and what "_cri doux que l'herbe
agitée expire_"? and what it all means, remains altogether
unintelligible to me.
And here is another "Ariette":--
_VIII_
_Dans l'interminable
Ennui de la plaine,
La neige incertaine
Luit comme du sable._
_Le ciel est de cuivre,
Sans lueur aucune.
On croirait voir vivre
Et mourir la lune._
_Comme des nuées
Flottent gris les chênes
Des forêts prochaines
Parmi les buées._
_Le ciel est de cuivre,
Sans lueur aucune.
On croirait voir vivre
Et mourir la lune._
_Corneille poussive
Et vous, les loups maigres,
Par ces bises aigres
Quoi donc vous arrive?_
_Dans l'interminable
Ennui de la plaine,_
_La neige incertaine
Luit comme du sable._[111]
[111] For translation, see Appendix IV.
How does the moon seem to live and die in a copper heaven? And
how can snow shine like sand? The whole thing is not merely
unintelligible, but, under pretense of conveying an impression, it
passes off a string of incorrect comparisons and words.
Besides these artificial and obscure poems there are others which
are intelligible, but which make up for it by being altogether
bad, both in form and in subject. Such are all the poems under the
heading "La Sagesse." The chief place in these verses is occupied by
a very poor expression of the most commonplace Roman Catholic and
patriotic sentiments. For instance, one meets with verses such as
this:--
_Je ne veux plus penser qu'à ma mère Marie,
Siège de la sagesse et source de pardons,
Mère de France aussi_ de qui nous attendons
Inébranlablement l'honneur de la patrie.[112]
[112]
I do not wish to think any more, except about my mother Mary,
Seat of wisdom and source of pardon,
Also Mother of France, _from whom we
Steadfastly expect the honor of our country_.
Before citing examples from other poets, I must pause to note
the amazing celebrity of these two versifiers, Baudelaire and
Verlaine, who are now accepted as being great poets. How the French,
who had Chénier, Musset, Lamartine, and, above all, Hugo,--and
among whom quite recently flourished the so-called Parnassiens:
Leconte de Lisle, Sully-Prudhomme, etc.,--could attribute such
importance to these two versifiers, who were far from skilful in
form and most contemptible and commonplace in subject-matter, is
to me incomprehensible. The conception of life of one of them,
Baudelaire, consisted in elevating gross egotism into a theory, and
replacing morality by a cloudy conception of beauty, and especially
artificial beauty. Baudelaire had a preference, which he expressed,
for a woman's face painted rather than showing its natural color,
and for metal trees and a theatrical imitation of water rather than
real trees and real water.
The life-conception of the other, Verlaine, consisted in weak
profligacy, confession of his moral impotence, and, as an antidote
to that impotence, in the grossest Roman Catholic idolatry. Both,
moreover, were quite lacking in naïveté, sincerity, and simplicity,
and both overflowed with artificiality, forced originality and
self-assurance. So that in their least bad productions one sees more
of M. Baudelaire or M. Verlaine than of what they were describing.
But these two indifferent versifiers form a school, and lead
hundreds of followers after them.
There is only one explanation of this fact: it is that the art
of the society in which these versifiers lived is not a serious,
important matter of life, but is a mere amusement. And all
amusements grow wearisome by repetition. And, in order to make
wearisome amusement again tolerable, it is necessary to find some
means to freshen it up. When, at cards, ombre grows stale, whist
is introduced; when whist grows stale, écarté is substituted; when
écarté grows stale, some other novelty is invented, and so on. The
substance of the matter remains the same, only its form is changed.
And so it is with this kind of art. The subject-matter of the art of
the upper classes growing continually more and more limited, it has
come at last to this, that to the artists of these exclusive classes
it seems as if everything has already been said, and that to find
anything new to say is impossible. And therefore, to freshen up this
art, they look out for fresh forms.
Baudelaire and Verlaine invent such a new form, furbish it up,
moreover, with hitherto unused pornographic details, and--the
critics and the public of the upper classes hail them as great
writers.
This is the only explanation of the success, not of Baudelaire and
Verlaine only, but of all the Decadents.
For instance, there are poems by Mallarmé and Maeterlinck which have
no meaning, and yet for all that, or perhaps on that very account,
are printed by tens of thousands, not only in various publications,
but even in collections of the best works of the younger poets.
This, for example, is a sonnet by Mallarmé:--
_A la nue accablante tu
Basse de basalte et de laves
A même les échos esclaves
Par une trompe sans vertu._
_Quel sépulcral naufrage (tu
Le soir, écume, mais y baves)
Suprême une entre les épaves
Abolit le mât dévêtu._
_Ou cela que furibond faute
De quelque perdition haute
Tout l'abîme vain éployé
Dans le si blanc cheveu qui traîne
Avarement aura noyé
Le flanc enfant d'une sirène._[113]
("Pan," 1895, No. 1.)
[113] This sonnet seems too unintelligible for translation.--TR.
This poem is not exceptional in its incomprehensibility. I have read
several poems by Mallarmé, and they also had no meaning whatever. I
give a sample of his prose in Appendix I. There is a whole volume of
this prose called "Divagations." It is impossible to understand any
of it. And that is evidently what the author intended.
And here is a song by Maeterlinck, another celebrated author of
to-day:--
_Quand il est sorti,
(J'entendis la porte)_
_Quand il est sorti
Elle avait souri ...._
_Mais quand il entra
(J'entendis la lampe)
Mais quand il entra
Une autre était là ...._
_Et j'ai vu la mort,
(J'entendis son âme)
Et j'ai vu la mort
Qui l'attend encore ...._
_On est venu dire,
(Mon enfant j'ai peur)
On est venu dire
Qu'il allait partir ...._
_Ma lampe allumée,
(Mon enfant j'ai peur)
Ma lampe allumée
Me suis approchée ...._
_A la première porte,
(Mon enfant j'ai peur)
A la première porte,
La flamme a tremblé ...._
_A la seconde porte,
(Mon enfant j'ai peur)
A la seconde porte,
La flamme a parlé ...._
_A la troisième porte,
(Mon enfant j'ai peur)
A la troisième porte,
La lumière est morte ...._
_Et s'il revenait un jour
Que faut-il lui dire?_
_Dites-lui qu'on l'attendit
Jusqu'à s'en mourir ...._
_Et s'il demande où vous êtes
Que faut-il répondre?
Donnez-lui mon anneau d'or
Sans rien lui répondre ...._
_Et s'il m'interroge alors
Sur la dernière heure?
Dites lui que j'ai souri
De peur qu'il ne pleure ...._
_Et s'il m'interroge encore
Sans me reconnaître?
Parlez-lui comme une sœur,
Il souffre peut-être ...._
_Et s'il veut savoir pourquoi
La salle est déserte?
Montrez lui la lampe éteinte
Et la porte ouverte ...._[114]
("Pan," 1895, No. 2.)
[114] For translation, see Appendix IV.
Who went out? Who came in? Who is speaking? Who died?
I beg the reader to be at the pains of reading through the samples
I cite in Appendix II. of the celebrated and esteemed young
poets--Griffin, Verhaeren, Moréas, and Montesquiou. It is important
to do so in order to form a clear conception of the present position
of art, and not to suppose, as many do, that Decadentism is an
accidental and transitory phenomenon. To avoid the reproach of
having selected the worst verses, I have copied out of each volume
the poem which happened to stand on page 28.
All the other productions of these poets are equally unintelligible,
or can only be understood with great difficulty, and then not
fully. All the productions of those hundreds of poets, of whom I
have named a few, are the same in kind. And among the Germans,
Swedes, Norwegians, Italians, and us Russians, similar verses are
printed. And such productions are printed and made up into book
form, if not by the million, then by the hundred thousand (some of
these works sell in tens of thousands). For type-setting, paging,
printing, and binding these books, millions and millions of working
days are spent--not less, I think, than went to build the great
pyramid. And this is not all. The same is going on in all the other
arts: millions and millions of working days are being spent on the
production of equally incomprehensible works in painting, in music,
and in the drama.
Painting not only does not lag behind poetry in this matter, but
rather outstrips it. Here is an extract from the diary of an amateur
of art, written when visiting the Paris exhibitions in 1894:--
"I was to-day at three exhibitions: the Symbolists', the
Impressionists', and the Neo-Impressionists'. I looked at the
pictures conscientiously and carefully, but again felt the same
stupefaction and ultimate indignation. The first exhibition, that of
Camille Pissarro, was comparatively the most comprehensible, though
the pictures were out of drawing, had no subject, and the colorings
were most improbable. The drawing was so indefinite that you were
sometimes unable to make out which way an arm or a head was turned.
The subject was generally '_effets_'--_Effet de brouillard_, _Effet
du soir_, _Soleil couchant_. There were some pictures with figures,
but without subjects.
"In the coloring, bright blue and bright green predominated. And
each picture had its special color, with which the whole picture
was, as it were, splashed. For instance, in 'A Girl Guarding
Geese,' the special color is _vert de gris_, and dots of it were
splashed about everywhere; on the face, the hair, the hands, and the
clothes. In the same gallery--'Durand Ruel'--were other pictures
by Puvis de Chavannes, Manet, Monet, Renoir, Sisley--who are all
Impressionists. One of them, whose name I could not make out,--it
was something like Redon,--had painted a blue face in profile. On
the whole face there is only this blue tone, with white-of-lead.
Pissarro has a water-color all done in dots. In the foreground is a
cow, entirely painted with various-colored dots. The general color
cannot be distinguished, however much one stands back from, or draws
near to, the picture. From there I went to see the Symbolists. I
looked at them long without asking any one for an explanation,
trying to guess the meaning; but it is beyond human comprehension.
One of the first things to catch my eye was a wooden _haut-relief_,
wretchedly executed, representing a woman (naked) who with both
hands is squeezing from her two breasts streams of blood. The blood
flows down, becoming lilac in color. Her hair first descends, and
then rises again, and turns into trees. The figure is all colored
yellow, and the hair is brown.
"Next--a picture: a yellow sea, on which swims something which is
neither a ship nor a heart; on the horizon is a profile with a halo
and yellow hair, which changes into a sea, in which it is lost.
Some of the painters lay on their colors so thickly that the effect
is something between painting and sculpture. A third exhibit was
even less comprehensible: a man's profile; before him a flame and
black stripes--leeches, as I was afterwards told. At last I asked
a gentleman who was there what it meant, and he explained to me
that the _haut-relief_ was a symbol, and that it represented '_La
Terre_.' The heart swimming in a yellow sea was '_Illusion perdue_,'
and the gentleman with the leeches '_Le Mal_.' There were also some
Impressionist pictures: elementary profiles, holding some sort of
flowers in their hands: in monotone, out of drawing, and either
quite blurred or else marked out with wide black outlines."
This was in 1894; the same tendency is now even more strongly
defined, and we have Böcklin, Stuck, Klinger, Sasha Schneider, and
others.
The same thing is taking place in the drama. The play-writers
give us an architect who, for some reason, has not fulfilled his
former high intentions, and who consequently climbs on to the roof
of a house he has erected, and tumbles down head foremost; or an
incomprehensible old woman (who exterminates rats), and who, for an
unintelligible reason, takes a poetic child to the sea, and there
drowns him; or some blind men who, sitting on the seashore, for some
reason always repeat one and the same thing; or a bell of some kind,
which flies into a lake, and there rings.
And the same is happening in music--in that art which, more than any
other, one would have thought, should be intelligible to everybody.
An acquaintance of yours, a musician of repute, sits down to the
piano and plays you what he says is a new composition of his own,
or of one of the new composers. You hear the strange, loud sounds,
and admire the gymnastic exercises performed by his fingers; and you
see that the performer wishes to impress upon you that the sounds
he is producing express various poetic strivings of the soul. You
see his intention, but no feeling whatever is transmitted to you
except weariness. The execution lasts long, or at least it seems
very long to you, because you do not receive any clear impression,
and involuntarily you remember the words of Alphonse Karr, "_Plus
ça va vite, plus ça dure longtemps_."[115] And it occurs to you
that perhaps it is all a mystification; perhaps the performer is
trying you--just throwing his hands and fingers wildly about the
keyboard in the hope that you will fall into the trap and praise
him, and then he will laugh and confess that he only wanted to see
if he could hoax you. But when at last the piece does finish, and
the perspiring and agitated musician rises from the piano evidently
anticipating praise, you see that it was all done in earnest.
[115] The quicker it goes the longer it lasts.
The same thing takes place at all the concerts, with pieces by
Liszt, Wagner, Berlioz, Brahms, and (newest of all) Richard
Strauss, and the numberless other composers of the new school, who
unceasingly produce opera after opera, symphony after symphony,
piece after piece.
The same is occurring in a domain in which it seemed hard to be
unintelligible,--in the sphere of novels and short stories.
Read "Là Bas," by Huysmans, or some of Kipling's short stories, or
"L'Annonciateur," by Villiers de l'Isle Adam in his "Contes Cruels,"
etc., and you will find them not only "abscons" (to use a word
adopted by the new writers), but absolutely unintelligible both in
form and in substance. Such, again, is the work by E. Morel, "Terre
Promise," now appearing in the _Revue Blanche_, and such are most of
the new novels. The style is very high-flown, the feelings seem to
be most elevated, but you can't make out what is happening, to whom
it is happening, and where it is happening. And such is the bulk of
the young art of our time.
People who grew up in the first half of this century, admiring
Goethe, Schiller, Musset, Hugo, Dickens, Beethoven, Chopin, Raphael,
da Vinci, Michael Angelo, Delaroche, being unable to make head or
tail of this new art, simply attribute its productions to tasteless
insanity, and wish to ignore them. But such an attitude toward
this new art is quite unjustifiable, because, in the first place,
that art is spreading more and more, and has already conquered for
itself a firm position in society, similar to the one occupied by
the Romanticists in the third decade of this century; and, secondly
and chiefly, because, if it is permissible to judge in this way of
the productions of the latest form of art, called by us Decadent
art, merely because we do not understand it, then remember there are
an enormous number of people,--all the laborers, and many of the
non-laboring folk,--who, in just the same way, do not comprehend
those productions of art which we consider admirable: the verses
of our favorite artists--Goethe, Schiller, and Hugo; the novels of
Dickens, the music of Beethoven and Chopin, the pictures of Raphael,
Michael Angelo, da Vinci, etc.
If I have a right to think that great masses of people do not
understand and do not like what I consider undoubtedly good because
they are not sufficiently developed, then I have no right to deny
that perhaps the reason why I cannot understand and cannot like the
new productions of art is merely that I am still insufficiently
developed to understand them. If I have a right to say that I,
and the majority of people who are in sympathy with me, do not
understand the productions of the new art, simply because there is
nothing in it to understand, and because it is bad art, then, with
just the same right, the still larger majority, the whole laboring
mass, who do not understand what I consider admirable art, can say
that what I reckon as good art is bad art, and there is nothing in
it to understand.
I once saw the injustice of such condemnation of the new art
with especial clearness, when, in my presence, a certain poet,
who writes incomprehensible verses, ridiculed incomprehensible
music with gay self-assurance; and, shortly afterwards, a certain
musician, who composes incomprehensible symphonies, laughed at
incomprehensible poetry with equal self-confidence. I have no right,
and no authority, to condemn the new art on the ground that I (a man
educated in the first half of the century) do not understand it; I
can only say that it is incomprehensible to me. The only advantage
the art I acknowledge has over the Decadent art, lies in the fact
that the art I recognize is comprehensible to a somewhat larger
number of people than the present-day art.
The fact that I am accustomed to a certain exclusive art, and
can understand it, but am unable to understand another still
more exclusive art, does not give me a right to conclude that my
art is the real true art, and that the other one, which I do not
understand, is an unreal, a bad art. I can only conclude that art,
becoming ever more and more exclusive, has become more and more
incomprehensible to an ever increasing number of people, and that,
in this its progress toward greater and greater incomprehensibility
(on one level of which I am standing, with the art familiar to me),
it has reached a point where it is understood by a very small number
of the elect, and the number of these chosen people is ever becoming
smaller and smaller.
As soon as ever the art of the upper classes separated itself from
universal art, a conviction arose that art may be art and yet be
incomprehensible to the masses. And as soon as this position was
admitted, it had inevitably to be admitted also that art may be
intelligible only to the very smallest number of the elect, and,
eventually, to two, or to one, of our nearest friends, or to oneself
alone. Which is practically what is being said by modern artists: "I
create and understand myself, and if any one does not understand me,
so much the worse for him."
The assertion that art may be good art, and at the same time
incomprehensible to a great number of people, is extremely unjust,
and its consequences are ruinous to art itself; but at the same time
it is so common and has so eaten into our conceptions, that it is
impossible sufficiently to elucidate all the absurdity of it.
Nothing is more common than to hear it said of reputed works of art,
that they are very good but very difficult to understand. We are
quite used to such assertions, and yet to say that a work of art
is good, but incomprehensible to the majority of men, is the same
as saying of some kind of food that it is very good, but that most
people can't eat it. The majority of men may not like rotten cheese
or putrefying grouse--dishes esteemed by people with perverted
tastes; but bread and fruit are only good when they please the
majority of men. And it is the same with art. Perverted art may not
please the majority of men, but good art always pleases every one.
It is said that the very best works of art are such that they cannot
be understood by the mass, but are accessible only to the elect who
are prepared to understand these great works. But if the majority of
men do not understand, the knowledge necessary to enable them to
understand should be taught and explained to them. But it turns out
that there is no such knowledge, that the works cannot be explained,
and that those who say the majority do not understand good works of
art, still do not explain those works, but only tell us that, in
order to understand them, one must read, and see, and hear these
same works over and over again. But this is not to explain, it is
only to habituate! And people may habituate themselves to anything,
even to the very worst things. As people may habituate themselves to
bad food, to spirits, tobacco, and opium, just in the same way they
may habituate themselves to bad art--and that is exactly what is
being done.
Moreover, it cannot be said that the majority of people lack the
taste to esteem the highest works of art. The majority always
have understood, and still understand, what we also recognize as
being the very best art: the epic of Genesis, the gospel parables,
folk-legends, fairy-tales, and folk-songs, are understood by all.
How can it be that the majority has suddenly lost its capacity to
understand what is high in our art?
Of a speech it may be said that it is admirable, but
incomprehensible to those who do not know the language in which it
is delivered. A speech delivered in Chinese may be excellent, and
may yet remain incomprehensible to me if I do not know Chinese; but
what distinguishes a work of art from all other mental activity
is just the fact that its language is understood by all, and that
it infects all without distinction. The tears and laughter of a
Chinese infect me just as the laughter and tears of a Russian;
and it is the same with painting and music and poetry, when it is
translated into a language I understand. The songs of a Kirghiz or
of a Japanese touch me, though in a lesser degree than they touch
a Kirghiz or a Japanese. I am also touched by Japanese painting,
Indian architecture, and Arabian stories. If I am but little
touched by a Japanese song and a Chinese novel, it is not that I do
not understand these productions, but that I know and am accustomed
to higher works of art. It is not because their art is above me.
Great works of art are only great because they are accessible
and comprehensible to every one. The story of Joseph, translated
into the Chinese language, touches a Chinese. The story of Sakya
Muni touches us. And there are, and must be, buildings, pictures,
statues, and music of similar power. So that, if art fails to move
men, it cannot be said that this is due to the spectators' or
hearers' lack of understanding; but the conclusion to be drawn may
and should be, that such art is either bad art, or is not art at all.
Art is differentiated from activity of the understanding, which
demands preparation and a certain sequence of knowledge (so that one
cannot learn trigonometry before knowing geometry), by the fact that
it acts on people independently of their state of development and
education, that the charm of a picture, sounds, or of forms, infects
any man whatever his plane of development.
The business of art lies just in this,--to make that understood and
felt which, in the form of an argument, might be incomprehensible
and inaccessible. Usually it seems to the recipient of a truly
artistic impression that he knew the thing before but had been
unable to express it.
And such has always been the nature of good, supreme art; the
"Iliad," the "Odyssey," the stories of Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph,
the Hebrew prophets, the psalms, the gospel parables, the story
of Sakya Muni, and the hymns of the Vedas: all transmit very
elevated feelings, and are nevertheless quite comprehensible now
to us, educated or uneducated, as they were comprehensible to
the men of those times, long ago, who were even less educated
than our laborers. People talk about incomprehensibility; but if
art is the transmission of feelings flowing from man's religious
perception, how can a feeling be incomprehensible which is founded
on religion, _i.e._ on man's relation to God? Such art should be,
and has actually always been, comprehensible to everybody, because
every man's relation to God is one and the same. And therefore
the churches and the images in them were always comprehensible to
every one. The hindrance to understanding the best and highest
feelings (as is said in the gospel) does not at all lie in
deficiency of development or learning, but, on the contrary, in
false development and false learning. A good and lofty work of art
may be incomprehensible, but not to simple, unperverted peasant
laborers (all that is highest is understood by them)--it may be,
and often is, unintelligible to erudite, perverted people destitute
of religion. And this continually occurs in our society, in which
the highest feelings are simply not understood. For instance, I
know people who consider themselves most refined, and who say that
they do not understand the poetry of love to one's neighbor, of
self-sacrifice, or of chastity.
So that good, great, universal, religious art may be
incomprehensible to a small circle of spoilt people, but certainly
not to any large number of plain men.
Art cannot be incomprehensible to the great masses only because it
is very good--as artists of our day are fond of telling us. Rather
we are bound to conclude that this art is unintelligible to the
great masses only because it is very bad art, or even is not art at
all. So that the favorite argument (naïvely accepted by the cultured
crowd), that in order to feel art one has first to understand it
(which really only means habituate oneself to it), is the truest
indication that what we are asked to understand by such a method is
either very bad, exclusive art, or is not art at all.
People say that works of art do not please the people because they
are incapable of understanding them. But if the aim of works of art
is to infect people with the emotion the artist has experienced, how
can one talk about not understanding?
A man of the people reads a book, sees a picture, hears a play or
a symphony, and is touched by no feeling. He is told that this is
because he cannot understand. People promise to let a man see a
certain show; he enters and sees nothing. He is told that this is
because his sight is not prepared for this show. But the man well
knows that he sees quite well, and if he does not see what people
promised to show him, he only concludes (as is quite just) that
those who undertook to show him the spectacle have not fulfilled
their engagement. And it is perfectly just for a man who does feel
the influence of some works of art to come to this conclusion
concerning artists who do not, by their works, evoke feeling in him.
To say that the reason a man is not touched by my art is because
he is still too stupid, besides being very self-conceited and also
rude, is to reverse the rôles, and for the sick to send the hale to
bed.
Voltaire said that "_Tous les genres sont bons, hors le genre
ennuyeux_;"[116] but with even more right one may say of art that
_Tous les genres sont bons, hors celui qu'on ne comprend pas, or
qui ne produit pas son effet_,[117] for of what value is an article
which fails to do that for which it was intended?
[116] All styles are good except the wearisome style.
[117] All styles are good except that which is not understood, or
which fails to produce its effect.
Mark this above all: if only it be admitted that art may be art
and yet be unintelligible to any one of sound mind, there is no
reason why any circle of perverted people should not compose works
tickling their own perverted feelings and comprehensible to no one
but themselves, and call it "art," as is actually being done by the
so-called Decadents.
The direction art has taken may be compared to placing on a large
circle other circles, smaller and smaller, until a cone is formed,
the apex of which is no longer a circle at all. That is what has
happened to the art of our times.
CHAPTER XI
Becoming ever poorer and poorer in subject-matter, and more and
more unintelligible in form, the art of the upper classes, in its
latest productions, has even lost all the characteristics of art,
and has been replaced by imitations of art. Not only has upper-class
art, in consequence of its separation from universal art, become
poor in subject-matter, and bad in form, _i.e._ ever more and more
unintelligible, it has, in course of time, ceased even to be art at
all, and has been replaced by counterfeits.
This has resulted from the following causes: Universal art arises
only when some one of the people, having experienced a strong
emotion, feels the necessity of transmitting it to others. The
art of the rich classes, on the other hand, arises not from the
artist's inner impulse, but chiefly because people of the upper
classes demand amusement and pay well for it. They demand from art
the transmission of feelings that please them, and this demand
artists try to meet. But it is a very difficult task; for people of
the wealthy classes, spending their lives in idleness and luxury,
desire to be continually diverted by art; and art, even the lowest,
cannot be produced at will, but has to generate spontaneously in
the artist's inner self. And therefore, to satisfy the demands of
people of the upper classes, artists have had to devise methods of
producing imitations of art. And such methods have been devised.
These methods are those of (1) borrowing, (2) imitating, (3)
striking (effects), and (4) interesting.
The first method consists in borrowing whole subjects, or merely
separate features, from former works recognized by every one as
being poetical, and in so re-shaping them, with sundry additions,
that they should have an appearance of novelty.
Such works, evoking in people of a certain class memories of
artistic feelings formerly experienced, produce an impression
similar to art, and, provided only that they conform to other
needful conditions, they pass for art among those who seek for
pleasure from art. Subjects borrowed from previous works of art are
usually called poetical subjects. Objects and people thus borrowed
are called poetical objects and people. Thus, in our circle, all
sorts of legends, sagas, and ancient traditions are considered
poetical subjects. Among poetical people and objects we reckon
maidens, warriors, shepherds, hermits, angels, devils of all sorts,
moonlight, thunder, mountains, the sea, precipices, flowers, long
hair, lions, lambs, doves, and nightingales. In general, all those
objects are considered poetical which have been most frequently used
by former artists in their productions.
