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TOLSTOY AND HIS
PROBLEMS

THE REVISED EDITION

OF THE

WORKS OF LEO TOLSTOY

Edited by Aylmer Maude
Crown 8vo. Cloth gilt. 6s. per vol.

Vol. I.— SEVASTOPOL and other Military Tales. Translated
by Louise and Aylmer Maude. With Portrait, Map and Prefaces.

Vol. XXIV.— RESURRECTION. Translated by Louise
Maude. With Preface, Appendix containing fresh matter, and
33 Illustrations by PasternAk.

The latter unillustrated. Cloth. 2s.

" I think I already wrote you how unusually the first volume of your edition pleases
me. All in it is excellent : the edition and the remarks, and chiefly the translation, and
yet more the conscientiousness with which all this has been done." — Leo Tolstoy,
23 Dec, 1901.

TOLSTOY AND HIS PROBLEMS. The present edition

may be had bound in cloth, 2s., or in paper, is.

Press Notices of the First Edition :

"As good an introduction as they could get." — Daily Chronicle.

"Mr. Maude's long and intimate acquaintance with Tolstoy enables him to speak
with a knowledge probably not possessed by any other Englishman." — Morning Post.

"Any one who takes up this delightful series of essays will not willingly lay it down
again without at least the determination to finish it." — British Friend.

Of the ten essays contained in this book, the following may
also be had in pamphlet form. Price id. each.

LEO TOLSTOY: A SHORT BIOGRAPHY

"The short life of Tolstoy is excellent." — Athen&um.

RIGHT AND WRONG

" The struggles of a soul in search of truth."— Newcastle Daily Leader.

WAR AND PATRIOTISM

" Both as a source of argument and reference, it should be of great value." — Labour
Leader.

Price 2d.
ESSAYS ON ART:

( 1 ) An Introduction to " What is Art ? "

(2) Tolstoy's Theory of Art.

"A remarkably able and lucid exposition of a subject both intricate and confused." —
A cademy.

LONDON: GRANT RICHARDS, 48 LEICESTER SQUARE

TOLSTOY

AND

HIS PROBLEMS

ESSAYS

AYLMER MAUDE

•t

SECOND EDITION

LONDON
GRANT RICHARDS

48 LEICESTER SQUARE, W.C.
1902

M32> OCT 2 6:972

NOTE

)°102

Most of the essays here collected have appeared before
in various magazines, and when first published were sent
to Count Leo Tolstoy, who on different occasions wrote
expressing his approval of them.

Of the first essay in this book, he wrote : —

"/ very much approve of it. It is admirably
constructed, and zvhat is most important is
given.' 1 ''

Of An Introduction to What is Art? he xvrote : —

"/ have read your Introduction with great
pleasure. You have admirably and strongly
expressed the J'undamental thought of the

bonier

Of Tolstoy's Theory of Art, he xvrote : —

" Your article . . . pleased me exceedingly, so
clearly and strongly is the J'undamental thought
expressed.''''

Of The Tsar's Coronation {-when published in 1806
as Epilogue to a small book), he xvrote : —

" The Epilogue to Maude' s book is excellent . . .
firm and radical, going to the last conclusions.''''

PREFACE

It is still difficult for English readers to discover Tolstoy's
opinions, or, at any rate, to understand clearly how his views
on different subjects fit together. Some of his works have
never been translated ; others have been translated from
sense into nonsense. Even in Russian some of his most
important philosophic works are still only obtainable in the
badly edited Geneva edition, which is full of mistakes.

Besides these external difficulties there are ditliculties
inherent in the subjects he discusses, nor is it always easy
for the reader to understand from which side Tolstoy ap-
proaches his subject, and to make due allowance for the
' personal equation.' So that most readers, however open-
minded and willing to understand, on reading books that
contain so much that runs counter both to the established
beliefs of our day and to the hopes of our various 'advanced '
groups, must have felt, as I did, a desire to cross-examine
Tolstoy personally.

Being the only Englishman who, in recent years, has had
the advantage of intimate personal intercourse, continued
over a period of some years, with Tolstoy, I hardly need
an excuse for trying to share with others some of the results
he helped me to reach.

Each essay in this volume expresses, in one form or other,
Tolstoy's view of life ; and the main object of the book is
not to praise his views but to explain them. His positions,
not being final revelations of the truth attainable by man,
may and should be subjected to criticism, and to re-examina-

vi PREFACE

tion from other points of view. But a necessary preliminary
to profitable criticism is comprehension ; and this necessary
preliminary having heretofore, in relation to Tolstoy's works,
been very frequently neglected, my first aim is clearly and
simply to restate certain fundamental principles with which
he has dealt. Seven of the essays deal directly with Tolstoy
and his writings, the other three utilise his teaching more
indirectly.