Some forty years ago a stupid but highly cultured--_ayant beaucoup
d'acquis_--lady (since deceased) asked me to listen to a novel
written by herself. It began with a heroine who, in a poetic white
dress, and with poetically flowing hair, was reading poetry near
some water in a poetic wood. The scene was in Russia, but suddenly
from behind the bushes the hero appears, wearing a hat with a
feather _à la Guillaume Tell_ (the book specially mentioned this)
and accompanied by two poetical white dogs. The authoress deemed
all this highly poetical, and it might have passed muster if only
it had not been necessary for the hero to speak. But as soon as the
gentleman in the hat _à la Guillaume Tell_ began to converse with
the maiden in the white dress, it became obvious that the authoress
had nothing to say, but had merely been moved by poetic memories
of other works, and imagined that by ringing the changes on those
memories she could produce an artistic impression. But an artistic
impression, _i.e._ infection, is only received when an author has,
in the manner peculiar to himself, experienced the feeling which
he transmits, and not when he passes on another man's feeling
previously transmitted to him. Such poetry from poetry cannot infect
people, it can only simulate a work of art, and even that only to
people of perverted æsthetic taste. The lady in question being very
stupid and devoid of talent, it was at once apparent how the case
stood; but when such borrowing is resorted to by people who are
erudite and talented and have cultivated the technique of their art,
we get those borrowings from the Greek, the antique, the Christian
or mythological world which have become so numerous, and which,
particularly in our day, continue to increase and multiply, and are
accepted by the public as works of art, if only the borrowings are
well mounted by means of the technique of the particular art to
which they belong.
As a characteristic example of such counterfeits of art in the realm
of poetry, take Rostand's "Princesse Lointaine," in which there is
not a spark of art, but which seems very poetical to many people,
and probably also to its author.
The second method of imparting a semblance of art is that which
I have called imitating. The essence of this method consists in
supplying details accompanying the thing described or depicted.
In literary art this method consists in describing, in the
minutest details, the external appearance, the faces, the clothes,
the gestures, the tones, and the habitations of the characters
represented, with all the occurrences met with in life. For
instance, in novels and stories, when one of the characters speaks,
we are told in what voice he spoke, and what he was doing at the
time. And the things said are not given so that they should have as
much sense as possible, but, as they are in life, disconnectedly,
and with interruptions and omissions. In dramatic art, besides
such imitation of real speech, this method consists in having all
the accessories and all the people just like those in real life.
In painting, this method assimilates painting to photography, and
destroys the difference between them. And, strange to say, this
method is used also in music: music tries to imitate, not only by
its rhythm but also by its very sounds, the sounds which in real
life accompany the thing it wishes to represent.
The third method is by action, often purely physical, on the outer
senses. Work of this kind is said to be "striking," "effectful." In
all arts these effects consist chiefly in contrasts; in bringing
together the terrible and the tender, the beautiful and the hideous,
the loud and the soft, darkness and light, the most ordinary and
the most extraordinary. In verbal art, besides effects of contrast,
there are also effects consisting in the description of things that
have never before been described. These are usually pornographic
details evoking sexual desire, or details of suffering and death
evoking feelings of horror, as, for instance, when describing a
murder, to give a detailed medical account of the lacerated tissues,
of the swellings, of the smell, quantity, and appearance of the
blood. It is the same in painting: besides all kinds of other
contrasts, one is coming into vogue which consists in giving careful
finish to one object and being careless about all the rest. The
chief and usual effects in painting are effects of light and the
depiction of the horrible. In the drama, the most common effects,
besides contrasts, are tempests, thunder, moonlight, scenes at sea
or by the seashore, changes of costume, exposure of the female body,
madness, murders, and death generally: the dying person exhibiting
in detail all the phases of agony. In music the most usual effects
are a _crescendo_, passing from the softest and simplest sounds
to the loudest and most complex crash of the full orchestra; a
repetition of the same sounds _arpeggio_ in all the octaves and on
various instruments; or that the harmony, tone, and rhythm be not at
all those naturally flowing from the course of the musical thought,
but such as strike one by their unexpectedness. Besides these, the
commonest effects in music are produced in a purely physical manner
by strength of sound, especially in an orchestra.
Such are some of the most usual effects in the various arts, but
there yet remains one common to them all; namely, to convey by
means of one art what it would be natural to convey by another: for
instance, to make music describe (as is done by the programme music
of Wagner and his followers), or to make painting, the drama, or
poetry, induce a frame of mind (as is aimed at by all the Decadent
art).
The fourth method is that of interesting (that is, absorbing the
mind) in connection with works of art. The interest may lie in
an intricate plot--a method till quite recently much employed in
English novels and French plays, but now going out of fashion and
being replaced by authenticity, _i.e._ by detailed description of
some historical period or some branch of contemporary life. For
example, in a novel, interestingness may consist in a description of
Egyptian or Roman life, the life of miners, or that of the clerks
in a large shop. The reader becomes interested and mistakes this
interest for an artistic impression. The interest may also depend on
the very method of expression; a kind of interest that has now come
much into use. Both verse and prose, as well as pictures, plays, and
music, are constructed so that they must be guessed like riddles,
and this process of guessing again affords pleasure and gives a
semblance of the feeling received from art.
It is very often said that a work of art is very good because it is
poetic, or realistic, or striking, or interesting; whereas not only
can neither the first, nor the second, nor the third, nor the fourth
of these attributes supply a standard of excellence in art, but they
have not even anything in common with art.
Poetic--means borrowed. All borrowing merely recalls to the reader,
spectator, or listener some dim recollection of artistic impressions
they have received from previous works of art, and does not infect
them with feeling which the artist has himself experienced. A
work founded on something borrowed, like Goethe's "Faust," for
instance, may be very well executed and be full of mind and every
beauty, but because it lacks the chief characteristic of a work
of art--completeness, oneness, the inseparable unity of form and
contents expressing the feeling the artist has experienced--it
cannot produce a really artistic impression. In availing himself
of this method, the artist only transmits the feeling received by
him from a previous work of art; therefore every borrowing, whether
it be of whole subjects, or of various scenes, situations, or
descriptions, is but a reflection of art, a simulation of it, but
not art itself. And therefore, to say that a certain production is
good because it is poetic--_i.e._ resembles a work of art--is like
saying of a coin that it is good because it resembles real money.
Equally little can imitation, realism, serve, as many people think,
as a measure of the quality of art. Imitation cannot be such a
measure; for the chief characteristic of art is the infection of
others with the feelings the artist has experienced, and infection
with a feeling is not only not identical with description of the
accessories of what is transmitted, but is usually hindered by
superfluous details. The attention of the receiver of the artistic
impression is diverted by all these well-observed details, and they
hinder the transmission of feeling even when it exists.
To value a work of art by the degree of its realism, by the
accuracy of the details reproduced, is as strange as to judge of
the nutritive quality of food by its external appearance. When we
appraise a work according to its realism, we only show that we are
talking, not of a work of art, but of its counterfeit.
Neither does the third method of imitating art--by the use of
what is striking or effectual--coincide with real art any better
than the two former methods; for in effectfulness--the effects of
novelty, of the unexpected, of contrasts, of the horrible--there
is no transmission of feeling, but only an action on the nerves.
If an artist were to paint a bloody wound admirably, the sight of
the wound would strike me, but it would not be art. One prolonged
note on a powerful organ will produce a striking impression, will
often even cause tears, but there is no music in it, because
no feeling is transmitted. Yet such physiological effects are
constantly mistaken for art by people of our circle, and this not
only in music, but also in poetry, painting, and the drama. It is
said that art has become refined. On the contrary, thanks to the
pursuit of effectfulness, it has become very coarse. A new piece
is brought out and accepted all over Europe, such, for instance,
as "Hannele," in which play the author wishes to transmit to the
spectators pity for a persecuted girl. To evoke this feeling in the
audience by means of art, the author should either make one of the
characters express this pity in such a way as to infect every one,
or he should describe the girl's feelings correctly. But he cannot,
or will not, do this, and chooses another way, more complicated
in stage management, but easier for the author. He makes the girl
die on the stage; and, still further to increase the physiological
effect on the spectators, he extinguishes the lights in the theater,
leaving the audience in the dark, and to the sound of dismal music
he shows how the girl is pursued and beaten by her drunken father.
The girl shrinks--screams--groans--and falls. Angels appear and
carry her away. And the audience, experiencing some excitement while
this is going on, are fully convinced that this is true æsthetic
feeling. But there is nothing æsthetic in such excitement; for there
is no infecting of man by man, but only a mingled feeling of pity
for another, and of self-congratulation that it is not I who am
suffering: it is like what we feel at the sight of an execution, or
what the Romans felt in their circuses.
The substitution of effectfulness for æsthetic feeling is
particularly noticeable in musical art--that art which by its nature
has an immediate physiological action on the nerves. Instead of
transmitting by means of a melody the feelings he has experienced,
a composer of the new school accumulates and complicates sounds,
and by now strengthening, now weakening them, he produces on the
audience a physiological effect of a kind that can be measured by an
apparatus invented for the purpose.[118] And the public mistake this
physiological effect for the effect of art.
[118] An apparatus exists by means of which a very sensitive arrow,
in dependence on the tension of a muscle of the arm, will indicate
the physiological action of music on the nerves and muscles.
As to the fourth method--that of interesting--it also is frequently
confounded with art. One often hears it said, not only of a poem,
a novel, or a picture, but even of a musical work, that it is
interesting. What does this mean? To speak of an interesting work of
art means either that we receive from a work of art information new
to us, or that the work is not fully intelligible, and that little
by little, and with effort, we arrive at its meaning, and experience
a certain pleasure in this process of guessing it. In neither case
has the interest anything in common with artistic impression. Art
aims at infecting people with feeling experienced by the artist.
But the mental effort necessary to enable the spectator, listener,
or reader to assimilate the new information contained in the work,
or to guess the puzzles propounded, by distracting him, hinders the
infection. And therefore the interestingness of a work, not only
has nothing to do with its excellence as a work of art, but rather
hinders than assists artistic impression.
We may, in a work of art, meet with what is poetic, and realistic,
and striking, and interesting, but these things cannot replace the
essential of art,--feeling experienced by the artist. Latterly, in
upper-class art, most of the objects given out as being works of
art are of the kind which only resemble art, and are devoid of its
essential quality,--feeling experienced by the artist. And, for the
diversion of the rich, such objects are continually being produced
in enormous quantities by the artisans of art.
Many conditions must be fulfilled to enable a man to produce a real
work of art. It is necessary that he should stand on the level of
the highest life-conception of his time, that he should experience
feeling and have the desire and capacity to transmit it, and that
he should, moreover, have a talent for some one of the forms of
art. It is very seldom that all these conditions necessary to the
production of true art are combined. But in order--aided by the
customary methods of borrowing, imitating, introducing effects, and
interesting--unceasingly to produce counterfeits of art which pass
for art in our society and are well paid for, it is only necessary
to have a talent for some branch of art; and this is very often
to be met with. By talent I mean ability: in literary art, the
ability to express one's thoughts and impressions easily and to
notice and remember characteristic details; in the depictive arts,
to distinguish and remember lines, forms, and colors; in music, to
distinguish the intervals, and to remember and transmit the sequence
of sounds. And a man, in our times, if only he possesses such a
talent and selects some specialty, may, after learning the methods
of counterfeiting used in his branch of art,--if he has patience
and if his æsthetic feeling (which would render such productions
revolting to him) be atrophied,--unceasingly, till the end of his
life, turn out works which will pass for art in our society.
To produce such counterfeits, definite rules or recipes exist in
each branch of art. So that the talented man, having assimilated
them, may produce such works _à froid_, cold drawn, without any
feeling.
In order to write poems a man of literary talent needs only
these qualifications: to acquire the knack, conformably with the
requirements of rhyme and rhythm, of using, instead of the one
really suitable word, ten others meaning approximately the same;
to learn how to take any phrase which, to be clear, has but one
natural order of words, and despite all possible dislocations still
to retain some sense in it; and lastly, to be able, guided by the
words required for the rhymes, to devise some semblance of thoughts,
feelings, or descriptions to suit these words. Having acquired these
qualifications, he may unceasingly produce poems--short or long,
religious, amatory, or patriotic, according to the demand.
If a man of literary talent wishes to write a story or novel, he
need only form his style--_i.e._ learn how to describe all that he
sees--and accustom himself to remember or note down details. When he
has accustomed himself to this, he can, according to his inclination
or the demand, unceasingly produce novels or stories--historical,
naturalistic, social, erotic, psychological, or even religious, for
which latter kind a demand and fashion begins to show itself. He can
take subjects from books or from the events of life, and can copy
the characters of the people in his book from his acquaintances.
And such novels and stories, if only they are decked out with
well-observed and carefully noted details, preferably erotic ones,
will be considered works of art, even though they may not contain a
spark of feeling experienced.
To produce art in dramatic form, a talented man, in addition to all
that is required for novels and stories, must also learn to furnish
his characters with as many smart and witty sentences as possible,
must know how to utilize theatrical effects, and how to entwine
the action of his characters so that there should not be any long
conversations, but as much bustle and movement on the stage as
possible. If the writer is able to do this, he may produce dramatic
works one after another without stopping, selecting his subjects
from the reports of the law courts, or from the latest society
topic, such as hypnotism, heredity, etc., or from deep antiquity, or
even from the realms of fancy.
In the sphere of painting and sculpture it is still easier for the
talented man to produce imitations of art. He need only learn to
draw, paint, and model--especially naked bodies. Thus equipped he
can continue to paint pictures, or model statues, one after another,
choosing subjects according to his bent--mythological, or religious,
or fantastic, or symbolical; or he may depict what is written about
in the papers--a coronation, a strike, the Turko-Grecian war, famine
scenes; or, commonest of all, he may just copy anything he thinks
beautiful--from naked women to copper basins.
For the production of musical art the talented man needs still
less of what constitutes the essence of art, _i.e._ feeling
wherewith to infect others: but on the other hand, he requires
more physical, gymnastic labor than for any other art, unless it
be dancing. To produce works of musical art, he must first learn
to move his fingers on some instrument as rapidly as those who
have reached the highest perfection; next, he must know how in
former times polyphonic music was written, must study what are
called counterpoint and fugue; and, furthermore, he must learn
orchestration, _i.e._ how to utilize the effects of the instruments.
But once he has learned all this, the composer may unceasingly
produce one work after another; whether programme-music, opera, or
song (devising sounds more or less corresponding to the words), or
chamber music, _i.e._ he may take another man's themes and work
them up into definite forms by means of counterpoint and fugue; or,
what is commonest of all, he may compose fantastic music, _i.e._ he
may take a conjunction of sounds which happens to come to hand, and
pile every sort of complication and ornamentation on to this chance
combination.
Thus, in all realms of art, counterfeits of art are manufactured to
a ready-made, prearranged recipe, and these counterfeits the public
of our upper classes accept for real art.
And this substitution of counterfeits for real works of art was the
third and most important consequence of the separation of the art of
the upper classes from universal art.
CHAPTER XII
In our society three conditions coöperate to cause the production of
objects of counterfeit art. They are--(1) the considerable remuneration
of artists for their productions, and the professionalization of
artists which this has produced, (2) art criticism, and (3) schools of
art.
While art was as yet undivided, and only religious art was valued
and rewarded while indiscriminate art was left unrewarded, there
were no counterfeits of art, or, if any existed, being exposed to
the criticism of the whole people, they quickly disappeared. But as
soon as that division occurred, and the upper classes acclaaimed
every kind of art as good if only it afforded them pleasure, and
began to reward such art more highly than any other social activity,
immediately a large number of people devoted themselves to this
activity, and art assumed quite a different character, and became a
profession.
And as soon as this occurred, the chief and most precious quality
of art--its sincerity--was at once greatly weakened and eventually
quite destroyed.
The professional artist lives by his art, and has continually
to invent subjects for his works, and does invent them. And it
is obvious how great a difference must exist between works of
art produced on the one hand by men such as the Jewish prophets,
the authors of the Psalms, Francis of Assisi, the authors of the
"Iliad" and "Odyssey," of folk-stories, legends, and folk-songs,
many of whom not only received no remuneration for their work, but
did not even attach their names to it; and, on the other hand,
works produced by court poets, dramatists and musicians receiving
honors and remuneration; and later on by professional artists, who
lived by the trade, receiving remuneration from newspaper editors,
publishers, impresarios, and in general from those agents who come
between the artists and the town public--the consumers of art.
Professionalism is the first condition of the diffusion of false,
counterfeit art.
The second condition is the growth, in recent times, of artistic
criticism, _i.e._ the valuation of art, not by everybody, and, above
all, not by plain men, but by erudite, that is, by perverted and at
the same time self-confident individuals.
A friend of mine, speaking of the relation of critics to artists,
half jokingly defined it thus: "Critics are the stupid who discuss
the wise." However partial, inexact, and rude this definition may
be, it is yet partly true, and is incomparably juster than the
definition which considers critics to be men who can explain works
of art.
"Critics explain!" What do they explain?
The artist, if a real artist, has by his work transmitted to others
the feeling he experienced. What is there, then, to explain?
If a work be good as art, then the feeling expressed by the
artist--be it moral or immoral--transmits itself to other people. If
transmitted to others, then they feel it, and all interpretations
are superfluous. If the work does not infect people, no explanation
can make it contagious. An artist's work cannot be interpreted.
Had it been possible to explain in words what he wished to convey,
the artist would have expressed himself in words. He expressed it
by his art only because the feeling he experienced could not be
otherwise transmitted. The interpretation of works of art by words
only indicates that the interpreter is himself incapable of feeling
the infection of art. And this is actually the case; for, however
strange it may seem to say so, critics have always been people less
susceptible than other men to the contagion of art. For the most
part they are able writers, educated and clever, but with their
capacity of being infected by art quite perverted or atrophied. And
therefore their writings have always largely contributed, and still
contribute, to the perversion of the taste of that public which
reads them and trusts them.
Artistic criticism did not exist--could not and cannot exist--in
societies where art is undivided, and where, consequently, it is
appraised by the religious understanding of life common to the whole
people. Art criticism grew, and could grow, only on the art of the
upper classes, who did not acknowledge the religious perception of
their time.
Universal art has a definite and indubitable internal
criterion,--religious perception; upper-class art lacks this, and
therefore the appreciators of that art are obliged to cling to
some external criterion. And they find it in "the judgments of the
finest-nurtured," as an English æsthetician has phrased it, that
is, in the authority of the people who are considered educated,
nor in this alone, but also in a tradition of such authorities.
This tradition is extremely misleading, both because the opinions
of "the finest-nurtured" are often mistaken, and also because
judgments which were valid once cease to be so with the lapse of
time. But the critics, having no basis for their judgments, never
cease to repeat their traditions. The classical tragedians were
once considered good, and therefore criticism considers them to be
so still. Dante was esteemed a great poet, Raphael a great painter,
Bach a great musician--and the critics, lacking a standard by which
to separate good art from bad, not only consider these artists
great, but regard all their productions as admirable and worthy of
imitation. Nothing has contributed, and still contributes, so much
to the perversion of art as these authorities set up by criticism. A
man produces a work of art, like every true artist expressing in his
own peculiar manner a feeling he has experienced. Most people are
infected by the artist's feeling; and his work becomes known. Then
criticism, discussing the artist, says that the work is not bad,
but all the same the artist is not a Dante, nor a Shakespear, nor a
Goethe, nor a Raphael, nor what Beethoven was in his last period.
And the young artist sets to work to copy those who are held up for
his imitation, and he produces not only feeble works, but false
works,--counterfeits of art.
Thus, for instance, our Pushkin writes his short poems, "Evgeniy
Onegin," "The Gipsies," and his stories--works all varying in
quality, but all true art. But then, under the influence of false
criticism extolling Shakespear, he writes "Boris Godunoff," a cold,
brain-spun work, and this production is lauded by the critics, set
up as a model, and imitations of it appear: "Minin," by Ostrovsky,
and "Tsar Boris," by Alexée Tolstoï, and such imitations of
imitations as crowd all literatures with insignificant productions.
The chief harm done by the critics is this,--that themselves lacking
the capacity to be infected by art (and that is the characteristic
of all critics; for did they not lack this they could not attempt
the impossible--the interpretation of works of art), they pay most
attention to, and eulogize, brain-spun, invented works, and set
these up as models worthy of imitation. That is the reason they so
confidently extol, in literature, the Greek tragedians, Dante,
Tasso, Milton, Shakespear, Goethe (almost all he wrote), and, among
recent writers, Zola and Ibsen; in music, Beethoven's last period,
and Wagner. To justify their praise of these brain-spun, invented
works, they devise entire theories (of which the famous theory of
beauty is one); and not only dull but also talented people compose
works in strict deference to these theories; and often even real
artists, doing violence to their genius, submit to them.
Every false work extolled by the critics serves as a door through
which the hypocrites of art at once crowd in.
It is solely due to the critics, who in our times still praise rude,
savage, and, for us, often meaningless works of the ancient Greeks:
Sophocles, Euripides, Æschylus, and especially Aristophanes; or,
of modern writers, Dante, Tasso, Milton, Shakespear; in painting,
all of Raphael, all of Michael Angelo, including his absurd "Last
Judgment"; in music, the whole of Bach, and the whole of Beethoven,
including his last period,--thanks only to them have the Ibsens,
Maeterlincks, Verlaines, Mallarmés, Puvis de Chavannes, Klingers,
Böcklins, Stucks, Schneiders; in music, the Wagners, Liszts,
Berliozes, Brahmses, and Richard Strausses, etc., and all that
immense mass of good-for-nothing imitators of these imitators,
become possible in our day.
As a good illustration of the harmful influence of criticism, take
its relation to Beethoven. Among his innumerable hasty productions
written to order, there are, notwithstanding their artificiality
of form, works of true art. But he grows deaf, cannot hear, and
begins to write invented, unfinished works, which are consequently
often meaningless and musically unintelligible. I know that
musicians can imagine sounds vividly enough, and can almost hear
what they read, but imaginary sounds can never replace real ones,
and every composer must hear his production in order to perfect it.
Beethoven, however, could not hear, could not perfect his work, and
consequently published productions which are artistic ravings. But
criticism, having once acknowledged him to be a great composer,
seizes on just these abnormal works with special gusto, and searches
for extraordinary beauties in them. And, to justify its laudations
(perverting the very meaning of musical art), it attributed to music
the property of describing what it cannot describe. And imitators
appear--an innumerable host of imitators of these abnormal attempts
at artistic productions which Beethoven wrote when he was deaf.
Then Wagner appears, who at first in critical articles praises just
Beethoven's last period, and connects this music with Schopenhauer's
mystical theory that music is the expression of Will--not of
separate manifestations of will objectivized on various planes,
but its very essence--which is in itself as absurd as this music
of Beethoven. And afterward he composes music of his own on this
theory, in conjunction with another still more erroneous system of
the union of all the arts. After Wagner yet new imitators appear,
diverging yet further from art: Brahms, Richard Strauss, and others.
Such are the results of criticism. But the third condition of the
perversion of art, namely, art schools, is almost more harmful still.
As soon as art became, not art for the whole people, but for a rich
class, it became a profession; as soon as it became a profession,
methods were devised to teach it; people who chose this profession
of art began to learn these methods, and thus professional schools
sprang up: classes of rhetoric or literature in the public schools,
academies for painting, conservatoires for music, schools for
dramatic art.
In these schools art is taught! But art is the transmission to
others of a special feeling experienced by the artist. How can this
be taught in schools?
No school can evoke feeling in a man, and still less can it teach
him how to manifest it in the one particular manner natural to him
alone. But the essence of art lies in these things.
The one thing these schools can teach is how to transmit feelings
experienced by other artists in the way those other artists
transmitted them. And this is just what the professional schools do
teach; and such instruction not only does not assist the spread of
true art, but, on the contrary, by diffusing counterfeits of art,
does more than anything else to deprive people of the capacity to
understand true art.
In literary art people are taught how, without having anything they
wish to say, to write a many-paged composition on a theme about
which they have never thought, and, moreover, to write it so that
it should resemble the work of an author admitted to be celebrated.
This is taught in schools.
In painting, the chief training consists in learning to draw and
paint from copies and models, the naked body chiefly (the very
thing that is never seen, and which a man occupied with real art
hardly ever has to depict), and to draw and paint as former masters
drew and painted. The composition of pictures is taught by giving
out themes similar to those which have been treated by former
acknowledged celebrities.
So also in dramatic schools, the pupils are taught to recite
monologues just as tragedians, considered celebrated, declaimed them.
It is the same in music. The whole theory of music is nothing but
a disconnected repetition of those methods which the acknowledged
masters of composition made use of.
I have elsewhere quoted the profound remark of the Russian artist
Bruloff on art, but I cannot here refrain from repeating it, because
nothing better illustrates what can and what cannot be taught in
the schools. Once when correcting a pupil's study, Bruloff just
touched it in a few places, and the poor dead study immediately
became animated. "Why, you only touched it a _wee bit_, and it is
quite another thing!" said one of the pupils. "Art begins where
the _wee bit_ begins," replied Bruloff, indicating by these words
just what is most characteristic of art. The remark is true of
all the arts, but its justice is particularly noticeable in the
performance of music. That musical execution should be artistic,
should be art, _i.e._ should infect, three chief conditions must
be observed,--there are many others needed for musical perfection;
the transition from one sound to another must be interrupted or
continuous; the sound must increase or diminish steadily; it must
be blended with one and not with another sound; the sound must
have this or that timbre, and much besides,--but take the three
chief conditions; the pitch, the time, and the strength of the
sound. Musical execution is only then art, only then infects, when
the sound is neither higher nor lower than it should be, that is,
when exactly the infinitely small center of the required note is
taken; when that note is continued exactly as long as is needed;
and when the strength of the sound is neither more nor less than
is required. The slightest deviation of pitch in either direction,
the slightest increase or decrease in time, or the slightest
strengthening or weakening of the sound beyond what is needed,
destroys the perfection and, consequently, the infectiousness of
the work. So that the feeling of infection by the art of music,
which seems so simple and so easily obtained, is a thing we receive
only when the performer finds those infinitely minute degrees which
are necessary to perfection in music. It is the same in all arts:
a wee bit lighter, a wee bit darker, a wee bit higher, lower, to
the right or the left--in painting; a wee bit weaker or stronger in
intonation, or a wee bit sooner or later--in dramatic art; a wee bit
omitted, over-emphasized, or exaggerated--in poetry, and there is
no contagion. Infection is only obtained when an artist finds those
infinitely minute degrees of which a work of art consists, and only
to the extent to which he finds them. And it is quite impossible to
teach people by external means to find these minute degrees; they
can only be found when a man yields to his feeling. No instruction
can make a dancer catch just the tact of the music, or a singer or
a fiddler take exactly the infinitely minute center of his note, or
a sketcher draw of all possible lines the only right one, or a poet
find the only meet arrangement of the only suitable words. All this
is found only by feeling. And therefore schools may teach what is
necessary in order to produce something resembling art, but not art
itself.
The teaching of the schools stops there where the _wee bit_
begins--consequently where art begins.
Accustoming people to something resembling art, disaccustoms them to
the comprehension of real art. And that is how it comes about that
none are more dull to art than those who have passed through the
professional schools and been most successful in them. Professional
schools produce an hypocrisy of art precisely akin to that hypocrisy
of religion which is produced by theological colleges for training
priests, pastors, and religious teachers generally. As it is
impossible in a school to train a man so as to make a religious
teacher of him, so it is impossible to teach a man how to become an
artist.
Art schools are thus doubly destructive of art: first, in that they
destroy the capacity to produce real art in those who have the
misfortune to enter them and go through a seven or eight years'
course; secondly, in that they generate enormous quantities of that
counterfeit art which perverts the taste of the masses and overflows
our world. In order that born artists may know the methods of the
various arts elaborated by former artists, there should exist in
all elementary schools such classes for drawing and music (singing)
that, after passing through them, every talented scholar may, by
using existing models accessible to all, be able to perfect himself
in his art independently.
These three conditions--the professionalization of artists, art
criticism, and art schools--have had this effect: that most people
in our times are quite unable even to understand what art is, and
accept as art the grossest counterfeits of it.
CHAPTER XIII
To what an extent people of our circle and time have lost the
capacity to receive real art, and have become accustomed to accept
as art things that have nothing in common with it, is best seen from
the works of Richard Wagner, which have latterly come to be more and
more esteemed, not only by the Germans, but also by the French and
the English, as the very highest art, revealing new horizons to us.
The peculiarity of Wagner's music, as is known, consists in
this,--that he considered that music should serve poetry, expressing
all the shades of a poetical work.
The union of the drama with music, devised in the fifteenth century
in Italy for the revival of what they imagined to have been the
ancient Greek drama with music, is an artificial form which had,
and has, success only among the upper classes, and that only when
gifted composers, such as Mozart, Weber, Rossini, and others,
drawing inspiration from a dramatic subject, yielded freely to the
inspiration and subordinated the text to the music, so that in their
operas the important thing to the audience was merely the music on
a certain text, and not the text at all, which latter, even when it
was utterly absurd, as, for instance, in the "Magic Flute," still
did not prevent the music from producing an artistic impression.
Wagner wishes to correct the opera by letting music submit to the
demands of poetry and unite with it. But each art has its own
definite realm, which is not identical with the realm of other
arts, but merely comes in contact with them; and therefore, if the
manifestation of, I will not say several, but even of two arts--the
dramatic and the musical--be united in one complete production,
then the demands of the one art will make it impossible to fulfil
the demands of the other, as has always occurred in the ordinary
operas, where the dramatic art has submitted to, or rather yielded
place to, the musical. Wagner wishes that musical art should submit
to dramatic art, and that both should appear in full strength. But
this is impossible; for every work of art, if it be a true one,
is an expression of intimate feelings of the artist, which are
quite exceptional, and not like anything else. Such is a musical
production, and such is a dramatic work, if they be true art.
And therefore, in order that a production in the one branch of
art should coincide with a production in the other branch, it is
necessary that the impossible should happen: that two works from
different realms of art should be absolutely exceptional, unlike
anything that existed before, and yet should coincide, and be
exactly alike.
And this cannot be, just as there cannot be two men, or even two
leaves on a tree, exactly alike. Still less can two works from
different realms of art, the musical and the literary, be absolutely
alike. If they coincide, then either one is a work of art and the
other a counterfeit, or both are counterfeits. Two live leaves
cannot be exactly alike, but two artificial leaves may be. And so it
is with works of art. They can only coincide completely when neither
the one nor the other is art, but only cunningly devised semblances
of it.
If poetry and music may be joined, as occurs in hymns, songs,
and _romances_--(though even in these the music does not follow
the changes of each verse of the text, as Wagner wants to, but
the song and the music merely produce a coincident effect on the
mind)--this occurs only because lyrical poetry and music have, to
some extent, one and the same aim: to produce a mental condition and
the conditions produced by lyrical poetry and by music can, more or
less, coincide. But even in these conjunctions the center of gravity
always lies in one of the two productions, so that it is one of
them that produces the artistic impression while the other remains
unregarded. And still less is it possible for such union to exist
between epic or dramatic poetry and music.
Moreover, one of the chief conditions of artistic creation is the
complete freedom of the artist from every kind of preconceived
demand. And the necessity of adjusting his musical work to a work
from another realm of art is a preconceived demand of such a kind
as to destroy all possibility of creative power; and therefore works
of this kind, adjusted to one another, are, and must be, as has
always happened, not works of art, but only imitations of art, like
the music of a melodrama, signatures to pictures, illustrations, and
librettos to operas.
And such are Wagner's productions. And a confirmation of this is
to be seen in the fact that Wagner's new music lacks the chief
characteristic of every true work of art; namely, such entirety
and completeness that the smallest alteration in its form would
disturb the meaning of the whole work. In a true work of art--poem,
drama, picture, song, or symphony--it is impossible to extract one
line, one scene, one figure, or one bar from its place and put it
in another, without infringing the significance of the whole work;
just as it is impossible, without infringing the life of an organic
being, to extract an organ from one place and insert it in another.
But in the music of Wagner's last period, with the exception of
certain parts of little importance which have an independent musical
meaning, it is possible to make all kinds of transpositions, putting
what was in front behind, and _vice versa_, without altering the
musical sense. And the reason why these transpositions do not alter
the sense of Wagner's music is because the sense lies in the words
and not in the music.
The musical score of Wagner's later operas is like what the result
would be should one of those versifiers--of whom there are now
many, with tongues so broken that they can write verses on any
theme to any rhymes in any rhythm, which sound as if they had a
meaning--conceive the idea of illustrating by his verses some
symphony or sonata of Beethoven, or some ballade of Chopin, in
the following manner. To the first bars, of one character, he
writes verses corresponding in his opinion to those first bars.
Next come some bars of a different character, and he also writes
verses corresponding in his opinion to them, but with no internal
connection with the first verses, and, moreover, without rhymes and
without rhythm. Such a production, without the music, would be
exactly parallel in poetry to what Wagner's operas are in music, if
heard without the words.
But Wagner is not only a musician, he is also a poet, or both
together; and therefore, to judge of Wagner, one must know his
poetry also--that same poetry which the music has to subserve. The
chief poetical production of Wagner is "The Nibelung's Ring." This
work has attained such enormous importance in our time, and has such
influence on all that now professes to be art, that it is necessary
for every one to-day to have some idea of it. I have carefully read
through the four booklets which contain this work, and have drawn
up a brief summary of it, which I give in Appendix III. I would
strongly advise the reader (if he has not perused the poem itself,
which would be the best thing to do) at least to read my account of
it, so as to have an idea of this extraordinary work. It is a model
work of counterfeit art, so gross as to be even ridiculous.
But we are told that it is impossible to judge of Wagner's works
without seeing them on the stage. The Second Day of this drama,
which, as I was told, is the best part of the whole work, was given
in Moscow last winter, and I went to see the performance.
When I arrived the enormous theater was already filled from top to
bottom. There were grand dukes, and the flower of the aristocracy,
of the merchant class, of the learned, and of the middle-class
official public. Most of them held the libretto, fathoming its
meaning. Musicians--some of them elderly, gray-haired men--followed
the music, score in hand. Evidently the performance of this work was
an event of importance.
I was rather late, but I was told that the short prelude, with
which the act begins, was of little importance, and that it did not
matter having missed it. When I arrived, an actor sat on the stage
amid decorations intended to represent a cave, and before something
which was meant to represent a smith's forge. He was dressed in
trico-tights, with a cloak of skins, wore a wig and an artificial
beard, and with white, weak genteel hands (his easy movements,
and especially the shape of his stomach and his lack of muscle
revealed the actor) beat an impossible sword with an unnatural
hammer in a way in which no one ever uses a hammer; and at the
same time, opening his mouth in a strange way, he sang something
incomprehensible. The music of various instruments accompanied the
strange sounds which he emitted. From the libretto one was able
to gather that the actor had to represent a powerful gnome, who
lived in the cave, and who was forging a sword for Siegfried, whom
he had reared. One could tell he was a gnome by the fact that the
actor walked all the time bending the knees of his trico-covered
legs. This gnome, still opening his mouth in the same strange way,
long continued to sing or shout. The music meanwhile runs over
something strange, like beginnings which are not continued and do
not get finished. From the libretto one could learn that the gnome
is telling himself about a ring which a giant had obtained, and
which the gnome wishes to procure through Siegfried's aid, while
Siegfried wants a good sword, on the forging of which the gnome is
occupied. After this conversation or singing to himself has gone
on rather a long time, other sounds are heard in the orchestra,
also like something beginning and not finishing, and another actor
appears, with a horn slung over his shoulder, and accompanied by a
man running on all fours dressed up as a bear, whom he sets at the
smith-gnome. The latter runs away without unbending the knees of
his trico-covered legs. This actor with the horn represented the
hero, Siegfried. The sounds which were emitted in the orchestra on
the entrance of this actor were intended to represent Siegfried's
character, and are called Siegfried's _leit-motiv_. And these
sounds are repeated each time Siegfried appears. There is one fixed
combination of sounds, or _leit-motiv_, for each character, and this
_leit-motiv_ is repeated every time the person whom it represents
appears; and when any one is mentioned the _motiv_ is heard which
relates to that person. Moreover, each article also has its own
_leit-motiv_ or chord. There is a _motiv_ of the ring, a _motiv_
of the helmet, a _motiv_ of the apple, a _motiv_ of fire, spear,
sword, water, etc.; and as soon as the ring, helmet, or apple is
mentioned, the _motiv_ or chord of the ring, helmet, or apple is
heard. The actor with the horn opens his mouth as unnaturally as the
gnome, and long continues in a chanting voice to shout some words,
and in a similar chant Mime (that is the gnome's name) answers
something or other to him. The meaning of this conversation can
only be discovered from the libretto; and it is that Siegfried was
brought up by the gnome, and therefore, for some reason, hates him
and always wishes to kill him. The gnome has forged a sword for
Siegfried, but Siegfried is dissatisfied with it. From a ten-page
conversation (by the libretto), lasting half an hour and conducted
with the same strange openings of the mouth, and chantings, it
appears that Siegfried's mother gave birth to him in the wood, and
that concerning his father all that is known is that he had a sword
which was broken, the pieces of which are in Mime's possession,
and that Siegfried does not know fear and wishes to go out of
the wood. Mime, however, does not want to let him go. During the
conversation the music never omits, at the mention of father, sword,
etc., to sound the _motiv_ of these people and things. After these
conversations fresh sounds are heard--those of the god Wotan--and a
wanderer appears. This wanderer is the god Wotan. Also dressed up in
a wig, and also in tights, this god Wotan, standing in a stupid pose
with a spear, thinks proper to recount what Mime must have known
before, but what it is necessary to tell the audience. He does not
tell it simply, but in the form of riddles which he orders himself
to guess, staking his head (one does not know why) that he will
guess right. Moreover, whenever the wanderer strikes his spear on
the ground, fire comes out of the ground, and in the orchestra the
sounds of spear and of fire are heard. The orchestra accompanies the
conversation, and the _motiv_ of the people and things spoken of
are always artfully intermingled. Besides this the music expresses
feelings in the most naïve manner: the terrible by sounds in the
bass, the frivolous by rapid touches in the treble, etc.
The riddles have no meaning except to tell the audience what the
_nibelungs_ are, what the giants are, what the gods are, and
what has happened before. This conversation also is chanted with
strangely opened mouths and continues for eight libretto pages,
and correspondingly long on the stage. After this the wanderer
departs, and Siegfried returns and talks with Mime for thirteen
pages more. There is not a single melody the whole of this time,
but merely intertwinings of the _leit-motiv_ of the people and
things mentioned. The conversation tells that Mime wishes to teach
Siegfried fear, and that Siegfried does not know what fear is.
Having finished this conversation, Siegfried seizes one of the
pieces of what is meant to represent the broken sword, saws it up,
puts it on what is meant to represent the forge, melts it, and then
forges it and sings: Heiho! heiho! heiho! Ho! ho! Aha! oho! aha!
Heiaho! heiaho! heiaho! Ho! ho! Hahei! hoho! hahei! and Act I.
finishes.
As far as the question I had come to the theater to decide was
concerned, my mind was fully made up, as surely as on the question
of the merits of my lady acquaintance's novel when she read me the
scene between the loose-haired maiden in the white dress and the
hero with two white dogs and a hat with a feather _à la Guillaume
Tell_.
From an author who could compose such spurious scenes, outraging all
æsthetic feeling, as those which I had witnessed, there was nothing
to be hoped; it may safely be decided that all that such an author
can write will be bad, because he evidently does not know what a
true work of art is. I wished to leave, but the friends I was with
asked me to remain, declaring that one could not form an opinion by
that one act, and that the second would be better. So I stopped for
the second act.
Act II., night. Afterward, dawn. In general, the whole piece is
crammed with lights, clouds, moonlight, darkness, magic fires,
thunder, etc.
The scene represents a wood, and in the wood there is a cave. At the
entrance of the cave sits a third actor in tights, representing
another gnome. It dawns. Enter the god Wotan, again with a spear,
and again in the guise of a wanderer. Again his sounds, together
with fresh sounds of the deepest bass that can be produced. These
latter indicate that the dragon is speaking. Wotan awakens the
dragon. The same bass sounds are repeated, growing yet deeper and
deeper. First the dragon says, "I want to sleep," but afterward he
crawls out of the cave. The dragon is represented by two men; it
is dressed in a green, scaly skin, waves a tail at one end, while
at the other it opens a kind of crocodile's jaw that is fastened
on, and from which flames appear. The dragon (who is meant to be
dreadful, and may appear so to five-year-old children) speaks some
words in a terribly bass voice. This is all so stupid, so like what
is done in a booth at a fair, that it is surprising that people
over seven years of age can witness it seriously; yet thousands of
quasi-cultured people sit and attentively hear and see it, and are
delighted.
Siegfried, with his horn, reappears, as does Mime also. In the
orchestra the sounds denoting them are emitted, and they talk about
whether Siegfried does or does not know what fear is. Mime goes
away, and a scene commences which is intended to be most poetical.
Siegfried, in his tights, lies down in a would-be beautiful pose,
and alternately keeps silent and talks to himself. He ponders,
listens to the song of birds, and wishes to imitate them. For this
purpose he cuts a reed with his sword and makes a pipe. The dawn
grows brighter and brighter; the birds sing. Siegfried tries to
imitate the birds. In the orchestra is heard the imitation of birds,
alternating with sounds corresponding to the words he speaks. But
Siegfried does not succeed with his pipe-playing, so he plays on
his horn instead. This scene is unendurable. Of music, _i.e._ of
art serving as a means to transmit a state of mind experienced by
the author, there is not even a suggestion. There is something that
is absolutely unintelligible musically. In a musical sense a hope
is continually experienced, followed by disappointment, as if a
musical thought were commenced only to be broken off. If there are
something like musical commencements, these commencements are so
short, so encumbered with complications of harmony and orchestration
and with effects of contrast, are so obscure and unfinished, and
what is happening on the stage meanwhile is so abominably false,
that it is difficult even to perceive these musical snatches, let
alone to be infected by them. Above all, from the very beginning to
the very end, and in each note, the author's purpose is so audible
and visible that one sees and hears neither Siegfried nor the birds,
but only a limited, self-opinionated German, of bad taste and bad
style, who has a most false conception of poetry, and who, in the
rudest and most primitive manner, wishes to transmit to me these
false and mistaken conceptions of his.
Every one knows the feeling of distrust and resistance which is
always evoked by an author's evident predetermination. A narrator
need only say in advance, Prepare to cry or to laugh, and you are
sure neither to cry nor to laugh. But when you see that an author
prescribes emotion at what is not touching, but only laughable or
disgusting, and when you see, moreover, that the author is fully
assured that he has captivated you, a painfully tormenting feeling
results, similar to what one would feel if an old, deformed woman
put on a ball-dress, and smilingly coquetted before you, confident
of your approbation. This impression was strengthened by the fact
that around me I saw a crowd of three thousand people, who not only
patiently witnessed all this absurd nonsense, but even considered it
their duty to be delighted with it.
I somehow managed to sit out the next scene also, in which the
monster appears, to the accompaniment of his bass notes intermingled
with the _motiv_ of Siegfried; but after the fight with the monster,
and all the roars, fires, and sword-wavings, I could stand no more
of it, and escaped from the theater with a feeling of repulsion
which, even now, I cannot forget.
Listening to this opera, I involuntarily thought of a respected,
wise, educated country laborer,--one, for instance, of those wise
and truly religious men whom I know among the peasants,--and I
pictured to myself the terrible perplexity such a man would be in
were he to witness what I was seeing that evening.
What would he think if he knew of all the labor spent on such
a performance, and saw that audience, those great ones of the
earth,--old, bald-headed, gray-bearded men, whom he had been
accustomed to respect,--sit silent and attentive, listening to and
looking at all these stupidities for five hours on end? Not to speak
of an adult laborer, one can hardly imagine even a child of over
seven occupying himself with such a stupid, incoherent fairy tale.
And yet an enormous audience, the cream of the cultured upper
classes, sits out five hours of this insane performance, and goes
away imagining that by paying tribute to this nonsense it has
acquired a fresh right to esteem itself advanced and enlightened.
I speak of the Moscow public. But what is the Moscow public? It is
but a hundredth part of that public which, while considering itself
most highly enlightened, esteems it a merit to have so lost the
capacity of being infected by art, that not only can it witness this
stupid sham without being revolted, but can even take delight in it.
In Bayreuth, where these performances were first given, people who
consider themselves finely cultured assembled from the ends of the
earth, spent, say one hundred pounds each, to see this performance,
and for four days running they went to see and hear this nonsensical
rubbish, sitting it out for six hours each day.
But why did people go, and why do they still go to these
performances, and why do they admire them? The question naturally
presents itself: How is the success of Wagner's works to be
explained?
That success I explain to myself in this way: thanks to his
exceptional position in having at his disposal the resources of a
king, Wagner was able to command all the methods for counterfeiting
art which have been developed by long usage, and, employing these
methods with great ability, he produced a model work of counterfeit
art. The reason why I have selected his work for my illustration is,
that in no other counterfeit of art known to me are all the methods
by which art is counterfeited--namely, borrowings, imitation,
effects, and interestingness--so ably and powerfully united.
From the subject, borrowed from antiquity, to the clouds and the
risings of the sun and moon, Wagner, in this work, has made use of
all that is considered poetical. We have here the sleeping beauty,
and nymphs, and subterranean fires, and gnomes, and battles, and
swords, and love, and incest, and a monster, and singing-birds--the
whole arsenal of the poetical is brought into action.
Moreover, everything is imitative; the decorations are imitated,
and the costumes are imitated. All are just as, according to the
data supplied by archæology, they would have been in antiquity. The
very sounds are imitative; for Wagner, who was not destitute of
musical talent, invented just such sounds as imitate the strokes of
a hammer, the hissing of molten iron, the singing of birds, etc.
Furthermore, in this work everything is in the highest degree
striking in its effects and in its peculiarities: its monsters, its
magic fires, and its scenes under water; the darkness in which the
audience sit, the invisibility of the orchestra, and the hitherto
unemployed combinations of harmony.
And besides, it is all interesting. The interest lies not only in
the question who will kill whom, and who will marry whom, and who
is whose son, and what will happen next?--the interest lies also
in the relation of the music to the text. The rolling waves of the
Rhine--now how is that to be expressed in music? An evil gnome
appears--how is the music to express an evil gnome?--and how is it
to express the sensuality of this gnome? How will bravery, fire,
or apples be expressed in music? How are the _leit-motiv_ of the
people speaking to be interwoven with the _leit-motiv_ of the
people and objects about whom they speak? Besides, the music has a
further interest. It diverges from all formerly accepted laws, and
most unexpected and totally new modulations crop up (as is not only
possible, but even easy in music having no inner law of its being);
the dissonances are new, and are allowed in a new way--and this,
too, is interesting.
And it is this poeticality, imitativeness, effectfulness, and
interestingness which, thanks to the peculiarities of Wagner's
talent, and to the advantageous position in which he was placed, are
in these productions carried to the highest pitch of perfection,
that so act on the spectator, hypnotizing him as one would be
hypnotized who should listen for several consecutive hours to the
ravings of a maniac pronounced with great oratorical power.
People say: "You cannot judge without having seen Wagner performed
at Bayreuth: in the dark, where the orchestra is out of sight
concealed under the stage, and where the performance is brought
to the highest perfection." And this just proves that we have
here no question of art, but one of hypnotism. It is just what
the spiritualists say. To convince you of the reality of their
apparitions they usually say, "You cannot judge; you must try it,
be present at several séances," _i.e._ come and sit silent in the
dark for hours together in the same room with semi-sane people, and
repeat this some ten times over, and you shall see all that we see.
Yes, naturally! Only place yourself in such conditions, and you
may see what you will. But this can be still more quickly attained
by getting drunk or smoking opium. It is the same when listening
to an opera of Wagner's. Sit in the dark for four days in company
with people who are not quite normal, and, through the auditory
nerves, subject your brain to the strongest action of the sounds
best adapted to excite it, and you will no doubt be reduced to an
abnormal condition, and be enchanted by absurdities. But to attain
this end you do not even need four days; the five hours during
which one "day" is enacted, as in Moscow, are quite enough. Nor
are five hours needed; even one hour is enough for people who have
no clear conception of what art should be, and who have come to the
conclusion in advance that what they are going to see is excellent,
and that indifference or dissatisfaction with this work will serve
as a proof of their inferiority and lack of culture.
I observed the audience present at this representation. The people
who led the whole audience and gave the tone to it were those who
had previously been hypnotized, and who again succumbed to the
hypnotic influence to which they were accustomed. These hypnotized
people, being in an abnormal condition, were perfectly enraptured.
Moreover, all the art critics, who lack the capacity to be infected
by art and therefore always especially prize works like Wagner's
opera where it is all an affair of the intellect, also, with much
profundity, expressed their approval of a work affording such ample
material for ratiocination. And following these two groups went
that large city crowd (indifferent to art, with their capacity to
be infected by it perverted and partly atrophied), headed by the
princes, millionaires, and art patrons, who, like sorry harriers,
keep close to those who most loudly and decidedly express their
opinion.
"Oh, yes, certainly! What poetry! Marvelous! Especially the birds!"
"Yes, yes! I am quite vanquished!" exclaim these people, repeating
in various tones what they have just heard from men whose opinion
appears to them authoritative.
If some people do feel insulted by the absurdity and spuriousness of
the whole thing, they are timidly silent, as sober men are timid and
silent when surrounded by tipsy ones.
And thus, thanks to the masterly skill with which it counterfeits
art while having nothing in common with it, a meaningless, coarse,
spurious production finds acceptance all over the world, costs
millions of roubles to produce, and assists more and more to pervert
the taste of people of the upper classes and their conception of
what is art.