From this second edition I have omitted the article : The
Doukhobors, a Rtissian Exodus, not that the subject is un-
interesting or remote from Tolstoy, but because, before re-
publishing it, I wish to revise it more thoroughly than would
be possible without considerably delaying the issue of this
edition. It is replaced by the essay which comes second
in the present volume — Tolstoy s Teaching — written since
the publication of the first edition of this book in April
1901. The alterations made in the other essays have been
slight, and consist chiefly of corrections of mistakes kindly
pointed out to me by Tolstoy himself and by other friends.

AYLMER MAUDE.

Gkbat Baddow,

Chelmsford.

CONTENTS

PAGE

I. Leo Tolstoy : A Short Biography . . 1

II. Tolstoy's Teaching ...... 25

III. An Introduction to "What is Art" . 37

IV. Tolstoy's View of Art .... 64
V. How " Resurrection " was Written . . 83

VI. Introduction to " The Slavery of Our Times " 98
VII. The Tsar's Coronation ..... 109

VIII. Right and Wrong ...... 12(>

IX. War and Patriotism . . . . .151

X. Talks with Tolstoy . . . . . .188

INDEX 215

vii

TOLSTOY AND HIS
PROBLEMS

LEO TOLSTOY

A SHORT BIOGRAPHY

Count Leo Tolstoy was born 28th August 1828 (O.S.), at
a house in the country not many miles from Toula, and about
130 miles south of Moscow.

He has lived most of his life in the country, preferring
it to town, and believing that people would be healthier
and happier if they lived more natural lives, in touch with
nature, instead of crowding together in cities.

He lost his mother when he was three, and his father
when he was nine years old. He remembers a boy visiting
his brothers and himself when he was twelve years old, and
bringing the news that they had found out at school that
there was no God, and that all that was taught about God
was a mere invention.

He himself went to school in Moscow, and before he was
grown up he had imbibed the opinion, generally current
among educated Russians, that 'religion' is old-fashioned
and superstitious, and that sensible and cultured people do
not require it for themselves.

After finishing school Tolstoy went to the University at

2 TOLSTOY AND HIS PROBLEMS

Kazan. There he studied Oriental languages, but he did not
pass the final examinations.

In one of his books Tolstoy remarks how often the cleverest
boy is at the bottom of the class. And this really does occur.
A boy of active, independent mind, who has his own problems
to think out, will often find it terribly hard to keep his atten-
tion on the lessons the master wants him to learn. The
fashionable society Tolstoy met at his aunt's house in Kazan
was another obstacle to serious study.

He then settled on his estate at Yasnaya Polyana, and
tried to improve the condition of the serfs. His attempts
were not very successful at the time, though they served
to prepare him for work that came later. He had much
to contend against in himself, and after three years he went
to the Caucasus to economise, in order to pay off debts made
at cards. Here he hunted, drank, wrote his first sketches,
and entered the army, in which an elder brother to whom
he was greatly attached was serving, and which was then
engaged in subduing the native tribes.

When the Crimean War began, in 1854, Tolstoy applied
for active service, and was transferred to the army on the
frontier of European Turkey, and then, soon after the siege
began, to an artillery regiment engaged in the defence of
Sevastopol. His uncle, Prince Gortchakof, was commander-
in-chief of the Russian army, and Tolstoy received an appoint-
ment to his staff. Here he obtained that first-hand knowledge
of war which has helped him to speak on the subject with
conviction. He saw war as it really is.

The men who governed Russia, France, England, Sardinia,
and Turkey had quarrelled about the custody of the ' Holy
Places ' in Palestine, and about the meaning of two lines in
a treaty made in 1774 between Russia and Turkey.

They stopped at home, but sent other people — most of
them poorly paid, simple people, who knew nothing about
the quarrel — to kill each other wholesale in order to
settle it.

LEO TOLSTOY 3

Working men were taken from Lancashire, Yorkshire,
Middlesex, Essex, and all parts of England, Scotland, Wales,
Ireland, France, and Sardinia, and shipped, thousands of
miles, to join a number of poor Turkish peasants in trying
to kill Russian peasants. These latter had in most cases been
forced unwillingly to leave their homes and families, and to
march on foot thousands of miles to fight these people they
never saw before, and against whom they bore no grudge.