CHAPTER XIV
I know that most men--not only those considered clever, but even
those who are very clever, and capable of understanding most
difficult scientific, mathematical, or philosophic problems--can
very seldom discern even the simplest and most obvious truth if it
be such as to oblige them to admit the falsity of conclusions they
have formed, perhaps with much difficulty--conclusions of which
they are proud, which they have taught to others, and on which they
have built their lives. And therefore I have little hope that what
I adduce as to the perversion of art and taste in our society will
be accepted or even seriously considered. Nevertheless, I must state
fully the inevitable conclusion to which my investigation into the
question of art has brought me. This investigation has brought me
to the conviction that almost all that our society considers to
be art, good art, and the whole of art, far from being real and
good art, and the whole of art, is not even art at all, but only a
counterfeit of it. This position, I know, will seem very strange and
paradoxical; but if we once acknowledge art to be a human activity
by means of which some people transmit their feelings to others (and
not a service of Beauty, nor a manifestation of the Idea, and so
forth), we shall inevitably have to admit this further conclusion
also. If it is true that art is an activity by means of which one
man, having experienced a feeling, intentionally transmits it to
others, then we have inevitably to admit further, that of all that
among us is termed the art of the upper classes--of all those
novels, stories, dramas, comedies, pictures, sculptures, symphonies,
operas, operettas, ballets, etc., which profess to be works of
art--scarcely one in a hundred thousand proceeds from an emotion
felt by its author, all the rest being but manufactured counterfeits
of art, in which borrowing, imitating, effects, and interestingness
replace the contagion of feeling. That the proportion of real
productions of art is to the counterfeits as one to some hundreds of
thousands or even more, may be seen by the following calculation.
I have read somewhere that the artist painters in Paris alone
number 30,000; there will probably be as many in England, as many
in Germany, and as many in Russia, Italy, and the smaller states
combined. So that in all there will be in Europe, say, 120,000
painters; and there are probably as many musicians and as many
literary artists. If these 360,000 individuals produce three works
a year each (and many of them produce ten or more), then each year
yields over a million so-called works of art. How many, then, must
have been produced in the last ten years, and how many in the whole
time since upper-class art broke off from the art of the whole
people? Evidently millions. Yet who of all the connoisseurs of art
has received impressions from all these pseudo works of art? Not to
mention all the laboring classes who have no conception of these
productions, even people of the upper classes cannot know one in a
thousand of them all, and cannot remember those they have known.
These works all appear under the guise of art, produce no impression
on any one (except when they serve as pastimes for the idle crowd of
rich people), and vanish utterly.
In reply to this it is usually said that without this enormous
number of unsuccessful attempts we should not have the real works of
art. But such reasoning is as though a baker, in reply to a reproach
that his bread was bad, were to say that if it were not for the
hundreds of spoiled loaves there would not be any well-baked ones.
It is true that where there is gold there is also much sand; but
that cannot serve as a reason for talking a lot of nonsense in order
to say something wise.
We are surrounded by productions considered artistic. Thousands
of verses, thousands of poems, thousands of novels, thousands of
dramas, thousands of pictures, thousands of musical pieces, follow
one after another. All the verses describe love, or nature, or the
author's state of mind, and in all of them rhyme and rhythm are
observed. All the dramas and comedies are splendidly mounted and
are performed by admirably trained actors. All the novels are
divided into chapters; all of them describe love, contain effective
situations, and correctly describe the details of life. All the
symphonies contain _allegro_, _andante_, _scherzo_, and _finale_;
all consist of modulations and chords, and are played by highly
trained musicians. All the pictures, in gold frames, saliently
depict faces and sundry accessories. But among these productions
in the various branches of art, there is in each branch one among
hundreds of thousands, not only somewhat better than the rest, but
differing from them as a diamond differs from paste. The one is
priceless, the others not only have no value, but are worse than
valueless, for they deceive and pervert taste. And yet, externally,
they are, to a man of perverted or atrophied artistic perception,
precisely alike.
In our society the difficulty of recognizing real works of art is
further increased by the fact that the external quality of the work
in false productions is not only no worse, but often better, than in
real ones; the counterfeit is often more effective than the real,
and its subject more interesting. How is one to discriminate? How is
one to find a production in no way distinguished in externals from
hundreds of thousands of others intentionally made to imitate it
precisely?
For a country peasant of unperverted taste this is as easy as it is
for an animal of unspoilt scent to follow the trace he needs among
a thousand others in wood or forest. The animal unerringly finds
what he needs. So also the man, if only his natural qualities have
not been perverted, will, without fail, select from among thousands
of objects the real work of art he requires,--that infecting him
with the feeling experienced by the artist. But it is not so with
those whose taste has been perverted by their education and life.
The receptive feeling for art of these people is atrophied, and in
valuing artistic productions they must be guided by discussion and
study, which discussion and study completely confuse them. So that
most people in our society are quite unable to distinguish a work of
art from the grossest counterfeit. People sit for whole hours in
concert-rooms and theaters listening to the new composers, consider
it a duty to read the novels of the famous modern novelists, and to
look at pictures representing either something incomprehensible, or
just the very things they see much better in real life; and, above
all, they consider it incumbent on them to be enraptured by all
this, imagining it all to be art, while at the same time they will
pass real works of art by, not only without attention, but even
with contempt, merely because, in their circle, these works are not
included in the list of works of art.
A few days ago I was returning home from a walk feeling depressed,
as occurs sometimes. On nearing the house I heard the loud singing
of a large choir of peasant women. They were welcoming my daughter,
celebrating her return home after her marriage. In this singing,
with its cries and clanging of scythes, such a definite feeling
of joy, cheerfulness, and energy was expressed, that, without
noticing how it infected me, I continued my way toward the house
in a better mood, and reached home smiling, and quite in good
spirits. That same evening, a visitor, an admirable musician,
famed for his execution of classical music, and particularly of
Beethoven, played us Beethoven's sonata, Opus 101. For the benefit
of those who might otherwise attribute my judgment of that sonata
of Beethoven to non-comprehension of it, I should mention that,
whatever other people understand of that sonata and of other
productions of Beethoven's later period, I, being very susceptible
to music, equally understood. For a long time I used to attune
myself so as to delight in those shapeless improvisations which
form the subject-matter of the works of Beethoven's later period,
but I had only to consider the question of art seriously, and to
compare the impression I received from Beethoven's later works with
those pleasant, clear, and strong musical impressions which are
transmitted, for instance, by the melodies of Bach (his arias),
Haydn, Mozart, Chopin, (when his melodies are not overloaded with
complications and ornamentation), and of Beethoven himself in
his earlier period, and, above all, with the impressions produced
by folk-songs,--Italian, Norwegian, or Russian,--by the Hungarian
_tzardas_, and other such simple, clear, and powerful music, and the
obscure, almost unhealthy excitement from Beethoven's later pieces
that I had artificially evoked in myself was immediately destroyed.
On the completion of the performance (though it was noticeable that
every one had become dull) those present, in the accepted manner,
warmly praised Beethoven's profound production, and did not forget
to add that formerly they had not been able to understand that last
period of his, but that they now saw that he was really then at his
very best. And when I ventured to compare the impression made on me
by the singing of the peasant women--an impression which had been
shared by all who heard it--with the effect of this sonata, the
admirers of Beethoven only smiled contemptuously, not considering it
necessary to reply to such strange remarks.
But, for all that, the song of the peasant women was real art,
transmitting a definite and strong feeling; while the 101st sonata
of Beethoven was only an unsuccessful attempt at art, containing no
definite feeling, and therefore not infectious.
For my work on art I have this winter read diligently, though with
great effort, the celebrated novels and stories, praised by all
Europe, written by Zola, Bourget, Huysmans, and Kipling. At the
same time I chanced on a story in a child's magazine, and by a
quite unknown writer, which told of the Easter preparations in a
poor widow's family. The story tells how the mother managed with
difficulty to obtain some wheat-flour, which she poured on the
table ready to knead. She then went out to procure some yeast,
telling the children not to leave the hut, and to take care of the
flour. When the mother had gone, some other children ran shouting
near the window, calling those in the hut to come to play. The
children forgot their mother's warning, ran into the street, and
were soon engrossed in the game. The mother, on her return with
the yeast, finds a hen on the table throwing the last of the flour
to her chickens, who were busily picking it out of the dust of the
earthen floor. The mother, in despair, scolds the children, who
cry bitterly. And the mother begins to feel pity for them--but the
white flour has all gone. So to mend matters she decides to make the
Easter cake with sifted rye-flour, brushing it over with white of
egg, and surrounding it with eggs. "Rye-bread which we bake is akin
to any cake," says the mother, using a rhyming proverb to console
the children for not having an Easter cake made with white flour.
And the children, quickly passing from despair to rapture, repeat
the proverb and await the Easter cake more merrily even than before.
Well! the reading of the novels and stories by Zola, Bourget,
Huysmans, Kipling, and others, handling the most harrowing subjects,
did not touch me for one moment, and I was provoked with the authors
all the while, as one is provoked with a man who considers you so
naïve that he does not even conceal the trick by which he intends to
take you in. From the first lines you see the intention with which
the book is written, and the details all become superfluous, and
one feels dull. Above all, one knows that the author had no other
feeling all the time than a desire to write a story or a novel, and
so one receives no artistic impression. On the other hand, I could
not tear myself away from the unknown author's tale of the children
and the chickens, because I was at once infected by the feeling
which the author had evidently experienced, reëvoked in himself, and
transmitted.
Vasnetsoff is one of our Russian painters. He has painted
ecclesiastical pictures in Kieff Cathedral, and every one praises
him as the founder of some new, elevated kind of Christian art. He
worked at those pictures for ten years, was paid tens of thousands
of roubles for them, and they are all simply bad imitations of
imitations of imitations, destitute of any spark of feeling. And
this same Vasnetsoff drew a picture for Tourgenieff's story, "The
Quail" (in which it is told how, in his son's presence, a father
killed a quail and felt pity for it), showing the boy asleep with
pouting upper lip, and above him, as a dream, the quail. And this
picture is a true work of art.
In the English Academy of 1897 two pictures were exhibited together;
one of which, by J. C. Dolman, was the temptation of St. Anthony.
The saint is on his knees praying. Behind him stands a naked woman
and animals of some kind. It is apparent that the naked woman
pleased the artist very much, but that Anthony did not concern him
at all; and that, so far from the temptation being terrible to him
(the artist) it is highly agreeable. And therefore if there be any
art in this picture, it is very nasty and false. Next in the same
book of academy pictures comes a picture by Langley, showing a stray
beggar-boy, who has evidently been called in by a woman who has
taken pity on him. The boy, pitifully drawing his bare feet under
the bench, is eating; the woman is looking on, probably considering
whether he will not want some more; and a girl of about seven,
leaning on her arm, is carefully and seriously looking on, not
taking her eyes from the hungry boy, and evidently understanding for
the first time what poverty is, and what inequality among people is,
and asking herself why she has everything provided for her while
this boy goes barefoot and hungry? She feels sorry, and yet pleased.
And she loves both the boy and goodness.... And one feels that the
artist loved this girl, and that she too loves. And this picture, by
an artist who, I think, is not very widely known, is an admirable
and true work of art.
I remember seeing a performance of "Hamlet" by Rossi. Both the
tragedy itself and the performer who took the chief part are
considered by our critics to represent the climax of supreme
dramatic art. And yet, both from the subject-matter of the drama
and from the performance, I experienced all the time that peculiar
suffering which is caused by false imitations of works of art. And
I lately read of a theatrical performance among the savage tribe,
the Voguls. A spectator describes the play. A big Vogul and a little
one, both dressed in reindeer skins, represent a reindeer-doe and
its young. A third Vogul, with a bow, represents a huntsman on
snow-shoes, and a fourth imitates with his voice a bird that warns
the reindeer of their danger. The play is that the huntsman follows
the track that the doe with its young one has traveled. The deer run
off the scene, and again reappear. (Such performances take place
in a small tent-house.) The huntsman gains more and more on the
pursued. The little deer is tired, and presses against its mother.
The doe stops to draw breath. The hunter comes up with them and
draws his bow. But just then the bird sounds its note, warning the
deer of their danger. They escape. Again there is a chase, and again
the hunter gains on them, catches them, and lets fly his arrow. The
arrow strikes the young deer. Unable to run, the little one presses
against its mother. The mother licks its wound. The hunter draws
another arrow. The audience, as the eye-witness describes them, are
paralyzed with suspense; deep groans and even weeping is heard among
them. And, from the mere description, I felt that this was a true
work of art.
What I am saying will be considered irrational paradox, at which
one can only be amazed; but for all that I must say what I think;
namely, that people of our circle, of whom some compose verses,
stories, novels, operas, symphonies, and sonatas, paint all
kinds of pictures and make statues, while others hear and look
at these things, and again others appraise and criticize it all,
discuss, condemn, triumph, and raise monuments to one another,
generation after generation,--that all these people, with very few
exceptions, artists, and public, and critics, have never (except
in childhood and earliest youth, before hearing any discussions
on art) experienced that simple feeling familiar to the plainest
man and even to a child, that sense of infection with another's
feeling,--compelling us to joy in another's gladness, to sorrow at
another's grief, and to mingle souls with another,--which is the
very essence of art. And therefore these people not only cannot
distinguish true works of art from counterfeits, but continually
mistake for real art the worst and most artificial, while they do
not even perceive works of real art, because the counterfeits are
always more ornate, while true art is modest.
CHAPTER XV
Art, in our society, has been so perverted that not only has bad art
come to be considered good, but even the very perception of what
art really is has been lost. In order to be able to speak about the
art of our society, it is, therefore, first of all necessary to
distinguish art from counterfeit art.
There is one indubitable indication distinguishing real art from
its counterfeit, namely, the infectiousness of art. If a man,
without exercising effort and without altering his standpoint,
on reading, hearing, or seeing another man's work, experiences a
mental condition which unites him with that man and with other
people who also partake of that work of art, then the object evoking
that condition is a work of art. And however poetical, realistic,
effectful, or interesting a work may be, it is not a work of art
if it does not evoke that feeling (quite distinct from all other
feelings) of joy, and of spiritual union with another (the author)
and with others (those who are also infected by it).
It is true that this indication is an _internal_ one, and that there
are people who have forgotten what the action of real art is, who
expect something else from art (in our society the great majority
are in this state), and that therefore such people may mistake for
this æsthetic feeling the feeling of divertisement and a certain
excitement which they receive from counterfeits of art. But though
it is impossible to undeceive these people, just as it is impossible
to convince a man suffering from "Daltonism" that green is not red,
yet, for all that, this indication remains perfectly definite to
those whose feeling for art is neither perverted nor atrophied, and
it clearly distinguishes the feeling produced by art from all other
feelings.
The chief peculiarity of this feeling is that the receiver of a
true artistic impression is so united to the artist that he feels
as if the work were his own and not some one else's,--as if what
it expresses were just what he had long been wishing to express. A
real work of art destroys, in the consciousness of the receiver, the
separation between himself and the artist; nor that alone, but also
between himself and all whose minds receive this work of art. In
this freeing of our personality from its separation and isolation,
in this uniting of it with others, lies the chief characteristic and
the great attractive force of art.
If a man is infected by the author's condition of soul, if he feels
this emotion and this union with others, then the object which has
effected this is art; but if there be no such infection, if there be
not this union with the author and with others who are moved by the
same work--then it is not art. And not only is infection a sure sign
of art, but the degree of infectiousness is also the sole measure of
excellence in art.
_The stronger the infection the better is the art; as art_, speaking
now apart from its subject-matter, _i.e._ not considering the
quality of the feelings it transmits.
And the degree of the infectiousness of art depends on three
conditions:--
(1) On the greater or lesser individuality of the feeling
transmitted; (2) on the greater or lesser clearness with which the
feeling is transmitted; (3) on the sincerity of the artist, _i.e._
on the greater or lesser force with which the artist himself feels
the emotion he transmits.
The more individual the feeling transmitted the more strongly does
it act on the receiver; the more individual the state of soul into
which he is transferred the more pleasure does the receiver obtain,
and therefore the more readily and strongly does he join in it.
The clearness of expression assists infection, because the receiver,
who mingles in consciousness with the author, is the better
satisfied the more clearly the feeling is transmitted, which, as it
seems to him, he has long known and felt, and for which he has only
now found expression.
But most of all is the degree of infectiousness of art increased by
the degree of sincerity in the artist. As soon as the spectator,
hearer, or reader feels that the artist is infected by his own
production, and writes, sings, or plays for himself, and not merely
to act on others, this mental condition of the artist infects the
receiver; and, contrariwise, as soon as the spectator, reader, or
hearer feels that the author is not writing, singing, or playing
for his own satisfaction,--does not himself feel what he wishes
to express,--but is doing it for him, the receiver, a resistance
immediately springs up, and the most individual and the newest
feelings and the cleverest technique not only fail to produce any
infection, but actually repel.
I have mentioned three conditions of contagiousness in art, but they
may be all summed up into one, the last, sincerity, _i.e._ that the
artist should be impelled by an inner need to express his feeling.
That condition includes the first; for if the artist is sincere he
will express the feeling as he experienced it. And as each man is
different from every one else, his feeling will be individual for
every one else; and the more individual it is,--the more the artist
has drawn it from the depths of his nature,--the more sympathetic
and sincere will it be. And this same sincerity will impel the
artist to find a clear expression of the feeling which he wishes to
transmit.
Therefore this third condition--sincerity--is the most important
of the three. It is always complied with in peasant art, and this
explains why such art always acts so powerfully; but it is a
condition almost entirely absent from our upper-class art, which
is continually produced by artists actuated by personal aims of
covetousness or vanity.
Such are the three conditions which divide art from its
counterfeits, and which also decide the quality of every work of art
apart from its subject-matter.
The absence of any one of these conditions excludes a work from the
category of art and relegates it to that of art's counterfeits. If
the work does not transmit the artist's peculiarity of feeling, and
is therefore not individual, if it is unintelligibly expressed,
or if it has not proceeded from the author's inner need for
expression--it is not a work of art. If all these conditions are
present, even in the smallest degree, then the work, even if a weak
one, is yet a work of art.
The presence in various degrees of these three
conditions--individuality, clearness, and sincerity--decides the
merit of a work of art, as art, apart from subject-matter. All works
of art take rank of merit according to the degree in which they
fulfil the first, the second, and the third of these conditions. In
one the individuality of the feeling transmitted may predominate;
in another, clearness of expression; in a third, sincerity; while
a fourth may have sincerity and individuality, but be deficient in
clearness; a fifth, individuality and clearness, but less sincerity;
and so forth, in all possible degrees and combinations.
Thus is art divided from not art, and thus is the quality of art, as
art, decided, independently of its subject-matter, _i.e._ apart from
whether the feelings it transmits are good or bad.
But how are we to define good and bad art with reference to its
subject-matter?
CHAPTER XVI
How in art are we to decide what is good and what is bad in
subject-matter?
Art, like speech, is a means of communication, and therefore
of progress, _i.e._ of the movement of humanity forward toward
perfection. Speech renders accessible to men of the latest
generations all the knowledge discovered by the experience and
reflection, both of preceding generations and of the best and
foremost men of their own times; art renders accessible to men
of the latest generations all the feelings experienced by their
predecessors, and those also which are being felt by their best and
foremost contemporaries. And as the evolution of knowledge proceeds
by truer and more necessary knowledge dislodging and replacing
what is mistaken and unnecessary, so the evolution of feeling
proceeds through art,--feelings less kind and less needful for the
well-being of mankind are replaced by others kinder and more needful
for that end. That is the purpose of art. And, speaking now of its
subject-matter, the more art fulfils that purpose the better the
art, and the less it fulfils it the worse the art.
And the appraisement of feelings (_i.e._ the acknowledgment of these
or those feelings as being more or less good, more or less necessary
for the well-being of mankind) is made by the religious perception
of the age.
In every period of history, and in every human society, there
exists an understanding of the meaning of life which represents
the highest level to which men of that society have attained,--an
understanding defining the highest good at which that society aims.
And this understanding is the religious perception of the given
time and society. And this religious perception is always clearly
expressed by some advanced men, and more or less vividly perceived
by all the members of the society. Such a religious perception and
its corresponding expression exists always in every society. If it
appears to us that in our society there is no religious perception,
this is not because there really is none, but only because we do
not want to see it. And we often wish not to see it because it
exposes the fact that our life is inconsistent with that religious
perception.
Religious perception in a society is like the direction of a flowing
river. If the river flows at all, it must have a direction. If a
society lives, there must be a religious perception indicating the
direction in which, more or less consciously, all its members tend.
And so there always has been, and there is, a religious perception
in every society. And it is by the standard of this religious
perception that the feelings transmitted by art have always been
estimated. Only on the basis of this religious perception of their
age have men always chosen from the endlessly varied spheres of art
that art which transmitted feelings making religious perception
operative in actual life. And such art has always been highly
valued and encouraged; while art transmitting feelings already
outlived, flowing from the antiquated religious perceptions of a
former age, has always been condemned and despised. All the rest
of art, transmitting those most diverse feelings by means of which
people commune together, was not condemned, and was tolerated, if
only it did not transmit feelings contrary to religious perception.
Thus, for instance, among the Greeks, art transmitting the feeling
of beauty, strength, and courage (Hesiod, Homer, Phidias) was
chosen, approved, and encouraged; while art transmitting feelings
of rude sensuality, despondency, and effeminacy was condemned and
despised. Among the Jews, art transmitting feelings of devotion
and submission to the God of the Hebrews and to His will (the epic
of Genesis, the prophets, the Psalms) was chosen and encouraged,
while art transmitting feelings of idolatry (the golden calf) was
condemned and despised. All the rest of art--stories, songs, dances,
ornamentation of houses, of utensils, and of clothes--which was
not contrary to religious perception, was neither distinguished
nor discussed. Thus, in regard to its subject-matter, has art been
appraised always and everywhere, and thus it should be appraised;
for this attitude toward art proceeds from the fundamental
characteristics of human nature, and those characteristics do not
change.
I know that according to an opinion current in our times religion is
a superstition which humanity has outgrown, and that it is therefore
assumed that no such thing exists as a religious perception, common
to us all, by which art, in our time, can be estimated. I know
that this is the opinion current in the pseudo-cultured circles
of to-day. People who do not acknowledge Christianity in its true
meaning because it undermines all their social privileges, and who,
therefore, invent all kinds of philosophic and æsthetic theories
to hide from themselves the meaninglessness and wrongness of their
lives, cannot think otherwise. These people intentionally, or
sometimes unintentionally, confusing the conception of a religious
cult with the conception of religious perception, think that by
denying the cult they get rid of religious perception. But even
the very attacks on religion, and the attempts to establish a
life-conception contrary to the religious perception of our times,
most clearly demonstrate the existence of a religious perception
condemning the lives that are not in harmony with it.
If humanity progresses, _i.e._ moves forward, there must inevitably
be a guide to the direction of that movement. And religions have
always furnished that guide. All history shows that the progress
of humanity is accomplished not otherwise than under the guidance
of religion. But if the race cannot progress without the guidance
of religion,--and progress is always going on, and consequently
also in our own times,--then there must be a religion of our times.
So that, whether it pleases or displeases the so-called cultured
people of to-day, they must admit the existence of religion,--not
of a religious cult, Catholic, Protestant, or another, but of
religious perception,--which, even in our times, is the guide always
present where there is any progress. And if a religious perception
exists amongst us, then our art should be appraised on the basis
of that religious perception; and, as has always and everywhere
been the case, art transmitting feelings flowing from the religious
perception of our time should be chosen from all the indifferent
art, should be acknowledged, highly esteemed, and encouraged; while
art running counter to that perception should be condemned and
despised, and all the remaining indifferent art should neither be
distinguished nor encouraged.
The religious perception of our time, in its widest and most
practical application, is the consciousness that our well-being,
both material and spiritual, individual and collective, temporal
and eternal, lies in the growth of brotherhood among all men--in
their loving harmony with one another. This perception is not only
expressed by Christ and all the best men of past ages, it is not
only repeated in the most varied forms and from most diverse sides
by the best men of our own times, but it already serves as a clue to
all the complex labor of humanity, consisting as this labor does,
on the one hand, in the destruction of physical and moral obstacles
to the union of men, and, on the other hand, in establishing the
principles common to all men which can and should unite them into
one universal brotherhood. And it is on the basis of this perception
that we should appraise all the phenomena of our life, and, among
the rest, our art also; choosing from all its realms whatever
transmits feelings flowing from this religious perception, highly
prizing and encouraging such art, rejecting whatever is contrary
to this perception, and not attributing to the rest of art an
importance not properly pertaining to it.
The chief mistake made by people of the upper classes of the time of
the so-called Renaissance--a mistake which we still perpetuate--was
not that they ceased to value and to attach importance to religious
art (people of that period could not attach importance to it,
because, like our own upper classes, they could not believe in what
the majority considered to be religion), but their mistake was
that they set up in place of religious art, which was lacking, an
insignificant art which aimed only at giving pleasure, _i.e._ they
began to choose, to value, and to encourage, in place of religious
art, something which, in any case, did not deserve such esteem and
encouragement.
One of the Fathers of the Church said that the great evil is, not
that men do not know God, but that they have set up, instead of
God, that which is not God. So also with art. The great misfortune
of the people of the upper classes of our time is not so much that
they are without a religious art, as that, instead of a supreme
religious art, chosen from all the rest as being specially important
and valuable, they have chosen a most insignificant and, usually,
harmful art, which aims at pleasing certain people, and which,
therefore, if only by its exclusive nature, stands in contradiction
to that Christian principle of universal union which forms the
religious perception of our time. Instead of religious art, an empty
and often vicious art is set up, and this hides from men's notice
the need of that true religious art which should be present in life
in order to improve it.