Some excuse had, of course, to be made for all this, and
in England people were told the war was " in defence of
oppressed nationalities."

When some 500,000 men had perished, and about
£340,000,000 had been spent, those who governed said it
was time to stop. They forgot all about the "oppressed
nationalities," but bargained about the number and kind of
ships Russia might have on the Black Sea.

Fifteen years later, when France and Germany were fight-
ing each other, the Russian Government tore up that treaty,
and the other Governments then said it did not matter. Later
still, Lord Salisbury said that in the Crimean War we "put
our money on the wrong horse." To have said so at the
time the people were killing each other would have been
unpatriotic. In all countries truth, on such matters, spoken
before it is stale, is unpatriotic.

When the war was over Count Tolstoy left the army and
settled in Petersburg. He was welcome to whatever advan-
tages the society of the capital had to offer, for not only
was he a nobleman and an officer, just back from the heroic
defence of Sevastopol, but he was then already famous
as a brilliant writer. He had written short sketches since
he was twenty-three, and while still young was recognised
among Russia's foremost literary men.

He had, therefore, fame, applause, and wealth— and at
first he found these things very pleasant. But being a man
of unusually sincere nature, he began in the second, and still
more in the third, year of this kind of life, to ask himself

4 TOLSTOY AND HIS PROBLEMS

seriously why people made such a fuss about the stories,
novels, or poems, that he and other literary men were pro-
ducing. If, said he, our work is really so valuable that it
is worth what is paid for it, and worth all this praise and
applause — it must be that we are saying something of great
importance to the world to know. What, then, is our
message ? What have we to teach ?

But the more he considered the matter, the more evident
it was to him that the authors and artists did not themselves
know what they wanted to teach — that, in fact, they had
nothing of real importance to say, and often relied upon
their powers of expression, when they had nothing to ex-
press. What one said, another contradicted, and what one
praised, another jeered at.

When he examined their lives, he saw that, so far from
being exceptionally moral and self-denying, they were a
more selfish and immoral set of men even than the officers
he had been among in the army.

In later years, when he had quite altered his views of life,
he wrote with very great severity of the life he led when in
the army and in Petersburg. This is the passage — it occurs
in My Confession : " I cannot now think of those years with-
out horror, loathing, and heart-ache. I killed men in war,
and challenged men to duels in order to kill them ; I lost
at cards, consumed what the peasants produced, sentenced
them to punishments, lived loosely, and deceived people.
Lying, robbery, adultery of all kinds, drunkenness, violence,
murder . . . there was no crime that I did not commit ; and
people approved of my conduct, and my contemporaries
considered, and consider me, to be, comparatively speaking,
a moral man."

Many people — forgetting Tolstoy's strenuous manner of
writing, and the mood in which My Confession was written —
have concluded from these lines that as a young man he led
a particularly immoral life. Really, he is selecting the worst
incidents, and is calling them by their harshest names : war

LEO TOLSTOY 5

and the income from his estate are "murder" and "robbery."
In this passage he is — like John Bunyan and other good men
before him— denouncing rather than describing the life he
lived as a young man. The simple fact is that he lived
among an immoral, upper-class, city society, and to some
extent yielded to the example of those around him ; but he
did so with qualms of conscience and frequent strivings after
better things. Judged even as harshly as he judges himself,
the fact remains that those among whom he lived considered
him to be above their average moral level.

Dissatisfied with his life, sceptical of the utility of his work
as a writer, convinced that he could not teach others without
first knowing what he had to teach, Tolstoy left Petersburg
and retired to an estate in the country, near the place where
he was born, and where he has spent most of his life.

It was the time of the great emancipation movement in
Russia. Tolstoy improved the condition of his serfs by com-
muting their personal service for a fixed annual payment, but
it was not possible for him to set them free until after the
decree of emancipation in 1861.

In the country Tolstoy attended to his estates and orga-
nised schools for the peasants. If he did not know enough to
teach the ' cultured crowd ' in Petersburg, perhaps he could
teach peasant children. Eventually he came to see that
before you can know what to teach— even to a peasant child
— you must know the purpose of human life. Otherwise
you may help him to ' get on,' and he may ' get on to other
people's backs,' and there be a nuisance even to himself.

Tolstoy twice travelled abroad, visiting Germany, France,
and England, and studying the educational systems, which
seemed to him very bad. Children born with different tastes
and capacities are put through the same course of lessons,
just as coffee beans of different sizes are ground to the same
grade. And this is done, not because it is best for them,
but because it is easiest for the teachers, and because the
parents lead artificial lives and neglect their own children.