It is true that art which satisfies the demands of the
religious perception of our time is quite unlike former art,
but, notwithstanding this dissimilarity, to a man who does not
intentionally hide the truth from himself, it is very clear and
definite what does form the religious art of our age. In former
times, when the highest religious perception united only some people
(who, even if they formed a large society, were yet but one society
surrounded by others--Jews, or Athenian or Roman citizens), the
feelings transmitted by the art of that time flowed from a desire
for the might, greatness, glory, and prosperity of that society, and
the heroes of art might be people who contributed to that prosperity
by strength, by craft, by fraud, or by cruelty (Ulysses, Jacob,
David, Samson, Hercules, and all the heroes). But the religious
perception of our times does not select any one society of men; on
the contrary, it demands the union of all,--absolutely of all people
without exception,--and above every other virtue it sets brotherly
love to all men. And, therefore, the feelings transmitted by the art
of our time not only cannot coincide with the feelings transmitted
by former art, but must run counter to them.
Christian, truly Christian, art has been so long in establishing
itself, and has not yet established itself, just because the
Christian religious perception was not one of those small steps by
which humanity advances regularly, but was an enormous revolution,
which, if it has not already altered, must inevitably alter the
entire life-conception of mankind, and, consequently, the whole
internal organization of their life. It is true that the life of
humanity, like that of an individual, moves regularly; but in that
regular movement come, as it were, turning-points, which sharply
divide the preceding from the subsequent life. Christianity was such
a turning-point; such, at least, it must appear to us who live by
the Christian perception of life. Christian perception gave another,
a new, direction to all human feelings, and therefore completely
altered both the contents and the significance of art. The Greeks
could make use of Persian art and the Romans could use Greek art,
or, similarly, the Jews could use Egyptian art,--the fundamental
ideals were one and the same. Now the ideal was the greatness and
prosperity of the Persians, now the greatness and prosperity of the
Greeks, now that of the Romans. The same art was transferred into
other conditions, and served new nations. But the Christian ideal
changed and reversed everything, so that, as the gospel puts it,
"That which was exalted among men has become an abomination in the
sight of God." The ideal is no longer the greatness of Pharaoh or
of a Roman emperor, not the beauty of a Greek, nor the wealth of
Phœnicia, but humility, purity, compassion, love. The hero is no
longer Dives, but Lazarus the beggar; not Mary Magdalene in the
day of her beauty, but in the day of her repentance; not those who
acquire wealth, but those who have abandoned it; not those who dwell
in palaces, but those who dwell in catacombs and huts; not those
who rule over others, but those who acknowledge no authority but
God's. And the greatest work of art is no longer a cathedral of
victory[119] with statues of conquerors, but the representation of
a human soul so transformed by love that a man who is tormented and
murdered yet pities and loves his persecutors.
[119] There is in Moscow a magnificent "Cathedral of our Saviour,"
erected to commemorate the defeat of the French in the war of
1812.--TR.
And the change is so great that men of the Christian world find
it difficult to resist the inertia of the heathen art to which
they have been accustomed all their lives. The subject-matter
of Christian religious art is so new to them, so unlike the
subject-matter of former art, that it seems to them as though
Christian art were a denial of art, and they cling desperately to
the old art. But this old art, having no longer, in our day, any
source in religious perception, has lost its meaning, and we shall
have to abandon it whether we wish to or not.
The essence of the Christian perception consists in the recognition
by every man of his sonship to God, and of the consequent union of
men with God and with one another, as is said in the gospel (John
xvii. 21[120]). Therefore the subject-matter of Christian art is
such feeling as can unite men with God and with one another.
[120] "That they may be one; even as thou, Father, art in me, and I
in thee, that they also may be in us."
The expression _unite men with God and with one another_ may seem
obscure to people accustomed to the misuse of these words which
is so customary, but the words have a perfectly clear meaning
nevertheless. They indicate that the Christian union of man (in
contradiction to the partial, exclusive union of only some men) is
that which unites all without exception.
Art, all art, has this characteristic, that it unites people. Every
art causes those to whom the artist's feeling is transmitted to
unite in soul with the artist, and also with all who receive the
same impression. But non-Christian art, while uniting some people
together, makes that very union a cause of separation between these
united people and others; so that union of this kind is often a
source, not only of division, but even of enmity toward others.
Such is all patriotic art, with its anthems, poems, and monuments;
such is all Church art, _i.e._ the art of certain cults, with their
images, statues, processions, and other local ceremonies. Such art
is belated and non-Christian art, uniting the people of one cult
only to separate them yet more sharply from the members of other
cults, and even to place them in relations of hostility to each
other. Christian art is only such as tends to unite all without
exception, either by evoking in them the perception that each man
and all men stand in like relation toward God and toward their
neighbor, or by evoking in them identical feelings, which may even
be the very simplest, provided only that they are not repugnant to
Christianity and are natural to every one without exception.
Good Christian art of our time may be unintelligible to people
because of imperfections in its form, or because men are inattentive
to it, but it must be such that all men can experience the feelings
it transmits. It must be the art, not of some one group of people,
nor of one class, nor of one nationality, nor of one religious
cult; that is, it must not transmit feelings which are accessible
only to a man educated in a certain way, or only to an aristocrat,
or a merchant, or only to a Russian, or a native of Japan, or a
Roman Catholic, or a Buddhist, etc., but it must transmit feelings
accessible to every one. Only art of this kind can be acknowledged
in our time to be good art, worthy of being chosen out from all the
rest of art and encouraged.
Christian art, _i.e._ the art of our time, should be catholic in
the original meaning of the word, _i.e._ universal, and therefore
it should unite all men. And only two kinds of feeling do unite all
men: first, feelings flowing from the perception of our sonship to
God and of the brotherhood of man; and next, the simple feelings of
common life, accessible to every one without exception--such as the
feeling of merriment, of pity, of cheerfulness, of tranquillity,
etc. Only these two kinds of feelings can now supply material for
art good in its subject-matter.
And the action of these two kinds of art, apparently so dissimilar,
is one and the same. The feelings flowing from perception of our
sonship to God and of the brotherhood of man--such as a feeling of
sureness in truth, devotion to the will of God, self-sacrifice,
respect for and love of man--evoked by Christian religious
perception; and the simplest feelings--such as a softened or a merry
mood caused by a song or an amusing jest intelligible to every one,
or by a touching story, or a drawing, or a little doll: both alike
produce one and the same effect,--the loving union of man with
man. Sometimes people who are together are, if not hostile to one
another, at least estranged in mood and feeling, till perchance a
story, a performance, a picture, or even a building, but oftenest of
all, music, unites them all as by an electric flash, and, in place
of their former isolation or even enmity, they are all conscious
of union and mutual love. Each is glad that another feels what he
feels; glad of the communion established, not only between him
and all present, but also with all now living who will yet share
the same impression; and more than that, he feels the mysterious
gladness of a communion which, reaching beyond the grave, unites us
with all men of the past who have been moved by the same feelings,
and with all men of the future who will yet be touched by them. And
this effect is produced both by the religious art which transmits
feelings of love to God and one's neighbor, and by universal art,
transmitting the very simplest feelings common to all men.
The art of our time should be appraised differently from former art
chiefly in this, that the art of our time, _i.e._ Christian art
(basing itself on a religious perception which demands the union
of man), excludes from the domain of art good in subject-matter
everything transmitting exclusive feelings, which do not unite
but divide men. It relegates such work to the category of art bad
in its subject-matter, while, on the other hand, it includes in
the category of art good in subject-matter a section not formerly
admitted to deserve to be chosen out and respected, namely,
universal art, transmitting even the most trifling and simple
feelings if only they are accessible to all men without exception,
and therefore unite them. Such art cannot, in our time, but be
esteemed good, for it attains the end which the religious perception
of our time, _i.e._ Christianity, sets before humanity.
Christian art either evokes in men those feelings which, through
love of God and of one's neighbor, draw them to greater and ever
greater union, and make them ready for and capable of such union; or
evokes in them those feelings which show them that they are already
united in the joys and sorrows of life. And therefore the Christian
art of our time can be and is of two kinds: (1) art transmitting
feelings flowing from a religious perception of man's position
in the world in relation to God and to his neighbor--religious
art in the limited meaning of the term; and (2) art transmitting
the simplest feelings of common life, but such, always, as are
accessible to all men in the whole world--the art of common
life--the art of a people--universal art. Only these two kinds of
art can be considered good art in our time.
The first, religious art,--transmitting both positive feelings of
love to God and one's neighbor, and negative feelings of indignation
and horror at the violation of love,--manifests itself chiefly
in the form of words, and to some extent also in painting and
sculpture: the second kind (universal art), transmitting feelings
accessible to all, manifests itself in words, in painting, in
sculpture, in dances, in architecture, and, most of all, in music.
If I were asked to give modern examples of each of these kinds of
art, then, as examples of the highest art, flowing from love of God
and man (both of the higher, positive, and of the lower, negative
kind), in literature I should name, "The Robbers," by Schiller;
Victor Hugo's "Les Pauvres Gens" and "Les Misérables"; the novels
and stories of Dickens,--"The Tale of Two Cities," "The Christmas
Carol," "The Chimes," and others; "Uncle Tom's Cabin;" Dostoievsky's
works--especially his "Memoirs from the House of Death"; and "Adam
Bede," by George Eliot.
In modern painting, strange to say, works of this kind, directly
transmitting the Christian feeling of love of God and of one's
neighbor, are hardly to be found, especially among the works of
the celebrated painters. There are plenty of pictures treating of
the gospel stories; they, however, depict historical events with
great wealth of detail, but do not, and cannot, transmit religious
feeling not possessed by their painters. There are many pictures
treating of the personal feelings of various people, but of pictures
representing great deeds of self-sacrifice and of Christian love
there are very few, and what there are, are principally by artists
who are not celebrated, and are, for the most part, not pictures,
but merely sketches. Such, for instance, is the drawing by Kramskoy
(worth many of his finished pictures), showing a drawing-room with a
balcony, past which troops are marching in triumph on their return
from the war. On the balcony stands a wet-nurse holding a baby and a
boy. They are admiring the procession of the troops, but the mother,
covering her face with a handkerchief, has fallen back on the sofa,
sobbing. Such also is the picture by Walter Langley, to which I have
already referred, and such again is a picture by the French artist
Morlon, depicting a lifeboat hastening, in a heavy storm, to the
relief of a steamer that is being wrecked. Approaching these in kind
are pictures which represent the hard-working peasant with respect
and love. Such are the pictures by Millet, and, particularly, his
drawing, "The Man with the Hoe"; also pictures in this style by
Jules Breton, L'Hermitte, Defregger, and others. As examples of
pictures evoking indignation and horror at the violation of love
to God and man, Gay's picture, "Judgment," may serve, and also
Leizen-Mayer's, "Signing the Death Warrant." But there are also very
few of this kind. Anxiety about the technique and the beauty of
the picture for the most part obscures the feeling. For instance,
Gérôme's "Pollice Verso" expresses, not so much horror at what is
being perpetrated as attraction by the beauty of the spectacle.[121]
[121] In this picture the spectators in the Roman Amphitheater are
turning down their thumbs to show that they wish the vanquished
gladiator to be killed.--TR.
To give examples, from the modern art of our upper classes, of art
of the second kind, good universal art or even of the art of a whole
people, is yet more difficult, especially in literary art and music.
If there are some works which by their inner contents might be
assigned to this class (such as "Don Quixote," Molière's comedies,
"David Copperfield" and "The Pickwick Papers" by Dickens, Gogol's
and Pushkin's tales, and some things of Maupassant's), these works
are for the most part--from the exceptional nature of the feelings
they transmit, and the superfluity of special details of time
and locality, and, above all, on account of the poverty of their
subject-matter in comparison with examples of universal ancient
art (such, for instance, as the story of Joseph)--comprehensible
only to people of their own circle. That Joseph's brethren, being
jealous of his father's affection, sell him to the merchants; that
Potiphar's wife wishes to tempt the youth; that having attained the
highest station, he takes pity on his brothers, including Benjamin,
the favorite,--these and all the rest are feelings accessible alike
to a Russian peasant, a Chinese, an African, a child, or an old man,
educated or uneducated; and it is all written with such restraint,
is so free from any superfluous detail, that the story may be told
to any circle and will be equally comprehensible and touching to
every one. But not such are the feelings of Don Quixote or of
Molière's heroes (though Molière is perhaps the most universal,
and therefore the most excellent, artist of modern times), nor of
Pickwick and his friends. These feelings are not common to all
men, but very exceptional; and therefore, to make them infectious,
the authors have surrounded them with abundant details of time and
place. And this abundance of detail makes the stories difficult
of comprehension to all people not living within reach of the
conditions described by the author.
The author of the novel of Joseph did not need to describe in
detail, as would be done nowadays, the blood-stained coat of
Joseph, the dwelling and dress of Jacob, the pose and attire of
Potiphar's wife, and how, adjusting the bracelet on her left arm,
she said, "Come to me," and so on, because the subject-matter of
feelings in this novel is so strong that all details, except the
most essential,--such as that Joseph went out into another room to
weep,--are superfluous, and would only hinder the transmission of
feelings. And therefore this novel is accessible to all men, touches
people of all nations and classes, young and old, and has lasted to
our times, and will yet last for thousands of years to come. But
strip the best novels of our times of their details, and what will
remain?
It is therefore impossible in modern literature to indicate works
fully satisfying the demands of universality. Such works as exist
are, to a great extent, spoilt by what is usually called "realism,"
but would be better termed "provincialism," in art.
In music the same occurs as in verbal art, and for similar reasons.
In consequence of the poorness of the feeling they contain,
the melodies of the modern composers are amazingly empty and
insignificant. And to strengthen the impression produced by these
empty melodies, the new musicians pile complex modulations on to
each trivial melody, not only in their own national manner, but
also in the way characteristic of their own exclusive circle and
particular musical school. Melody--every melody--is free, and may
be understood of all men; but as soon as it is bound up with a
particular harmony, it ceases to be accessible except to people
trained to such harmony, and it becomes strange, not only to
common men of another nationality, but to all who do not belong
to the circle whose members have accustomed themselves to certain
forms of harmonization. So that music, like poetry, travels in a
vicious circle. Trivial and exclusive melodies, in order to make
them attractive, are laden with harmonic, rhythmic, and orchestral
complications, and thus become yet more exclusive; and, far from
being universal, are not even national, _i.e._ they are not
comprehensible to the whole people but only to some people.
In music, besides marches and dances by various composers, which
satisfy the demands of universal art, one can indicate very few
works of this class: Bach's famous violin _aria_, Chopin's nocturne
in E-flat major, and perhaps a dozen bits (not whole pieces,
but parts) selected from the works of Haydn, Mozart, Schubert,
Beethoven, and Chopin.[122]
[122] While offering as examples of art those that seem to me the
best, I attach no special importance to my selection; for, besides
being insufficiently informed in all branches of art, I belong
to the class of people whose taste has, by false training, been
perverted. And therefore my old, inured habits may cause me to
err, and I may mistake for absolute merit the impression a work
produced on me in my youth. My only purpose in mentioning examples
of works of this or that class is to make my meaning clearer, and
to show how, with my present views, I understand excellence in art
in relation to its subject-matter. I must, moreover, mention that
I consign my own artistic productions to the category of bad art,
excepting the story "God sees the Truth," which seeks a place in the
first class, and "The Prisoner of the Caucasus," which belongs to
the second.
Although in painting the same thing is repeated as in poetry and
music,--namely, that in order to make them more interesting, works
weak in conception are surrounded by minutely studied accessories
of time and place, which give them a temporary and local interest
but make them less universal,--still, in painting, more than in the
other spheres of art, may be found works satisfying the demands
of universal Christian art; that is to say, there are more works
expressing feelings in which all men may participate.
In the arts of painting and sculpture, all pictures and statues
in so-called genre style, depictions of animals, landscapes and
caricatures with subjects comprehensible to every one, and also
all kinds of ornaments, are universal in subject-matter. Such
productions in painting and sculpture are very numerous (_e.g._
china dolls), but for the most part such objects (for instance,
ornaments of all kinds) are either not considered to be art or are
considered to be art of a low quality. In reality all such objects,
if only they transmit a true feeling experienced by the artist and
comprehensible to every one (however insignificant it may seem to us
to be) are works of real good Christian art.
I fear it will here be urged against me that having denied that
the conception of beauty can supply a standard for works of art, I
contradict myself by acknowledging ornaments to be works of good
art. The reproach is unjust, for the subject-matter of all kinds of
ornamentation consists not in the beauty, but in the feeling (of
admiration of, and delight in, the combination of lines and colors)
which the artist has experienced and with which he infects the
spectator. Art remains what it was and what it must be: nothing
but the infection by one man of another, or of others, with the
feelings experienced by the infector. Among those feelings is the
feeling of delight at what pleases the sight. Objects pleasing the
sight may be such as please a small or a large number of people,
or such as please all men. And ornaments for the most part are of
the latter kind. A landscape representing a very unusual view, or a
genre picture of a special subject, may not please every one, but
ornaments, from Yakutsk ornaments to Greek ones, are intelligible
to every one and evoke a similar feeling of admiration in all, and
therefore this despised kind of art should, in Christian society, be
esteemed far above exceptional, pretentious pictures and sculptures.
So that there are only two kinds of good Christian art: all the rest
of art not comprised in these two divisions should be acknowledged
to be bad art, deserving not to be encouraged, but to be driven
out, denied, and despised, as being art not uniting but dividing
people. Such, in literary art, are all novels and poems which
transmit Church or patriotic feelings, and also exclusive feelings
pertaining only to the class of the idle rich; such as aristocratic
honor, satiety, spleen, pessimism, and refined and vicious feelings
flowing from sex-love--quite incomprehensible to the great majority
of mankind.
In painting we must similarly place in the class of bad art all
the Church, patriotic, and exclusive pictures; all the pictures
representing the amusements and allurements of a rich and idle life;
all the so-called symbolic pictures, in which the very meaning of
the symbol is comprehensible only to the people of a certain circle;
and, above all, pictures with voluptuous subjects--all that odious
female nudity which fills all the exhibitions and galleries. And to
this class belongs almost all the chamber and opera music of our
times,--beginning especially from Beethoven (Schumann, Berlioz,
Liszt, Wagner), by its subject-matter devoted to the expression of
feelings accessible only to people who have developed in themselves
an unhealthy, nervous irritation evoked by this exclusive,
artificial, and complex music.
"What! the '_Ninth Symphony_' not a good work of art!" I hear
exclaimed by indignant voices.
And I reply, Most certainly it is not. All that I have written I
have written with the sole purpose of finding a clear and reasonable
criterion by which to judge the merits of works of art. And this
criterion, coinciding with the indications of plain and sane sense,
indubitably shows me that that symphony by Beethoven is not a good
work of art. Of course, to people educated in the adoration of
certain productions and of their authors, to people whose taste
has been perverted just by being educated in such adoration, the
acknowledgment that such a celebrated work is bad is amazing and
strange. But how are we to escape the indications of reason and of
common sense?
Beethoven's "Ninth Symphony" is considered a great work of art.
To verify its claim to be such, I must first ask myself whether
this work transmits the highest religious feeling? I reply in the
negative, for music in itself cannot transmit those feelings; and
therefore I ask myself next, Since this work does not belong to the
highest kind of religious art, has it the other characteristic of
the good art of our time,--the quality of uniting all men in one
common feeling: does it rank as Christian universal art? And again I
have no option but to reply in the negative; for not only do I not
see how the feelings transmitted by this work could unite people not
specially trained to submit themselves to its complex hypnotism,
but I am unable to imagine to myself a crowd of normal people who
could understand anything of this long, confused, and artificial
production, except short snatches which are lost in a sea of what
is incomprehensible. And therefore, whether I like it or not, I am
compelled to conclude that this work belongs to the rank of bad art.
It is curious to note in this connection, that attached to the end
of this very symphony is a poem of Schiller's which (though somewhat
obscurely) expresses this very thought, namely, that feeling
(Schiller speaks only of the feeling of gladness) unites people and
evokes love in them. But though this poem is sung at the end of the
symphony, the music does not accord with the thought expressed in
the verses; for the music is exclusive and does not unite all men,
but unites only a few, dividing them off from the rest of mankind.
And just in this same way, in all branches of art, many and many
works considered great by the upper classes of our society will have
to be judged. By this one sure criterion we shall have to judge the
celebrated "Divine Comedy" and "Jerusalem Delivered," and a great
part of Shakespear's and Goethe's works, and in painting every
representation of miracles, including Raphael's "Transfiguration,"
etc.
Whatever the work may be and however it may have been extolled,
we have first to ask whether this work is one of real art or a
counterfeit. Having acknowledged, on the basis of the indication of
its infectiousness even to a small class of people, that a certain
production belongs to the realm of art, it is necessary, on the
basis of the indication of its accessibility, to decide the next
question, Does this work belong to the category of bad, exclusive
art, opposed to religious perception, or to Christian art, uniting
people? And having acknowledged an article to belong to real
Christian art, we must then, according to whether it transmits
the feelings flowing from love to God and man, or merely the
simple feelings uniting all men, assign it a place in the ranks of
religious art or in those of universal art.
Only on the basis of such verification shall we find it possible to
select from the whole mass of what, in our society, claims to be
art, those works which form real, important, necessary spiritual
food, and to separate them from all the harmful and useless art,
and from the counterfeits of art which surround us. Only on the
basis of such verification shall we be able to rid ourselves of
the pernicious results of harmful art, and to avail ourselves of
that beneficent action which is the purpose of true and good art,
and which is indispensable for the spiritual life of man and of
humanity.
CHAPTER XVII
Art is one of two organs of human progress. By words man
interchanges thoughts, by the forms of art he interchanges feelings,
and this with all men, not only of the present time, but also of the
past and the future. It is natural to human beings to employ both
these organs of intercommunication, and therefore the perversion of
either of them must cause evil results to the society in which it
occurs. And these results will be of two kinds: first, the absence,
in that society, of the work which should be performed by the organ;
and secondly, the harmful activity of the perverted organ. And just
these results have shown themselves in our society. The organ of
art has been perverted, and therefore the upper classes of society
have, to a great extent, been deprived of the work that it should
have performed. The diffusion in our society of enormous quantities
of, on the one hand, those counterfeits of art which only serve
to amuse and corrupt people, and, on the other hand, of works of
insignificant, exclusive art, mistaken for the highest art, have
perverted most men's capacity to be infected by true works of art,
and have thus deprived them of the possibility of experiencing the
highest feelings to which mankind has attained, and which can only
be transmitted from man to man by art.
All the best that has been done in art by man remains strange to
people who lack the capacity to be infected by art, and is replaced
either by spurious counterfeits of art or by insignificant art,
which they mistake for real art. People of our time and of our
society are delighted with Baudelaires, Verlaines, Moréases, Ibsens,
and Maeterlincks in poetry; with Monets, Manets, Puvis de Chavannes,
Burne-Joneses, Stucks, and Böcklins in painting; with Wagners,
Liszts, Richard Strausses, in music; and they are no longer capable
of comprehending either the highest or the simplest art.
In the upper classes, in consequence of this loss of capacity to be
infected by works of art, people grow up, are educated, and live,
lacking the fertilizing, improving influence of art, and therefore
not only do not advance toward perfection, do not become kinder,
but, on the contrary, possessing highly developed external means of
civilization, they yet tend to become continually more savage, more
coarse, and more cruel.
Such is the result of the absence from our society of the activity
of that essential organ--art. But the consequences of the perverted
activity of that organ are yet more harmful. And they are numerous.
The first consequence, plain for all to see, is the enormous
expenditure of the labor of working people on things which are
not only useless, but which, for the most part, are harmful;
and more than that, the waste of priceless human lives on this
unnecessary and harmful business. It is terrible to consider with
what intensity, and amid what privations, millions of people--who
lack time and opportunity to attend to what they and their families
urgently require--labor for 10, 12, or 14 hours on end, and even at
night, setting the type for pseudo-artistic books which spread vice
among mankind, or working for theaters, concerts, exhibitions, and
picture-galleries, which, for the most part, also serve vice; but
it is yet more terrible to reflect that lively, kindly children,
capable of all that is good, are devoted from their early years to
such tasks as these: that for 6, 8, or 10 hours a day, and for 10
or 15 years, some of them should play scales and exercises; others
should twist their limbs, walk on their toes, and lift their legs
above their heads; a third set should sing solfeggios; a fourth
set, showing themselves off in all manner of ways, should pronounce
verses; a fifth set should draw from busts or from nude models and
paint studies; a sixth set should write compositions according
to the rules of certain periods; and that in these occupations,
unworthy of a human being, which are often continued long after full
maturity, they should waste their physical and mental strength and
lose all perception of the meaning of life. It is often said that
it is horrible and pitiful to see little acrobats putting their
legs over their necks, but it is not less pitiful to see children
of 10 giving concerts, and it is still worse to see school-boys of
10 who, as a preparation for literary work, have learnt by heart
the exceptions to the Latin grammar. These people not only grow
physically and mentally deformed, but also morally deformed, and
become incapable of doing anything really needed by man. Occupying
in society the rôle of amusers of the rich, they lose their sense of
human dignity, and develop in themselves such a passion for public
applause that they are always a prey to an inflated and unsatisfied
vanity which grows in them to diseased dimensions, and they expend
their mental strength in efforts to obtain satisfaction for this
passion. And what is most tragic of all is that these people, who
for the sake of art are spoilt for life, not only do not render
service to this art, but, on the contrary, inflict the greatest harm
on it. They are taught in academies, schools, and conservatoires how
to counterfeit art, and by learning this they so pervert themselves
that they quite lose the capacity to produce works of real art, and
become purveyors of that counterfeit, or trivial, or depraved art
which floods our society. This is the first obvious consequence of
the perversion of the organ of art.
The second consequence is that the productions of amusement-art,
which are prepared in such terrific quantities by the armies of
professional artists, enable the rich people of our times to live
the lives they do, lives not only unnatural, but in contradiction
to the humane principles these people themselves profess. To live
as do the rich, idle people, especially the women, far from nature
and from animals, in artificial conditions, with muscles atrophied
or misdeveloped by gymnastics, and with enfeebled vital energy,
would be impossible were it not for what is called art--for this
occupation and amusement which hides from them the meaninglessness
of their lives, and saves them from the dullness that oppresses
them. Take from all these people the theaters, concerts,
exhibitions, piano-playing, songs, and novels with which they now
fill their time, in full confidence that occupation with these
things is a very refined, æsthetical, and therefore good occupation;
take from the patrons of art who buy pictures, assist musicians,
and are acquainted with writers, their rôle of protectors of that
important matter art, and they will not be able to continue such a
life, but will all be eaten up by ennui and spleen, and will become
conscious of the meaninglessness and wrongness of their present mode
of life. Only occupation with what, among them, is considered art
renders it possible for them to continue to live on, infringing all
natural conditions, without perceiving the emptiness and cruelty of
their lives. And this support afforded to the false manner of life
pursued by the rich is the second consequence, and a serious one, of
the perversion of art.
The third consequence of the perversion of art is the perplexity
produced in the minds of children and of plain folk. Among people
not perverted by the false theories of our society, among workers
and children, there exists a very definite conception of what
people may be respected and praised for. In the minds of peasants
and children the ground for praise or eulogy can only be either
physical strength: Hercules, the heroes and conquerors; or moral,
spiritual, strength: Sakya Muni giving up a beautiful wife and a
kingdom to save mankind, Christ going to the cross for the truth he
professed, and all the martyrs and the saints. Both are understood
by peasants and children. They understand that physical strength
must be respected, for it compels respect; and the moral strength of
goodness an unperverted man cannot fail to respect, because all his
spiritual being draws him toward it. But these people, children, and
peasants, suddenly perceive that besides those praised, respected,
and rewarded for physical or moral strength, there are others who
are praised, extolled, and rewarded much more than the heroes
of strength and virtue, merely because they sing well, compose
verses, or dance. They see that singers, composers, painters,
ballet-dancers, earn millions of roubles and receive more honor than
the saints do: and peasants and children are perplexed.
When fifty years had elapsed after Pushkin's death, and,
simultaneously, the cheap edition of his works began to circulate
among the people and a monument was erected to him in Moscow, I
received more than a dozen letters from different peasants asking
why Pushkin was raised to such dignity. And only the other day a
literate[123] man from Saratoff called on me who had evidently gone
out of his mind over this very question. He was on his way to Moscow
to expose the clergy for having taken part in raising a "monament"
to Mr. Pushkin.
[123] In Russian it is customary to make a distinction between
literate and illiterate people, _i.e._ between those who can and
those who cannot read. _Literate_ in this sense does not imply that
the man would speak or write correctly.--TR.
Indeed, one need only imagine to oneself what the state of mind
of such a man of the people must be when he learns, from such
rumors and newspapers as reach him, that the clergy, the Government
officials, and all the best people in Russia are triumphantly
unveiling a statue to a great man, the benefactor, the pride of
Russia--Pushkin, of whom till then he had never heard. From all
sides he reads or hears about this, and he naturally supposes that
if such honors are rendered to any one, then without doubt he must
have done something extraordinary--either some feat of strength
or of goodness. He tries to learn who Pushkin was, and having
discovered that Pushkin was neither a hero nor a general, but was
a private person and a writer, he comes to the conclusion that
Pushkin must have been a holy man and a teacher of goodness, and he
hastens to read or to hear his life and works. But what must be his
perplexity when he learns that Pushkin was a man of more than easy
morals, who was killed in a duel, _i.e._ when attempting to murder
another man, and that all his service consisted in writing verses
about love, which were often very indecent.
That a hero, or Alexander the Great, or Genghis Khan, or Napoleon
were great, he understands, because any one of them could have
crushed him and a thousand like him; that Buddha, Socrates, and
Christ were great he also understands, for he knows and feels that
he and all men should be such as they were; but why a man should be
great because he wrote verses about the love of women he cannot make
out.
A similar perplexity must trouble the brain of a Breton or Norman
peasant who hears that a monument, "_une statue_" (as to the
Madonna), is being erected to Baudelaire, and reads, or is told,
what the contents of his "Fleurs du Mal" are; or, more amazing
still, to Verlaine, when he learns the story of that man's wretched,
vicious life, and reads his verses. And what confusion it must
cause in the brains of peasants when they learn that some Patti or
Taglioni is paid £10,000 for a season, or that a painter gets as
much for a picture, or that authors of novels describing love-scenes
have received even more than that.
And it is the same with children. I remember how I passed through
this stage of amazement and stupefaction, and only reconciled myself
to this exaltation of artists to the level of heroes and saints by
lowering in my own estimation the importance of moral excellence,
and by attributing a false, unnatural meaning to works of art. And a
similar confusion must occur in the soul of each child and each man
of the people when he learns of the strange honors and rewards that
are lavished on artists. This is the third consequence of the false
relation in which our society stands toward art.
The fourth consequence is that people of the upper classes, more
and more frequently encountering the contradictions between
beauty and goodness, put the ideal of beauty first, thus freeing
themselves from the demands of morality. These people, reversing
the rôles, instead of admitting, as is really the case, that the
art they serve is an antiquated affair, allege that morality is an
antiquated affair, which can have no importance for people situated
on that high plane of development on which they opine that they are
situated.
This result of the false relation to art showed itself in our
society long ago; but recently, with its prophet Nietzsche and his
adherents, and with the decadents and certain English æsthetes who
coincide with him, it is being expressed with especial impudence.
The decadents, and æsthetes of the type at one time represented by
Oscar Wilde, select as a theme for their productions the denial of
morality and the laudation of vice.
This art has partly generated, and partly coincides with, a similar
philosophic theory. I recently received from America a book
entitled, "The Survival of the Fittest: Philosophy of Power," 1896,
by Ragnar Redbeard, Chicago. The substance of this book, as it is
expressed in the editor's preface, is that to measure "right" by the
false philosophy of the Hebrew prophets and "weepful" Messiahs is
madness. Right is not the offspring of doctrine, but of power. All
laws, commandments, or doctrines as to not doing to another what
you do not wish done to you, have no inherent authority whatever,
but receive it only from the club, the gallows, and the sword. A
man truly free is under no obligation to obey any injunction, human
or divine. Obedience is the sign of the degenerate. Disobedience
is the stamp of the hero. Men should not be bound by moral rules
invented by their foes. The whole world is a slippery battlefield.
Ideal justice demands that the vanquished should be exploited,
emasculated, and scorned. The free and brave may seize the world.
And, therefore, there should be eternal war for life, for land, for
love, for women, for power, and for gold. (Something similar was
said a few years ago by the celebrated and refined academician,
Vogüé.) The earth and its treasures is "booty for the bold."
The author has evidently by himself, independently of Nietzsche,
come to the same conclusions which are professed by the new artists.
Expressed in the form of a doctrine these positions startle us. In
reality they are implied in the ideal of art serving beauty. The
art of our upper classes has educated people in this ideal of the
over-man,[124]--which is, in reality, the old ideal of Nero, Stenka
Razin,[125] Genghis Khan, Robert Macaire,[126] or Napoleon, and all
their accomplices, assistants, and adulators--and it supports this
ideal with all its might.
[Foootnote 124: The over-man (Uebermensch), in the Nietzschean
philosophy, is that superior type of man whom the struggle for
existence is to evolve, and who will seek only his own power and
pleasure, will know nothing of pity, and will have the right,
because he will possess the power, to make ordinary people serve
him.--TR.]
[125] Stenka Razin was by origin a common Cossack. His brother
was hung for a breach of military discipline, and to this event
Stenka Razin's hatred of the governing classes has been attributed.
He formed a robber band, and subsequently headed a formidable
rebellion, declaring himself in favor of freedom for the serfs,
religious toleration, and the abolition of taxes. Like the
government he opposed, he relied on force, and, though he used it
largely in defense of the poor against the rich, he still held to
"The good old rule, the simple plan,
That they should take who have the power,
And they should keep who can."
Like Robin Hood, he is favorably treated in popular legends.--TR.
[126] Robert Macaire is a modern type of adroit and audacious
rascality. He was the hero of a popular play produced in Paris in
1834.--TR.
It is this supplanting of the ideal of what is right by the ideal of
what is beautiful, _i.e._ of what is pleasant, that is the fourth
consequence, and a terrible one, of the perversion of art in our
society. It is fearful to think of what would befall humanity were
such art to spread among the masses of the people. And it already
begins to spread.
Finally, the fifth and chief result is, that the art which
flourishes in the upper classes of European society has a directly
vitiating influence, infecting people with the worst feelings and
with those most harmful to humanity,--superstition, patriotism, and,
above all, sensuality.
Look carefully into the causes of the ignorance of the masses, and
you may see that the chief cause does not at all lie in the lack
of schools and libraries, as we are accustomed to suppose, but in
those superstitions, both ecclesiastical and patriotic, with which
the people are saturated, and which are unceasingly generated by
all the methods of art. Church superstitions are supported and
produced by the poetry of prayers, hymns, painting, by the sculpture
of images and of statues, by singing, by organs, by music, by
architecture, and even by dramatic art in religious ceremonies.
Patriotic superstitions are supported and produced by verses and
stories, which are supplied even in schools, by music, by songs, by
triumphal processions, by royal meetings, by martial pictures, and
by monuments.
Were it not for this continual activity in all departments of art,
perpetuating the ecclesiastical and patriotic intoxication and
embitterment of the people, the masses would long ere this have
attained to true enlightenment.
But it is not only in Church matters and patriotic matters that art
depraves; it is art in our time that serves as the chief cause of
the perversion of people in the most important question of social
life,--in their sexual relations. We nearly all know by our own
experience, and those who are fathers and mothers know in the case
of their grown-up children also, what fearful mental and physical
suffering, what useless waste of strength, people suffer merely as a
consequence of dissoluteness in sexual desire.
Since the world began, since the Trojan war, which sprang from
that same sexual dissoluteness, down to and including the suicides
and murders of lovers described in almost every newspaper, a great
proportion of the sufferings of the human race have come from this
source.
And what is art doing? All art, real and counterfeit, with very
few exceptions, is devoted to describing, depicting, and inflaming
sexual love in every shape and form. When one remembers all those
novels and their lust-kindling descriptions of love, from the most
refined to the grossest, with which the literature of our society
overflows; if one only remembers all those pictures and statues
representing women's naked bodies, and all sorts of abominations
which are reproduced in illustrations and advertisements; if one
only remembers all the filthy operas and operettas, songs, and
_romances_ with which our world teems, involuntarily it seems as
if existing art had but one definite aim,--to disseminate vice as
widely as possible.
Such, though not all, are the most direct consequences of that
perversion of art which has occurred in our society. So that what in
our society is called art not only does not conduce to the progress
of mankind, but, more than almost anything else, hinders the
attainment of goodness in our lives.
And therefore the question which involuntarily presents itself to
every man free from artistic activity and therefore not bound to
existing art by self-interest, the question asked by me at the
beginning of this work: Is it just that to what we call art, to a
something belonging to but a small section of society, should be
offered up such sacrifices of human labor, of human lives, and of
goodness as are now being offered up? receives the natural reply:
No; it is unjust, and these things should not be! So also replies
sound sense and unperverted moral feeling. Not only should these
things not be, not only should no sacrifices be offered up to what
among us is called art, but, on the contrary, the efforts of those
who wish to live rightly should be directed toward the destruction
of this art, for it is one of the most cruel of the evils that
harass our section of humanity. So that, were the question put:
Would it be preferable for our Christian world to be deprived of
_all_ that is now esteemed to be art, and, together with the false,
to lose _all_ that is good in it? I think that every reasonable
and moral man would again decide the question as Plato decided it
for his "Republic," and as all the Church Christian and Mohammedan
teachers of mankind decided it, _i.e._ would say, "Rather let there
be no art at all than continue the depraving art, or simulation of
art, which now exists." Happily, no one has to face this question,
and no one need adopt either solution. All that man can do, and that
we--the so-called educated people, who are so placed that we have
the possibility of understanding the meaning of the phenomena of our
life--can and should do, is to understand the error we are involved
in, and not harden our hearts in it, but seek for a way of escape.
CHAPTER XVIII
The cause of the lie into which the art of our society has fallen
was that people of the upper classes, having ceased to believe in
the Church teaching (called Christian), did not resolve to accept
true Christian teaching in its real and fundamental principles
of sonship to God and brotherhood to man, but continued to live
on without any belief, endeavoring to make up for the absence of
belief--some by hypocrisy, pretending still to believe in the
nonsense of the Church creeds; others by boldly asserting their
disbelief; others by refined agnosticism; and others, again, by
returning to the Greek worship of beauty, proclaiming egotism to be
right, and elevating it to the rank of a religious doctrine.
The cause of the malady was the non-acceptance of Christ's teaching
in its real, _i.e._ its full, meaning. And the only cure for the
illness lies in acknowledging that teaching in its full meaning.
And such acknowledgment in our time is not only possible, but
inevitable. Already to-day a man, standing on the height of the
knowledge of our age, whether he be nominally a Catholic or a
Protestant, cannot say that he really believes in the dogmas of
the Church: in God being a Trinity, in Christ being God, in the
scheme of redemption, and so forth; nor can he satisfy himself by
proclaiming his unbelief or skepticism, nor by relapsing into the
worship of beauty and egotism. Above all, he can no longer say
that we do not know the real meaning of Christ's teaching. That
meaning has not only become accessible to all men of our times, but
the whole life of man to-day is permeated by the spirit of that
teaching, and, consciously or unconsciously, is guided by it.
However differently in form people belonging to our Christian
world may define the destiny of man; whether they see it in human
progress in whatever sense of the words, in the union of all men in
a socialistic realm, or in the establishment of a commune; whether
they look forward to the union of mankind under the guidance of
one universal Church, or to the federation of the world,--however
various in form their definitions of the destination of human
life may be, all men in our times already admit that the highest
well-being attainable by men is to be reached by their union with
one another.
However people of our upper classes (feeling that their ascendancy
can only be maintained as long as they separate themselves--the rich
and learned--from the laborers, the poor, and the unlearned) may
seek to devise new conceptions of life by which their privileges
may be perpetuated,--now the ideal of returning to antiquity, now
mysticism, now Hellenism, now the cult of the superior person
(over-man-ism),--they have, willingly or unwillingly, to admit the
truth which is elucidating itself from all sides, voluntarily and
involuntarily, namely, that our welfare lies only in the unification
and the brotherhood of man.
Unconsciously this truth is confirmed by the construction of means
of communication,--telegraphs, telephones, the press, and the ever
increasing attainability of material well-being for every one,--and
consciously it is affirmed by the destruction of superstitions which
divide men, by the diffusion of the truths of knowledge, and by the
expression of the ideal of the brotherhood of man in the best works
of art of our time.
Art is a spiritual organ of human life which cannot be destroyed,
and therefore, notwithstanding all the efforts made by people of
the upper classes to conceal the religious ideal by which humanity
lives, that ideal is more and more clearly recognized by man, and
even in our perverted society is more and more often partially
expressed by science and by art. During the present century works
of the higher kind of religious art have appeared more and more
frequently, both in literature and in painting, permeated by a truly
Christian spirit, as also works of the universal art of common
life, accessible to all. So that even art knows the true ideal of
our times, and tends toward it. On the one hand, the best works
of art of our times transmit religious feelings urging toward the
union and the brotherhood of man (such are the works of Dickens,
Hugo, Dostoievsky; and in painting, of Millet, Bastien Lepage, Jules
Breton, L'Hermitte, and others); on the other hand, they strive
toward the transmission, not of feelings which are natural to people
of the upper classes only, but of such feelings as may unite every
one without exception. There are as yet few such works, but the
need of them is already acknowledged. In recent times we also meet
more and more frequently with attempts at publications, pictures,
concerts, and theaters for the people. All this is still very far
from accomplishing what should be done, but already the direction
in which good art instinctively presses forward to regain the path
natural to it can be discerned.
The religious perception of our time--which consists in
acknowledging that the aim of life (both collective and individual)
is the union of mankind--is already so sufficiently distinct that
people have now only to reject the false theory of beauty, according
to which enjoyment is considered to be the purpose of art, and
religious perception will naturally take its place as the guide of
the art of our time.
And as soon as the religious perception, which already unconsciously
directs the life of man, is consciously acknowledged, then
immediately and naturally the division of art, into art for the
lower and art for the upper classes, will disappear. There will
be one common, brotherly, universal art; and first, that art will
naturally be rejected which transmits feelings incompatible with
the religious perception of our time,--feelings which do not unite,
but divide men,--and then that insignificant, exclusive art will be
rejected to which an importance is now attached to which it has no
right.
And as soon as this occurs, art will immediately cease to be what
it has been in recent times,--a means of making people coarser and
more vicious; and it will become, what it always used to be and
should be, a means by which humanity progresses toward unity and
blessedness.
Strange as the comparison may sound, what has happened to the art
of our circle and time is what happens to a woman who sells her
womanly attractiveness, intended for maternity, for the pleasure of
those who desire such pleasures.
The art of our time and of our circle has become a prostitute. And
this comparison holds good even in minute details. Like her it is
not limited to certain times, like her it is always adorned, like
her it is always salable, and like her it is enticing and ruinous.
A real work of art can only arise in the soul of an artist
occasionally as the fruit of the life he has lived, just as a child
is conceived by its mother. But counterfeit art is produced by
artisans and handicraftsmen continually, if only consumers can be
found.
Real art, like the wife of an affectionate husband, needs no
ornaments. But counterfeit art, like a prostitute, must always be
decked out.
The cause of the production of real art is the artist's inner need
to express a feeling that has accumulated, just as for a mother the
cause of sexual conception is love. The cause of counterfeit art, as
of prostitution, is gain.
The consequence of true art is the introduction of a new feeling
into the intercourse of life, as the consequence of a wife's love is
the birth of a new man into life.
The consequences of counterfeit art are the perversion of man,
pleasure which never satisfies, and the weakening of man's spiritual
strength.
And this is what people of our day and of our circle should
understand, in order to avoid the filthy torrent of depraved and
prostituted art with which we are deluged.
CHAPTER XIX
People talk of the art of the future, meaning by "art of the future"
some especially refined, new art, which, as they imagine, will
be developed out of that exclusive art of one class which is now
considered the highest art. But no such new art of the future can
or will be found. Our exclusive art, that of the upper classes of
Christendom, has found its way into a blind alley. The direction
in which it has been going leads nowhere. Having once let go of
that which is most essential for art (namely, the guidance given
by religious perception), that art has become ever more and more
exclusive, and therefore ever more and more perverted, until,
finally, it has come to nothing. The art of the future, that which
is really coming, will not be a development of present-day art, but
will arise on completely other and new foundations, having nothing
in common with those by which our present art of the upper classes
is guided.
Art of the future, that is to say, such part of art as will be
chosen from among all the art diffused among mankind, will consist,
not in transmitting feelings accessible only to members of the rich
classes, as is the case to-day, but in transmitting such feelings
as embody the highest religious perception of our times. Only
those productions will be considered art which transmit feelings
drawing men together in brotherly union, or such universal feelings
as can unite all men. Only such art will be chosen, tolerated,
approved, and diffused. But art transmitting feelings flowing from
antiquated, worn-out religious teaching,--Church art, patriotic art,
voluptuous art, transmitting feelings of superstitious fear, of
pride, of vanity, of ecstatic admiration of national heroes,--art
exciting exclusive love of one's own people, or sensuality, will
be considered bad, harmful art, and will be censured and despised
by public opinion. All the rest of art, transmitting feelings
accessible only to a section of people, will be considered
unimportant, and will be neither blamed nor praised. And the
appraisement of art in general will devolve, not, as is now the
case, on a separate class of rich people, but on the whole people;
so that for a work to be esteemed good, and to be approved of and
diffused, it will have to satisfy the demands, not of a few people
living in identical and often unnatural conditions, but it will have
to satisfy the demands of all those great masses of people who are
situated in the natural conditions of laborious life.
And the artists producing art will also not be, as now, merely a
few people selected from a small section of the nation, members of
the upper classes or their hangers-on, but will consist of all those
gifted members of the whole people who prove capable of, and are
inclined toward, artistic activity.
Artistic activity will then be accessible to all men. It will
become accessible to the whole people, because, in the first place,
in the art of the future, not only will that complex technique,
which deforms the productions of the art of to-day and requires so
great an effort and expenditure of time, not be demanded, but, on
the contrary, the demand will be for clearness, simplicity, and
brevity--conditions mastered, not by mechanical exercises, but by
the education of taste. And secondly, artistic activity will become
accessible to all men of the people because, instead of the present
professional schools which only some can enter, all will learn music
and depictive art (singing and drawing) equally with letters in
the elementary schools, and in such a way that every man, having
received the first principles of drawing and music, and feeling a
capacity for, and a call to, one or other of the arts, will be able
to perfect himself in it.
People think that if there are no special art schools the technique
of art will deteriorate. Undoubtedly, if by technique we understand
those complications of art which are now considered an excellence,
it will deteriorate; but if by technique is understood clearness,
beauty, simplicity, and compression in works of art, then, even
if the elements of drawing and music were not to be taught in the
national schools, the technique will not only not deteriorate, but,
as is shown by all peasant art, will be a hundred times better.
It will be improved, because all the artists of genius now hidden
among the masses will become producers of art and will give models
of excellence, which (as has always been the case) will be the best
schools of technique for their successors. For every true artist,
even now, learns his technique, chiefly, not in the schools, but
in life, from the examples of the great masters; then--when the
producers of art will be the best artists of the whole nation,
and there will be more such examples, and they will be more
accessible--such part of the school training as the future artist
will lose will be a hundredfold compensated for by the training he
will receive from the numerous examples of good art diffused in
society.
Such will be one difference between present and future art. Another
difference will be that art will not be produced by professional
artists receiving payment for their work and engaged on nothing else
besides their art. The art of the future will be produced by all the
members of the community who feel the need of such activity, but
they will occupy themselves with art only when they feel such need.
In our society people think that an artist will work better, and
produce more, if he has a secured maintenance. And this opinion
would serve once more to show clearly, were such demonstration
still needed, that what among us is considered art is not art, but
only its counterfeit. It is quite true that for the production of
boots or loaves division of labor is very advantageous, and that
the bootmaker or baker who need not prepare his own dinner or fetch
his own fuel will make more boots or loaves than if he had to busy
himself about these matters. But art is not a handicraft; it is
the transmission of feeling the artist has experienced. And sound
feeling can only be engendered in a man when he is living on all
its sides the life natural and proper to mankind. And therefore
security of maintenance is a condition most harmful to an artist's
true productiveness, since it removes him from the condition natural
to all men,--that of struggle with nature for the maintenance of
both his own life and that of others,--and thus deprives him of
opportunity and possibility to experience the most important and
natural feelings of man. There is no position more injurious to an
artist's productiveness than that position of complete security and
luxury in which artists usually live in our society.
The artist of the future will live the common life of man, earning
his subsistence by some kind of labor. The fruits of that highest
spiritual strength which passes through him he will try to
share with the greatest possible number of people, for in such
transmission to others of the feelings that have arisen in him he
will find his happiness and his reward. The artist of the future
will be unable to understand how an artist, whose chief delight is
in the wide diffusion of his works, could give them only in exchange
for a certain payment.
Until the dealers are driven out, the temple of art will not be a
temple. But the art of the future will drive them out.
And therefore the subject-matter of the art of the future, as I
imagine it to myself, will be totally unlike that of to-day. It
will consist, not in the expression of exclusive feelings: pride,
spleen, satiety, and all possible forms of voluptuousness, available
and interesting only to people who, by force, have freed themselves
from the labor natural to human beings; but it will consist in the
expression of feelings experienced by a man living the life natural
to all men and flowing from the religious perception of our times,
or of such feelings as are open to all men without exception.