6 TOLSTOY AND HIS PROBLEMS

In spite of his dissatisfaction with literary work Tolstoy
continued to write — but he wrote differently. Habits are
apt to follow from afar. A man's conduct may be influenced
by new thoughts and feelings, but his future conduct will result
both from what he was and from what he wishes to become.
So a billiard ball driven by a cue and meeting another ball
in motion, takes a new line, due partly to the push from the
cue and partly to the impact of the other ball.

At this period of his life, perplexed by problems he was
not yet able to solve, Tolstoy, who in general even up to old
age has possessed remarkable strength and endurance of
body as well as of mind, was threatened with a breakdown
in health — a nervous prostration. He had to leave all his
work and go for a time to lead a merely animal existence
and drink a preparation of mare's milk among the wild
Kirghiz in Eastern Russia.

In 1862 Tolstoy married, and he and his wife, to whom he
has always been faithful, have lived to see the century out
together. Not even the fact that the Countess has not
agreed with many of the views her husband has expressed
during the last twenty years, and has been dissatisfied at
his readiness to part with his property, to associate with
' dirty ' low - class people, and to refuse payment for his
literary work — not even these difficulties have diminished
their affection for one another. Thirteen children were born
to them, of whom five died young.

The fact that twenty years of such a married life preceded
Tolstoy's change of views, and that the opinions he now
expresses were formed when he was still as active and
vigorous as most men are at half his age, should be a sufficient
answer to those who have so misunderstood him as to suggest
that, having worn himself out by a life of vice, he now cries
sour grapes lest others should enjoy pleasures he is obliged
to abandon.

For some time Tolstoy was active as a " Mediator of the
Peace," adjusting difficulties between the newly emancipated

LEO TOLSTOY 7

serfs and their former owners. During the fourteen years
that followed his marriage he also wrote the long novels,
War and Peace, and Anna Karenina. His wife copied out War
and Peace no less than seven times, as he altered and improved
it again and again. With his work, as with his life, Tolstoy is
never satisfied — he always wants to get a step nearer perfec-
tion, and is keen to note and to admit his deficiencies.

The happiness and fulness of activity of his family life
kept in the background for nearly fifteen years the great
problems that had begun to trouble him. But ultimately the
great question : What is the meaning of my life ? presented
itself more clearly and insistently than ever, and he began
to feel that unless he could answer it he could not live.

Was wealth the aim of his life ?

He was highly paid for his books, and he had 20,000 acres
of land in the Government of Samara ; but suppose he be-
came twice or ten times as rich, he asked himself, would it
satisfy him ? And if it satisfied him — was not death coming :
to take it all away ? The more satisfying the wealth, the more
terrible must death be, which would deprive him of it all.

Would family happiness — the love of wife and children —
satisfy him, and explain the purpose of life ? Many fond
parents stake their happiness on the well-being of an only
child, and make that the aim of their lives. But how un-
fortunate such people are ! If the child is ill, or if it is out
too late, how wretched they make themselves and others.
Clearly the love of family afforded no sufficient answer to the
problem : What am I here for ? Besides, there again stood
death — threatening not only him but all those he loved.
How terrible that they, and he, must die and part !

There was fame ! He was making a world-wide literary re-
putation which would not be destroyed by his death. He asked
himself whether, if he became more famous than Shakespear or
Moliere, that would satisfy him ? He felt that it would not.
An author's works outlive him, but they too will perish.
How many authors are read 1000 years after their death ?

8 TOLSTOY AND HIS PROBLEMS

Is not even the language we write in constantly altering and
becoming archaic ? Besides, what was the use of fame when
he was no longer here to enjoy it ? Fame would not supply
an explanation of life.

And as he thought more and more about the meaning of
life, yet failed to find the key to the puzzle, it seemed to
him — as it seemed to Solomon, Schopenhauer, and to Buddha
when he first faced the problems of poverty, sickness, and
death, — that life is an evil : a thing we must wish to be rid
of. " Vanity of vanities, all is vanity." " Which of us has
his desire, or having it is happy ? "

Was not the whole thing a gigantic and cruel joke played
upon us by some demoniac power — as we may play with an
ant, defeating all its aims and destroying all it builds ? And
was not suicide the only way of escape ?

But though, for a time, he felt strongly drawn towards
suicide, he found that he went on living, and he decided to
ask those considered most capable of teaching, their explana-
tion of the purpose of life.