To people of our circle who do not know and cannot or will not
understand the feelings which will form the subject-matter of
the art of the future, such subject-matter appears very poor in
comparison with those subtleties of exclusive art with which they
are now occupied. "What is there fresh to be said in the sphere of
the Christian feeling of love of one's fellow-man? The feelings
common to every one are so insignificant and monotonous," think
they. And yet, in our time, the really fresh feelings can only be
religious, Christian feelings, and such as are open, accessible,
to all. The feelings flowing from the religious perception of our
times, Christian feelings, are infinitely new and varied, only not
in the sense some people imagine,--not that they can be evoked by
the depiction of Christ and of gospel episodes, or by repeating in
new forms the Christian truths of unity, brotherhood, equality, and
love,--but in that all the oldest, commonest, and most hackneyed
phenomena of life evoke the newest, most unexpected, and touching
emotions as soon as a man regards them from the Christian point of
view.
What can be older than the relations between married couples, of
parents to children, of children to parents; the relations of men
to their fellow-countrymen and to foreigners, to an invasion, to
defense, to property, to the land, or to animals? But as soon as
a man regards these matters from the Christian point of view,
endlessly varied, fresh, complex, and strong emotions immediately
arise.
And, in the same way, that realm of subject-matter for the art of
the future which relates to the simplest feelings of common life
open to all will not be narrowed, but widened. In our former art
only the expression of feelings natural to people of a certain
exceptional position was considered worthy of being transmitted
by art, and even then only on condition that these feelings were
transmitted in a most refined manner, incomprehensible to the
majority of men; all the immense realm of folk-art, and children's
art--jests, proverbs, riddles, songs, dances, children's games, and
mimicry--was not esteemed a domain worthy of art.
The artist of the future will understand that to compose a
fairy-tale, a little song which will touch, a lullaby or a riddle
which will entertain, a jest which will amuse, or to draw a sketch
which will delight dozens of generations or millions of children and
adults, is incomparably more important and more fruitful than to
compose a novel or a symphony, or paint a picture which will divert
some members of the wealthy classes for a short time, and then be
forever forgotten. The region of this art of the simple feelings
accessible to all is enormous, and it is as yet almost untouched.
The art of the future, therefore, will not be poorer, but infinitely
richer in subject-matter. And the form of the art of the future will
also not be inferior to the present forms of art, but infinitely
superior to them. Superior, not in the sense of having a refined and
complex technique, but in the sense of the capacity briefly, simply,
and clearly to transmit, without any superfluities, the feeling
which the artist has experienced and wishes to transmit.
I remember once speaking to a famous astronomer who had given public
lectures on the spectrum analysis of the stars of the Milky Way,
and saying it would be a good thing if, with his knowledge and
masterly delivery, he would give a lecture merely on the formation
and movements of the earth, for certainly there were many people
at his lecture on the spectrum analysis of the stars of the Milky
Way, especially among the women, who did not well know why night
follows day and summer follows winter. The wise astronomer smiled as
he answered, "Yes, it would be a good thing, but it would be very
difficult. To lecture on the spectrum analysis of the Milky Way is
far easier."
And so it is in art. To write a rhymed poem dealing with the times
of Cleopatra, or paint a picture of Nero burning Rome, or compose
a symphony in the manner of Brahms or Richard Strauss, or an opera
like Wagner's, is far easier than to tell a simple story without any
unnecessary details, yet so that it should transmit the feelings of
the narrator, or to draw a pencil-sketch which should touch or amuse
the beholder, or to compose four bars of clear and simple melody,
without any accompaniment, which should convey an impression and be
remembered by those who hear it.
"It is impossible for us, with our culture, to return to a primitive
state," say the artists of our time. "It is impossible for us now to
write such stories as that of Joseph or the 'Odyssey,' to produce
such statues as the Venus of Milo, or to compose such music as the
folk-songs."
And indeed, for the artists of our society and day, it is
impossible, but not for the future artist, who will be free from
all the perversion of technical improvements hiding the absence
of subject-matter, and who, not being a professional artist and
receiving no payment for his activity, will only produce art when he
feels impelled to do so by an irresistible inner impulse.
The art of the future will thus be completely distinct, both in
subject-matter and in form, from what is now called art. The only
subject-matter of the art of the future will be either feelings
drawing men toward union, or such as already unite them; and
the forms of art will be such as will be open to every one. And
therefore, the ideal of excellence in the future will not be the
exclusiveness of feeling, accessible only to some, but, on the
contrary, its universality. And not bulkiness, obscurity, and
complexity of form, as is now esteemed, but, on the contrary,
brevity, clearness, and simplicity of expression. Only when art has
attained to that, will art neither divert nor deprave men as it
does now, calling on them to expend their best strength on it, but
be what it should be,--a vehicle wherewith to transmit religious,
Christian perception from the realm of reason and intellect into
that of feeling, and really drawing people in actual life nearer
to that perfection and unity indicated to them by their religious
perception.
CHAPTER XX
THE CONCLUSION
I have accomplished, to the best of my ability, this work which
has occupied me for fifteen years, on a subject near to me--that
of art. By saying that this subject has occupied me for fifteen
years, I do not mean that I have been writing this book fifteen
years, but only that I began to write on art fifteen years ago,
thinking that when once I undertook the task I should be able to
accomplish it without a break. It proved, however, that my views
on the matter then were so far from clear that I could not arrange
them in a way that satisfied me. From that time I have never ceased
to think on the subject, and I have recommenced to write on it six
or seven times; but each time, after writing a considerable part of
it, I have found myself unable to bring the work to a satisfactory
conclusion, and have had to put it aside. Now I have finished it;
and however badly I may have performed the task, my hope is that
my fundamental thought as to the false direction the art of our
society has taken and is following, as to the reasons of this, and
as to the real destination of art, is correct, and that therefore my
work will not be without avail. But that this should come to pass,
and that art should really abandon its false path and take the new
direction, it is necessary that another equally important human
spiritual activity,--science,--in intimate dependence on which art
always rests, should abandon the false path which it too, like art,
is following.
Science and art are as closely bound together as the lungs and the
heart, so that if one organ is vitiated the other cannot act rightly.
True science investigates and brings to human perception such
truths and such knowledge as the people of a given time and society
consider most important. Art transmits these truths from the region
of perception to the region of emotion. Therefore, if the path
chosen by science be false, so also will be the path taken by art.
Science and art are like a certain kind of barge with kedge-anchors
which used to ply on our rivers. Science, like the boats which took
the anchors up-stream and made them secure, gives direction to the
forward movement; while art, like the windlass worked on the barge
to draw it toward the anchor, causes the actual progression. And
thus a false activity of science inevitably causes a correspondingly
false activity of art.
As art in general is the transmission of every kind of feeling,
but in the limited sense of the word we only call that art which
transmits feelings acknowledged by us to be important, so also
science in general is the transmission of all possible knowledge;
but in the limited sense of the word we call science that which
transmits knowledge acknowledged by us to be important.
And the degree of importance, both of the feelings transmitted by
art and of the information transmitted by science, is decided by the
religious perception of the given time and society, _i.e._ by the
common understanding of the purpose of their lives possessed by the
people of that time or society.
That which most of all contributes to the fulfilment of that purpose
will be studied most; that which contributes less will be studied
less; that which does not contribute at all to the fulfilment of the
purpose of human life will be entirely neglected, or, if studied,
such study will not be accounted science. So it always has been, and
so it should be now; for such is the nature of human knowledge and
of human life. But the science of the upper classes of our time,
which not only does not acknowledge any religion, but considers
every religion to be mere superstition, could not and cannot make
such distinctions.
Scientists of our day affirm that they study _everything_
impartially; but as everything is too much (is in fact an infinite
number of objects), and as it is impossible to study all alike, this
is only said in the theory, while in practice not everything is
studied, and study is applied far from impartially, only that being
studied which, on the one hand, is most wanted by, and on the other
hand, is pleasantest to, those people who occupy themselves with
science. And what the people, belonging to the upper classes, who
are occupying themselves with science most want is the maintenance
of the system under which those classes retain their privileges; and
what is pleasantest are such things as satisfy idle curiosity, do
not demand great mental efforts, and can be practically applied.
And therefore one side of science, including theology and philosophy
adapted to the existing order, as also history and political economy
of the same sort, are chiefly occupied in proving that the existing
order is the very one which ought to exist; that it has come into
existence and continues to exist by the operation of immutable
laws not amenable to human will, and that all efforts to change
it are therefore harmful and wrong. The other part, experimental
science,--including mathematics, astronomy, chemistry, physics,
botany, and all the natural sciences,--is exclusively occupied with
things that have no direct relation to human life: with what is
curious, and with things of which practical application advantageous
to people of the upper classes can be made. And to justify that
selection of objects of study which (in conformity to their own
position) the men of science of our times have made, they have
devised a theory of science for science's sake, quite similar to the
theory of art for art's sake.
As by the theory of art for art's sake it appears that occupation
with all those things that please us--is art, so, by the theory of
science for science's sake, the study of that which interests us--is
science.
So that one side of science, instead of studying how people should
live in order to fulfil their mission in life, demonstrates the
righteousness and immutability of the bad and false arrangements
of life which exist around us; while the other part, experimental
science, occupies itself with questions of simple curiosity or with
technical improvements.
The first of these divisions of science is harmful, not only because
it confuses people's perceptions and gives false decisions, but also
because it exists, and occupies the ground which should belong to
true science. It does this harm, that each man, in order to approach
the study of the most important questions of life, must first refute
these erections of lies which have during ages been piled around
each of the most essential questions of human life, and which are
propped up by all the strength of human ingenuity.
The second division--the one of which modern science is so
particularly proud, and which is considered by many people to be the
only real science--is harmful in that it diverts attention from the
really important subjects to insignificant subjects, and is also
directly harmful in that, under the evil system of society which the
first division of science justifies and supports, a great part of
the technical gains of science are turned, not to the advantage, but
to the injury of mankind.
Indeed, it is only to those who are devoting their lives to such
study that it seems as if all the inventions which are made in the
sphere of natural science were very important and useful things.
And to these people it seems so only when they do not look around
them and do not see what is really important. They only need tear
themselves away from the psychological microscope under which they
examine the objects of their study, and look about them, in order
to see how insignificant is all that has afforded them such naïve
pride, all that knowledge not only of geometry of _n_-dimensions,
spectrum analysis of the Milky Way, the form of atoms, dimensions
of human skulls of the Stone Age, and similar trifles, but even our
knowledge of micro-organisms, X-rays, etc., in comparison with such
knowledge as we have thrown aside and handed over to the perversions
of the professors of theology, jurisprudence, political economy,
financial science, etc. We need only look around us to perceive that
the activity proper to real science is not the study of whatever
happens to interest us, but the study of how man's life should be
established,--the study of those questions of religion, morality,
and social life, without the solution of which all our knowledge of
nature will be harmful or insignificant.
We are highly delighted and very proud that our science renders it
possible to utilize the energy of a waterfall and make it work in
factories, or that we have pierced tunnels through mountains, and so
forth. But the pity of it is that we make the force of the waterfall
labor, not for the benefit of the workmen, but to enrich capitalists
who produce articles of luxury or weapons of man-destroying war.
The same dynamite with which we blast the mountains to pierce
tunnels we use for wars, from which latter we not only do not intend
to abstain, but which we consider inevitable, and for which we
unceasingly prepare.
If we are now able to inoculate preventatively with diphtheritic
microbes, to find a needle in a body by means of X-rays, to
straighten a hunched-back, cure syphilis, and perform wonderful
operations, we should not be proud of these acquisitions either
(even were they all established beyond dispute) if we fully
understood the true purpose of real science. If but one-tenth of
the efforts now spent on objects of pure curiosity or of merely
practical application were expended on real science organizing the
life of man, more than half the people now sick would not have the
illnesses from which a small minority of them now get cured in
hospitals. There would be no poor-blooded and deformed children
growing up in factories, no death-rates, as now, of fifty per
cent among children, no deterioration of whole generations, no
prostitution, no syphilis, and no murdering of hundreds of thousands
in wars, nor those horrors of folly and of misery which our present
science considers a necessary condition of human life.
We have so perverted the conception of science that it seems strange
to men of our day to allude to sciences which should prevent the
mortality of children, prostitution, syphilis, the deterioration
of whole generations, and the wholesale murder of men. It seems
to us that science is only then real science when a man in a
laboratory pours liquids from one jar into another, or analyzes
the spectrum, or cuts up frogs and porpoises, or weaves in a
specialized, scientific jargon an obscure network of conventional
phrases--theological, philosophical, historical, juridical, or
politico-economical--semi-intelligible to the man himself, and
intended to demonstrate that what now is, is what should be.
But science, true science,--such science as would really deserve
the respect which is now claimed by the followers of one (the
least important) part of science,--is not at all such as this:
real science lies in knowing what we should and what we should not
believe, in knowing how the associated life of man should and should
not be constituted; how to treat sexual relations, how to educate
children, how to use the land, how to cultivate it oneself without
oppressing other people, how to treat foreigners, how to treat
animals, and much more that is important for the life of man.
Such has true science ever been and such it should be. And such
science is springing up in our times; but, on the one hand, such
true science is denied and refuted by all those scientific people
who defend the existing order of society, and, on the other hand, it
is considered empty, unnecessary, unscientific science by those who
are engrossed in experimental science.
For instance, books and sermons appear, demonstrating the
antiquatedness and absurdity of Church dogmas, as well as the
necessity of establishing a reasonable religious perception suitable
to our times, and all the theology that is considered to be real
science is only engaged in refuting these works and in exercising
human intelligence again and again to find support and justification
for superstitions long since outlived, and which have now become
quite meaningless. Or a sermon appears showing that land should
not be an object of private possession, and that the institution
of private property in land is a chief cause of the poverty of
the masses. Apparently science, real science, should welcome such
a sermon and draw further deductions from this position. But the
science of our times does nothing of the kind: on the contrary,
political economy demonstrates the opposite position; namely, that
landed property, like every other form of property, must be more
and more concentrated in the hands of a small number of owners.
Again, in the same way, one would suppose it to be the business of
real science to demonstrate the irrationality, unprofitableness,
and immorality of war and of executions; or the inhumanity and
harmfulness of prostitution; or the absurdity, harmfulness,
and immorality of using narcotics or of eating animals; or the
irrationality, harmfulness, and antiquatedness of patriotism. And
such works exist, but are all considered unscientific; while works
to prove that all these things ought to continue, and works intended
to satisfy an idle thirst for knowledge lacking any relation to
human life, are considered to be scientific.
The deviation of the science of our time from its true purpose is
strikingly illustrated by those ideals which are put forward by some
scientists, and are not denied, but admitted, by the majority of
scientific men.
These ideals are expressed not only in stupid, fashionable books,
describing the world as it will be in 1000 or 3000 years' time, but
also by sociologists who consider themselves serious men of science.
These ideals are that food, instead of being obtained from the land
by agriculture, will be prepared in laboratories by chemical means,
and that human labor will be almost entirely superseded by the
utilization of natural forces.
Man will not, as now, eat an egg laid by a hen he has kept, or bread
grown on his field, or an apple from a tree he has reared and which
has blossomed and matured in his sight; but he will eat tasty,
nutritious, food which will be prepared in laboratories by the
conjoint labor of many people in which he will take a small part.
Man will hardly need to labor, so that all men will be able to yield
to idleness as the upper, ruling classes now yield to it.
Nothing shows more plainly than these ideals to what a degree the
science of our times has deviated from the true path.
The great majority of men in our times lack good and sufficient food
(as well as dwellings and clothes and all the first necessaries of
life). And this great majority of men is compelled, to the injury of
its well-being, to labor continually beyond its strength. Both these
evils can easily be removed by abolishing mutual strife, luxury, and
the unrighteous distribution of wealth, in a word, by the abolition
of a false and harmful order and the establishment of a reasonable,
human manner of life. But science considers the existing order of
things to be as immutable as the movements of the planets, and
therefore assumes that the purpose of science is--not to elucidate
the falseness of this order and to arrange a new, reasonable way of
life--but, under the existing order of things, to feed everybody and
enable all to be as idle as the ruling classes, who live a depraved
life, now are.
And, meanwhile, it is forgotten that nourishment with corn,
vegetables, and fruit raised from the soil by one's own labor is the
pleasantest, healthiest, easiest, and most natural nourishment, and
that the work of using one's muscles is as necessary a condition of
life as is the oxidation of the blood by breathing.
To invent means whereby people might, while continuing our false
division of property and labor, be well nourished by means of
chemically prepared food, and might make the forces of nature work
for them, is like inventing means to pump oxygen into the lungs of a
man kept in a closed chamber, the air of which is bad, when all that
is needed is to cease to confine the man in the closed chamber.
In the vegetable and animal kingdoms a laboratory for the
production of food has been arranged, such as can be surpassed by
no professors, and to enjoy the fruits of this laboratory, and
to participate in it, man has only to yield to that ever joyful
impulse to labor, without which man's life is a torment. And lo and
behold! the scientists of our times, instead of employing all their
strength to abolish whatever hinders man from utilizing the good
things prepared for him, acknowledge the conditions under which man
is deprived of these blessings to be unalterable, and instead of
arranging the life of man so that he might work joyfully and be fed
from the soil, they devise methods which will cause him to become an
artificial abortion. It is like not helping a man out of confinement
into the fresh air, but devising means, instead, to pump into him
the necessary quantity of oxygen and arranging so that he may live
in a stifling cellar instead of living at home.
Such false ideals could not exist if science were not on a false
path.
And yet the feelings transmitted by art grow up on the bases
supplied by science.
But what feelings can such misdirected science evoke? One side of
this science evokes antiquated feelings, which humanity has used
up, and which, in our times, are bad and exclusive. The other side,
occupied with the study of subjects unrelated to the conduct of
human life, by its very nature cannot serve as a basis for art.
So that art in our times, to be art, must either open up its own
road independently of science, or must take direction from the
unrecognized science which is denounced by the orthodox section of
science. And this is what art, when it even partially fulfils its
mission, is doing.
It is to be hoped that the work I have tried to perform concerning
art will be performed also for science--that the falseness of the
theory of science for science's sake will be demonstrated; that
the necessity of acknowledging Christian teaching in its true
meaning will be clearly shown, that on the basis of that teaching
a reappraisement will be made of the knowledge we possess, and of
which we are so proud; that the secondariness and insignificance
of experimental science, and the primacy and importance of
religious, moral, and social knowledge will be established; and
that such knowledge will not, as now, be left to the guidance of
the upper classes only, but will form a chief interest of all free,
truth-loving men, such as those who, not in agreement with the
upper classes, but in their despite, have always forwarded the real
science of life.
Astronomical, physical, chemical, and biological science, as also
technical and medical science, will be studied only in so far as
they can help to free mankind from religious, juridical, or social
deceptions, or can serve to promote the well-being of all men, and
not of any single class.
Only then will science cease to be what it is now,--on the one hand
a system of sophistries, needed for the maintenance of the existing
worn-out order of society, and, on the other hand, a shapeless mass
of miscellaneous knowledge, for the most part good for little or
nothing,--and become a shapely and organic whole, having a definite
and reasonable purpose comprehensible to all men; namely, the
purpose of bringing to the consciousness of men the truths that flow
from the religious perception of our times.
And only then will art, which is always dependent on science, be
what it might and should be, an organ co-equally important with
science for the life and progress of mankind.
Art is not a pleasure, a solace, or an amusement; art is a great
matter. Art is an organ of human life, transmitting man's reasonable
perception into feeling. In our age the common religious perception
of men is the consciousness of the brotherhood of man--we know
that the well-being of man lies in union with his fellow-men.
True science should indicate the various methods of applying this
consciousness to life. Art should transform this perception into
feeling.
The task of art is enormous. Through the influence of real art,
aided by science guided by religion, that peaceful coöperation of
man which is now obtained by external means--by our law-courts,
police, charitable institutions, factory inspection, etc.--should
be obtained by man's free and joyous activity. Art should cause
violence to be set aside.
And it is only art that can accomplish this.
All that now, independently of the fear of violence and punishment,
makes the social life of man possible (and already now this is
an enormous part of the order of our lives)--all this has been
brought about by art. If by art it has been inculcated how people
should treat religious objects, their parents, their children,
their wives, their relations, strangers, foreigners; how to conduct
themselves to their elders, their superiors, to those who suffer,
to their enemies, and to animals; and if this has been obeyed
through generations by millions of people, not only unenforced by
any violence, but so that the force of such customs can be shaken in
no way but by means of art--then, by the same art, other customs,
more in accord with the religious perception of our time, may be
evoked. If art has been able to convey the sentiment of reverence
for images, for the eucharist, and for the king's person; of shame
at betraying a comrade, devotion to a flag, the necessity of revenge
for an insult, the need to sacrifice one's labor for the erection
and adornment of churches, the duty of defending one's honor or
the glory of one's native land--then that same art can also evoke
reverence for the dignity of every man and for the life of every
animal; can make men ashamed of luxury, of violence, of revenge, or
of using for their pleasure that of which others are in need; can
compel people freely, gladly, and without noticing it, to sacrifice
themselves in the service of man.
The task for art to accomplish is to make that feeling of
brotherhood and love of one's neighbor, now attained only by the
best members of society, the customary feeling and the instinct of
all men. By evoking, under imaginary conditions, the feeling of
brotherhood and love, religious art will train men to experience
those same feelings under similar circumstances in actual life; it
will lay in the souls of men the rails along which the actions of
those whom art thus educates will naturally pass. And universal
art, by uniting the most different people in one common feeling,
by destroying separation, will educate people to union, will show
them, not by reason, but by life itself, the joy of universal union
reaching beyond the bounds set by life.
The destiny of art in our time is to transmit from the realm of
reason to the realm of feeling the truth that well-being for men
consists in being united together, and to set up, in place of the
existing reign of force, that kingdom of God, _i.e._ of love, which
we all recognize to be the highest aim of human life.
Possibly, in the future, science may reveal to art yet newer and
higher ideals, which art may realize; but, in our time, the destiny
of art is clear and definite. The task for Christian art is to
establish brotherly union among men.
APPENDIX I
This is the first page of Mallarmé's book, "Divagations":--
LE PHÉNOMÈNE FUTUR
Un ciel pâle, sur le monde qui finit de décrépitude, va
peut-être partir avec les nuages: les lambeaux de la pourpre
usée des couchants déteignent dans une rivière dormant à
l'horizon submergé de rayons et d'eau. Les arbres s'ennuient,
et, sous leur feuillage blanchi (de la poussière du temps plutôt
que celle des chemins) monte la maison en toile de Montreur
de choses Passées: maint réverbère attend le crépuscule et
ravive les visages d'une malheureuse foule, vaincue par la
maladie immortelle et le péché des siècles, d'hommes près de
leurs chétives complices enceintes des fruits misérables avec
lesquels périra la terre. Dans le silence inquiet de tous les
yeux suppliant là-bas le soleil qui, sous l'eau, s'enfonce
avec le désespoir d'un cri, voici le simple boniment: "Nulle
enseigne ne vous régale du spectacle intérieur, car il n'est
pas maintenant un peintre capable d'en donner une ombre triste.
J'apporte, vivante (et préservée à travers les ans par la
science souveraine) une Femme d'autrefois. Quelque folie,
originelle et naïve, une extase d'or, je ne sais quoi! par elle
nommé sa chevelure, se ploie avec la grâce des étoffes autour
d'un visage qu' éclaire la nudité sanglante de ses lèvres. A la
place du vêtement vain, elle a un corps; et les yeux, semblables
aux pierres rares! ne valent pas ce regard qui sort de sa chair
heureuse: des seins levés comme s'ils étaient pleins d'un lait
éternel, la pointe vers le ciel, les jambes lisses qui gardent
le sel de la mer première." Se rappelant leurs pauvres épouses,
chauves, morbides et pleines d'horreur, les maris se pressent:
elles aussi par curiosité, mélancoliques, veulent voir.
Quand tous auront contemplé la noble créature, vestige de
quelque époque déjà maudite, les uns indifférents, car ils
n'auront pas eu la force de comprendre, mais d'autres navrés et
la paupière humide de larmes résignées, se regarderont; tandis
que les poètes de ces temps, sentant se rallumer leur yeux
éteints, s'achemineront vers leur lampe, le cerveau ivre un
instant d'une gloire confuse, hantés du Rythme et dans l'oubli
d'exister à une époque qui survit à la beauté.
THE FUTURE PHENOMENON--BY MALLARMÉ.
A pale sky, above the world that is ending through decrepitude,
going, perhaps, to pass away with the clouds: shreds of worn-out
purple of the sunsets wash off their color in a river sleeping
on the horizon, submerged with rays and water. The trees are
weary and, beneath their foliage, whitened (by the dust of
time rather than that of the roads), rises the canvas house
of "Showman of things Past." Many a lamp awaits the gloaming,
and brightens the faces of a miserable crowd vanquished by the
immortal illness and the sin of ages, of men by the sides of
their puny accomplices pregnant with the miserable fruit with
which the world will perish. In the anxious silence of all the
eyes supplicating the sun there, which sinks under the water
with the desperation of a cry, this is the plain announcement:
"No sign-board now regales you with the spectacle that is
inside, for there is no painter now capable of giving even a
shadow of it. I bring living (and preserved by sovereign science
through the years) a Woman of other days. Some kind of folly,
naïve and original, an ecstasy of gold, I know not what, by her
called her hair, clings with the grace of some material round a
face brightened by the blood-red nudity of her lips. In place of
vain clothing, she has a body; and her eyes, resembling precious
stones! are not worth that look, which comes from her happy
flesh: breasts raised as if full of eternal milk, the points
toward the sky; the smooth legs, that keep the salt of the first
sea." Remembering their poor spouses, bald, morbid, and full
of horrors, the husbands press forward: the women, too, from
curiosity, gloomily wish to see.
When all shall have contemplated the noble creature, vestige of
some epoch already damned, some indifferently, for they will not
have had strength to understand, but others, broken-hearted, and
with eyelids wet with tears of resignation, will look at each
other; while the poets of those times, feeling their dim eyes
rekindled, will make their way toward their lamp, their brain
for an instant drunk with confused glory, haunted by Rhythm, and
forgetful that they exist at an epoch which has survived beauty.
APPENDIX II[127]
[127] The translations in Appendices I., II., and IV., are by Louise
Maude. The aim of these renderings has been to keep as close to the
originals as the obscurity of meaning allowed. The sense (or absence
of sense) has therefore been more considered than the form of the
verses.
No. 1
The following verses are by Vielé-Griffin, from page 28 of a volume
of his Poems:--
OISEAU BLEU COULEUR DU TEMPS
1
Sait-tu l'oubli
D'un vain doux rêve,
Oiseau moqueur
De la forêt?
Le jour pâlit,
La nuit se lève,
Et dans mon cœur
L'ombre a pleuré;
2
O chante-moi
Ta folle gamme,
Car j'ai dormi
Ce jour durant;
Le lâche emoi
Où fut mon âme
Sanglote ennui
Le jour mourant....
3
Sais-tu le chant
De sa parole
Et de sa voix,
Toi qui redis
Dans le couchant
Ton air frivole
Comme autrefois
Sous les midis?
4
O chante alors
La mélodie
De son amour,
Mon fol espoir,
Parmi les ors
Et l'incendie
Du vain doux jour
Qui meurt ce soir.
FRANCIS VIELÉ-GRIFFIN.
BLUE BIRD
1
Canst thou forget,
In dreams so vain,
Oh, mocking bird
Of forest deep?
The day doth set,
Night comes again,
My heart has heard
The shadows weep;
2
Thy tones let flow
In maddening scale,
For I have slept
The livelong day;
Emotions low
In me now wail,
My soul they've kept:
Light dies away....
3
That music sweet,
Ah, do you know
Her voice and speech?
Your airs so light
You who repeat
In sunset's glow,
As you sang, each,
At noonday's height.
4
Of my desire,
My hope so bold,
Her love--up, sing,
Sing, 'neath this light,
This flaming fire,
And all the gold
The eve doth bring
Ere comes the night.
No. 2
And here are some verses by the esteemed young poet Verhaeren, which
I also take from page 28 of his Works:--
ATTIRANCES
Lointainement, et si étrangement pareils,
De grands masques d'argent que la brume recule,
Vaguent, au jour tombant, autour des vieux soleils.
Les doux lointaines!--et comme, au fond du crépuscule,
Ils nous fixent le cœur, immensément le cœur,
Avec les yeux _défunts de leur_ visage d'âme.
C'est toujours du silence, à moins, dans la pâleur
Du soir, un jet de feu soudain, un cri de flamme,
Un départ de lumière inattendu vers Dieu.
On se laisse charmer et troubler de mystère,
Et l'on dirait des morts qui taisent un adieu
Trop mystique, pour être écouté par la terre!
Sont-ils le souvenir matériel et clair
Des éphèbes chrétiens couchés aux catacombes
Parmi les lys? Sont-ils leur regard et leur chair?
Ou seul, ce qui survit de merveilleux aux tombes
De ceux qui sont partis, vers leurs rêves, un soir,
Conquérir la folie à l'assaut des nuées?
Lointainement, combien nous les sentons vouloir
Un peu d'amour pour leurs œuvres destituées,
Pour leur errance et leur tristesse aux horizons.
Toujours! aux horizons du cœur et des pensées,
Alors que les vieux soirs éclatent en blasons
Soudains, pour les gloires noires et angoissées.
ÉMILE VERHAEREN,
_Poèmes_.
ATTRACTIONS
Large masks of silver, by mists drawn away,
So strangely alike, yet so far apart.
Float round the old suns when faileth the day.
They transfix our heart, so immensely our heart,
Those distances mild, in the twilight deep,
Looking out of dead faces with their spirit eyes.
All around is now silence, except when there leap
In the pallor of evening, with fiery cries,
Some fountains of flame that God-ward do fly.
Mysterious trouble and charms us infold,
You might think that the dead spoke a silent good-by,
Oh! too mystical far on earth to be told!
Are they the memories, material and bright,
Of the Christian youths that in catacombs sleep
'Mid the lilies? Are they their flesh or their sight?
Or the marvel alone that survives, in the deep,
Of those that, one night, returned to their dream
Of conquering folly by assaulting the skies?
For their destitute works--we feel it seems,
For a little love their longing cries
From horizons far--for their errings and pain.
In horizons ever of heart and thought,
While the evenings old in bright blaze wane
Suddenly, for black glories anguish fraught.
No. 3
And the following is a poem by Moréas, evidently an admirer of Greek
beauty. It is from page 28 of a volume of his Poems:--
ENONE AU CLAIR VISAGE
Enone, j'avais cru qu'en aimant ta beauté
Où l'âme avec le corps trouvent leur unité,
J'allais, m'affermissant et le cœur et l'esprit,
Monter jusqu'à cela qui jamais ne périt,
N'ayant été crée, qui n'est froideur ou feu,
Qui n'est beau quelque part et laid en autre lieu;
Et me flattais encor' d'une belle harmonie
Que j'eusse composé du meilleur et du pire,
Ainsi que le chanteur qui chérit Polimnie,
En accordant le grave avec l'aigu, retire
Un son bien élevé sur les nerfs de sa lyre.
Mais mon courage, hélas! se pâmant comme mort,
M'enseigna que le trait qui m'avait fait amant
Ne fut pas de cet arc que courbe sans effort
La Vénus qui naquit du mâle seulement,
Mais que j'avais souffert cette Vénus dernière,
Qui a le cœur couard, né d'une faible mère.
Et pourtant, ce mauvais garçon, chasseur habile,
Qui charge son carquois de sagette subtile,
Qui secoue en riant sa torche, pour un jour,
Qui ne pose jamais que sur de tendres fleurs,
C'est sur un teint charmant qu'il essuie les pleurs,
Et c'est encore un Dieu, Enone, cet Amour.
Mais, laisse, les oiseaux du printemps sont partis,
Et je vois les rayons du soleil amortis.
Enone, ma douleur, harmonieux visage,
Superbe humilité, doux honnête langage,
Hier me remirant dans cet étang glacé
Qui au bout du jardin se couvre de feuillage,
Sur ma face je vis que les jours ont passé.
JEAN MORÉAS.
ENONE
Enone, in loving thy beauty, I thought,
Where the soul and the body to union are brought,
That mounting by steadying my heart and my mind,
In that which can't perish, myself I should find.
For it ne'er was created, is not ugly and fair;
Is not coldness in one part, while on fire it is there.
Yes, I flattered myself that a harmony fine
I'd succeed to compose of the worst and the best,
Like the bard who adores Polyhymnia divine,
And mingling sounds different from the nerves of his lyre,
From the grave and the smart draws melodies higher.
But, alas! my courage, so faint and nigh spent,
The dart that has struck me proves without fail
Not to be from that bow which is easily bent
By the Venus that's born alone of the male.
No, 'twas that other Venus that caused me to smart,
Born of frail mother with cowardly heart.
And yet that naughty lad, that little hunter bold,
Who laughs and shakes his flowery torch just for a day,
Who never rests but upon tender flowers and gay,
On sweetest skin who dries the tears his eyes that fill,
Yet oh, Enone mine, a God's that Cupid still.
Let it pass; for the birds of the Spring are away,
And dying I see the sun's lingering ray.
Enone, my sorrow, oh, harmonious face,
Humility grand, words of virtue and grace,
I looked yestere'en in the pond frozen fast,
Strewn with leaves at the end of the garden's fair space,
And I read in my face that those days are now past.
No. 4
And this is also from page 28 of a thick book, full of similar
poems, by M. Montesquiou.
BERCEUSE D'OMBRE
Des formes, des formes, des formes
Blanche, bleue, et rose, et d'or
Descendront du haut des ormes
Sur l'enfant qui se rendort.
Des formes!
Des plumes, des plumes, des plumes
Pour composer un doux nid.
Midi sonne: les enclumes
Cessent; la rumeur finit....
Des plumes!
Des roses, des roses, des roses
Pour embaumer son sommeil,
Vos pétales sont moroses
Près du sourire vermeil.
O roses!
Des ailes, des ailes, des ailes
Pour bourdonner à sont front,
Abeilles et demoiselles,
Des rythmes qui berceront.
Des ailes!
Des branches, des branches, des branches
Pour tresser un pavillon,
Par où des clartés moins franches
Descendront sur l'oisillon.
Des branches!
Des songes, des songes, des songes
Dans ses pensers entr' ouverts
Glissez un peu de mensonges
A voir le vie au travers
Des songes!
Des fées, des fées, des fées
Pour filer leurs écheveaux
Des mirages, de bouffées
Dans tous ces petits cerveaux.
Des fées!
Des anges, des anges, des anges
Pour emporter dans l'éther
Les petits enfants étranges
Qui ne veulent pas rester....
Nos anges!
COMTE ROBERT DE MONTESQUIOU-FEZENSAC,
_Les Hortensias Bleus_.
THE SHADOW LULLABY
Oh forms, oh forms, oh forms
White, blue, and gold, and red
Descending from the elm trees,
On sleeping baby's head.
Oh forms!
Oh feathers, feathers, feathers
To make a cozy nest.
Twelve striking: stops the clamor;
The anvils are at rest....
Oh feathers!
Oh roses, roses, roses
To scent his sleep awhile,
Pale are your fragrant petals
Beside his ruby smile.
Oh roses!
Oh wings, oh wings, oh wings
Of bees and dragon-flies,
To hum around his forehead,
And lull him with your sighs.
Oh wings!
Branches, branches, branches
A shady bower to twine,
Through which, oh daylight, faintly
Descend on birdie mine.
Branches!
Oh dreams, oh dreams, oh dreams
Into his opening mind,
Let in a little falsehood
With sights of life behind.
Dreams!
Oh fairies, fairies, fairies
To twine and twist their threads
With puffs of phantom visions
Into these little heads.
Fairies!
Angels, angels, angels
To the ether far away,
Those children strange to carry
That here don't wish to stay....
Our angels!
APPENDIX III
These are the contents of "The Nibelung's Ring":--
The first part tells that the nymphs, the daughters of the Rhine,
for some reason guard gold in the Rhine, and sing: Weia, Waga, Woge
du Welle, Walle zur Wiege, Wagala-weia, Wallala, Weiala, Weia, and
so forth.
These singing nymphs are pursued by a gnome (a nibelung) who desires
to seize them. The gnome cannot catch any of them. Then the nymphs
guarding the gold tell the gnome just what they ought to keep
secret, namely, that whoever renounces love will be able to steal
the gold they are guarding. And the gnome renounces love, and steals
the gold. This ends the first scene.
In the second scene a god and a goddess lie in a field in sight of
a castle which giants have built for them. Presently they wake up
and are pleased with the castle, and they relate that in payment for
this work they must give the goddess Freia to the giants. The giants
come for their pay. But the god Wotan objects to parting with Freia.
The giants get angry. The gods hear that the gnome has stolen the
gold, promise to confiscate it, and to pay the giants with it. But
the giants won't trust them, and seize the goddess Freia in pledge.
The third scene takes place underground. The gnome Alberich, who
stole the gold, for some reason beats a gnome, Mime, and takes from
him a helmet which has the power both of making people invisible
and of turning them into other animals. The gods, Wotan and others,
appear and quarrel with one another and with the gnomes, and wish to
take the gold, but Alberich won't give it up, and (like everybody
all through the piece) behaves in a way to insure his own ruin. He
puts on the helmet, and becomes first a dragon and then a toad. The
gods catch the toad, take the helmet off it, and carry Alberich away
with them.
Scene IV. The gods bring Alberich to their home, and order him to
command his gnomes to bring them all the gold. The gnomes bring
it. Alberich gives up the gold, but keeps a magic ring. The gods
take the ring. So Alberich curses the ring, and says it is to bring
misfortune on any one who has it. The giants appear; they bring
the goddess Freia, and demand her ransom. They stick up staves of
Freia's height, and gold is poured in between these staves: this is
to be the ransom. There is not enough gold, so the helmet is thrown
in, and they also demand the ring. Wotan refuses to give it up,
but the goddess Erda appears and commands him to do so, because it
brings misfortune. Wotan gives it up. Freia is released. The giants,
having received the ring, fight, and one of them kills the other.
This ends the Prelude, and we come to the First Day.
The scene shows a house in a tree. Siegmund runs in tired, and lies
down. Sieglinda, the mistress of the house (and wife of Hunding),
gives him a drugged draught, and they fall in love with each other.
Sieglinda's husband comes home, learns that Siegmund belongs to
a hostile race, and wishes to fight him next day; but Sieglinda
drugs her husband, and comes to Siegmund. Siegmund discovers that
Sieglinda is his sister, and that his father drove a sword into the
tree so that no one can get it out. Siegmund pulls the sword out,
and commits incest with his sister.
Act II. Siegmund is to fight with Hunding. The gods discuss the
question to whom they shall award the victory. Wotan, approving of
Siegmund's incest with his sister, wishes to spare him, but, under
pressure from his wife, Fricka, he orders the Valkyrie Brünnhilda to
kill Siegmund. Siegmund goes to fight; Sieglinda faints. Brünnhilda
appears and wishes to slay Siegmund. Siegmund wishes to kill
Sieglinda also, but Brünnhilda does not allow it; so he fights with
Hunding. Brünnhilda defends Siegmund, but Wotan defends Hunding.
Siegmund's sword breaks, and he is killed. Sieglinda runs away.
Act III. The Valkyries (divine Amazons) are on the stage. The
Valkyrie Brünnhilda arrives on horseback, bringing Siegmund's body.
She is flying from Wotan, who is chasing her for her disobedience.
Wotan catches her, and as a punishment dismisses her from her post
as a Valkyrie. He casts a spell on her, so that she has to go to
sleep and to continue asleep until a man wakes her. When some one
wakes her she will fall in love with him. Wotan kisses her; she
falls asleep. He lets off fire, which surrounds her.
We now come to the Second Day. The gnome Mime forges a sword in
a wood. Siegfried appears. He is a son born from the incest of
brother with sister (Siegmund with Sieglinda), and has been brought
up in this wood by the gnome. In general the motives of the actions
of everybody in this production are quite unintelligible. Siegfried
learns his own origin, and that the broken sword was his father's.
He orders Mime to reforge it, and then goes off. Wotan comes in the
guise of a wanderer, and relates what will happen: that he who has
not learnt to fear will forge the sword, and will defeat everybody.
The gnome conjectures that this is Siegfried, and wants to poison
him. Siegfried returns, forges his father's sword, and runs off,
shouting, Heiho! heiho! heiho! Ho! ho! Aha! oho! aha! Heiaho!
heiaho! heiaho! Ho! ho! Hahei! hoho! hahei!
And we get to Act II. Alberich sits guarding a giant, who, in form
of a dragon, guards the gold he has received. Wotan appears, and
for some unknown reason foretells that Siegfried will come and kill
the dragon. Alberich wakes the dragon, and asks him for the ring,
promising to defend him from Siegfried. The dragon won't give up
the ring. Exit Alberich. Mime and Siegfried appear. Mime hopes the
dragon will teach Siegfried to fear. But Siegfried does not fear.
He drives Mime away and kills the dragon, after which he puts his
finger, smeared with the dragon's blood, to his lips. This enables
him to know men's secret thoughts, as well as the language of birds.
The birds tell him where the treasure and the ring are, and also
that Mime wishes to poison him. Mime returns, and says out loud
that he wishes to poison Siegfried. This is meant to signify that
Siegfried, having tasted dragon's blood, understands people's secret
thoughts. Siegfried, having learnt Mime's intentions, kills him. The
birds tell Siegfried where Brünnhilda is, and he goes to find her.
Act III. Wotan calls up Erda. Erda prophesies to Wotan, and gives
him advice. Siegfried appears, quarrels with Wotan, and they fight.
Suddenly Siegfried's sword breaks Wotan's spear, which had been
more powerful than anything else. Siegfried goes into the fire to
Brünnhilda: kisses her; she wakes up, abandons her divinity, and
throws herself into Siegfried's arms.
Third Day. Prelude. Three Norns plait a golden rope, and talk about
the future. They go away. Siegfried and Brünnhilda appear. Siegfried
takes leave of her, gives her the ring, and goes away.
Act I. By the Rhine. A king wants to get married, and also to give
his sister in marriage. Hagen, the king's wicked brother, advises
him to marry Brünnhilda and to give his sister to Siegfried.
Siegfried appears; they give him a drugged draught, which makes
him forget all the past and fall in love with the king's sister,
Gutrune. So he rides off with Gunther, the king, to get Brünnhilda
to be the king's bride. The scene changes. Brünnhilda sits with
the ring. A Valkyrie comes to her and tells her that Wotan's spear
is broken, and advises her to give the ring to the Rhine nymphs.
Siegfried comes, and by means of the magic helmet turns himself into
Gunther, demands the ring from Brünnhilda, seizes it, and drags her
off to sleep with him.
Act II. By the Rhine. Alberich and Hagen discuss how to get the
ring. Siegfried comes, tells how he has obtained a bride for Gunther
and spent the night with her, but put a sword between himself and
her. Brünnhilda rides up, recognizes the ring on Siegfried's hand,
and declares that it was he, and not Gunther, who was with her.
Hagen stirs everybody up against Siegfried, and decides to kill him
next day when hunting.
Act III. Again the nymphs in the Rhine relate what has happened.
Siegfried, who has lost his way, appears. The nymphs ask him for
the ring, but he won't give it up. Hunters appear. Siegfried tells
the story of his life. Hagen then gives him a draught, which causes
his memory to return to him. Siegfried relates how he aroused and
obtained Brünnhilda, and every one is astonished. Hagen stabs him
in the back, and the scene is changed. Gutrune meets the corpse of
Siegfried. Gunther and Hagen quarrel about the ring, and Hagen
kills Gunther. Brünnhilda cries. Hagen wishes to take the ring
from Siegfried's hand, but the hand of the corpse raises itself
threateningly. Brünnhilda takes the ring from Siegfried's hand, and
when Siegfried's corpse is carried to the pyre, she gets on to a
horse and leaps into the fire. The Rhine rises, and the waves reach
the pyre. In the river are three nymphs. Hagen throws himself into
the fire to get the ring, but the nymphs seize him and carry him
off. One of them holds the ring; and that is the end of the matter.
The impression obtainable from my recapitulation is, of course,
incomplete. But however incomplete it may be, it is certainly
infinitely more favorable than the impression which results from
reading the four booklets in which the work is printed.
APPENDIX IV
Translations of French poems and prose quoted in Chapter X.
BAUDELAIRE'S "FLOWERS OF EVIL"
No. XXIV
I adore thee as much as the vaults of night,
O vase full of grief, taciturnity great,
And I love thee the more because of thy flight.
It seemeth, my night's beautifier, that you
Still heap up those leagues--yes! ironically heap!
That divide from my arms the immensity blue.
I advance to attack, I climb to assault,
Like a choir of young worms at a corpse in the vault;
Thy coldness, oh cruel, implacable beast!
Yet heightens thy beauty, on which my eyes feast!
BAUDELAIRE'S "FLOWERS OF EVIL"
No. XXXVI
DUELLUM
Two warriors come running, to fight they begin,
With gleaming and blood they bespatter the air;
These games, and this clatter of arms, is the din
Of youth that's a prey to the surgings of love.
The rapiers are broken! and so is our youth,
But the dagger's avenged, dear! and so is the sword,
By the nail that is steeled and the hardened tooth.
Oh, the fury of hearts aged and ulcered by love!
In the ditch, where the ounce and the pard have their lair,
Our heroes have rolled in an angry embrace;
Their skin blooms on brambles that erewhile were bare.
That ravine is a friend-inhabited hell!
Then let us roll in, oh woman inhuman,
To immortalize hatred that nothing can quell!
FROM BAUDELAIRE'S PROSE WORK ENTITLED "LITTLE POEMS"
THE STRANGER
Whom dost thou love best? say, enigmatical man--thy father, thy
mother, thy brother, or thy sister?
"I have neither father, nor mother, nor sister, nor brother."
Thy friends?
"You there use an expression the meaning of which till now remains
unknown to me."
Thy country?
"I ignore in what latitude it is situated."
Beauty?
"I would gladly love her, goddess and immortal."
Gold?
"I hate it as you hate God."
Then what do you love, extraordinary stranger?
"I love the clouds ... the clouds that pass ... there ... the
marvelous clouds!"
BAUDELAIRE'S PROSE POEM
THE SOUP AND THE CLOUDS
My beloved little silly was giving me my dinner, and I was
contemplating, through the open window of the dining-room, those
moving architectures which God makes out of vapors, the marvelous
constructions of the impalpable. And I said to myself, amid my
contemplations, "All these phantasmagoria are almost as beautiful as
the eyes of my beautiful beloved, the monstrous little silly with
the green eyes."
Suddenly I felt the violent blow of a fist on my back, and I heard a
harsh, charming voice, an hysterical voice, as it were hoarse with
brandy, the voice of my dear little well-beloved, saying, "Are you
going to eat your soup soon, you d---- b---- of a dealer in clouds?"
BAUDELAIRE'S PROSE POEM
THE GALLANT MARKSMAN
As the carriage was passing through the forest, he ordered it to be
stopped near a shooting-gallery, saying that he wished to shoot off
a few bullets to _kill_ Time. To kill this monster, is it not the
most ordinary and the most legitimate occupation of every one? And
he gallantly offered his arm to his dear, delicious, and execrable
wife--that mysterious woman to whom he owed so much pleasure, so
much pain, and perhaps also a large part of his genius.
Several bullets struck far from the intended mark--one even
penetrated the ceiling; and as the charming creature laughed madly,
mocking her husband's awkwardness, he turned abruptly toward her and
said, "Look at that doll there on the right with the haughty mien
and her nose in the air; well, dear angel, _I imagine to myself that
it is you!_" And he closed his eyes and pulled the trigger. The doll
was neatly decapitated.
Then, bowing toward his dear one, his delightful, execrable wife,
his inevitable pitiless muse, and kissing her hand respectfully, he
added, "Ah! my dear angel, how I thank you for my skill!"
VERLAINE'S "FORGOTTEN AIRS"
No. I
"The wind in the plain
Suspends its breath."--FAVART.
'Tis ecstasy languishing,
Amorous fatigue,
Of woods all the shudderings
Embraced by the breeze,
'Tis the choir of small voices
Toward the gray trees.
Oh, the frail and fresh murmuring!
The twitter and buzz,
The soft cry resembling
That's expired by the grass....
Oh, the roll of the pebbles
'Neath waters that pass!
Oh, this soul that is groaning
In sleepy complaint!
In us is it moaning?
In me and in you?
Low anthem exhaling
While soft falls the dew.
VERLAINE'S "FORGOTTEN AIRS"
No. VIII
In the unending
Dullness of this land,
Uncertain the snow
Is gleaming like sand.
No kind of brightness
In copper-hued sky,
The moon you might see
Now live and now die.
Gray float the oak trees--
Cloudlike they seem--
Of neighboring forests,
The mists in between.
Wolves hungry and lean,
And famishing crow,
What happens to you
When acid winds blow?
In the unending
Dullness of this land,
Uncertain the snow
Is gleaming like sand.
SONG BY MAETERLINCK
When he went away,
(Then I heard the door)
When he went away,
On her lips a smile there lay....
Back he came to her,
(Then I heard the lamp)
Back he came to her,
Someone else was there....
It was death I met,
(And I heard her soul)
It was death I met,
For her he's waiting yet....
Someone came to say,
(Child, I am afraid)
Someone came to say
That he would go away....
With my lamp alight,
(Child, I am afraid)
With my lamp alight,
Approached I in affright....
To one door I came,
(Child, I am afraid)
To one door I came,
A shudder shook the flame....
At the second door,
(Child, I am afraid)
At the second door
Forth words of flame did pour....
To the third I came,
(Child, I am afraid)
To the third I came,
Then died the little flame....
Should he one day return
Then what shall we say?
Waiting, tell him, one
And dying for him lay....
If he asks for you,
Say what answer then?
Give him my gold ring
And answer not a thing....
Should he question me
Concerning the last hour?
Say I smiled for fear
That he should shed a tear....
Should he question more
Without knowing me?
Like a sister speak;
Suffering he may be....
Should he question why
Empty is the hall?
Show the gaping door,
The lamp alight no more....
* * * * *
Transcriber's note:
Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).
Small capital text has been replaced with all capitals.
Variations in spelling, punctuation and hyphenation have been
retained except in obvious cases of typographical error.
Missing page numbers are page numbers that were not shown in the
original text.
Page 5: The transcriber has completed the word "meeting". "In 1838,
on the occasion of a meet- of the Society for the Promotion of
Peace" ...
Page 372: Footnote 86, Knight, pp. 139-141. The number the
transcriber has rendered as 139 is unclear.
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