So he went to the scientists : the people who studied
nature and dealt with what they called ' facts ' and ' reali-
ties,' and he asked them. But they had nothing to give
him except their latest theory of self-acting evolution.
Millions of years ago certain unchanging forces were acting
on certain immutable atoms, and a process of evolution was
going on, as it has gone on ever since. The sun was
evolved, and our world. Eventually plant life, then animal
life, were evolved. The antediluvian animals were evolved,
and when nature had done with them it wiped them out
and produced us. And evolution is still going on, and the sun
is cooling down, and ultimately our race will perish like the
antediluvian animals.

It is very ingenious. It seems nearer the truth than the
guess, attributed to Moses, that everything was made in six
days. But it does not answer the question that troubled
Tolstoy, and the reply to it is obvious. If this self-acting

LEO TOLSTOY 9

process of evolution is going on — let it evolute ! It will
wipe me out whether I try to help it or to hinder it, and
not me only, but all my friends, and my race, and the solar
system to which I belong.

The vital question to Tolstoy was : " What am I here
for ? " And the question to which the scientists offered a
partial reply was, " How did I get here ? " — which is quite a
different matter.

Tolstoy turned to the priests : the people whose special
business it is to guide men's conduct and tell them what
they should, and what they should not, believe.

But the priests satisfied him as little as the scientists.
For the problem that troubled him was a real problem,
needing all man's powers of mind to answer it ; but the
priests having, so to say, signed their thirty-nine articles,
were not free to consider it with open minds. They would
only think about the problems of life and death subject to
the proviso that they should not have to budge from those
points to which they were nailed down in advance. And it
is no more possible to think efficiently in that way than it is
to run well with your legs tied together.

The scientists put the wrong question ; the priests accepted
the real question, but were not free to seek the truth, the
whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

Moreover, the greatest and most obvious evil Tolstoy had
seen in his life, was that pre-arranged, systematic, and whole-
sale method of murder called war. And he saw that the
priests, with very few exceptions, not only did nothing to
prevent such wholesale murder, but they even went, as
chaplains, with the soldiers, to teach them Christianity with-
out telling them it was wrong to fight ; and they blessed
ships of war, and prayed God to scatter our enemies, to con-
found their politics and to frustrate their knavish tricks.
They would even say this kind of thing without knowing
who the 'enemies' were. So long as they are not we, they
must be bad and deserve to be f confounded.'

10 TOLSTOY AND HIS PROBLEMS

Nor was this all. Professing a religion of love, they
harassed and persecuted those who professed any other forms
of religious belief. In the way the different churches con-
demned each other, and struggled one against another, there
was much that shocked him. Tolstoy tried hard to make
himself think as the priests thought, but he was unable to
do so.

Then he thought that perhaps if people could not tell him
in words what the object of life is, he might find it out by
watching their actions. And first he began to consider the
lives of those of his own society : people of the middle and
upper classes. He noticed among them people of different
types.

First, there were those who led an animal life. Many of
these were women, or healthy young men, full of physical
life. The problem that troubled him no more troubled them
than it troubles the ox or the ass. They evidently had not
yet come to the stage of development to which life, thought,
and experience had brought him, but he could not turn back
and live as they lived.

Next came those who, though capable of thinking 01
serious things, were so occupied with their business, pro-
fessional, literary, or governmental work, that they had
no time to think about fundamental problems. One had
his newspaper to get out each morning by five o'clock.
Another had his diplomatic negotiations to pursue. A third
was projecting a railway. They could not stop and think.
They were so busy getting a living that they never asked
why they lived ?

Another large set of people, some of them thoughtful
and conscientious people — were hypnotised by authority.
Instead of thinking with their own heads and asking them-
selves the purpose of life, they accepted an answer given
them by some one else : by some Church, or Pope, or book,
or newspaper, or Emperor, or Minister. Many people are
hypnotised by one or other of the Churches, and still more

LEO TOLSTOY 11

are hypnotised by patriotism and loyalty to their own eountry
and their own rulers. In all nations — Russia, England,
France, Germany, America, China and everywhere else —
people may be found who know that it is not good to boast
about their own qualities or to extol their own families, but
who consider it a virtue to pretend that their nation is better
than all other nations, and that their rulers, when they
quarrel and fight with other rulers, are always in the right.
People hypnotised in this way cease to think seriously about
right or wrong, and, where their patriotism is concerned,
are quite ready to accept the authority of any one who to
them typifies their Church or their country. However
absurd such a state of mind may be, it keeps many people
absorbed and occupied. How many people in France eagerly
asserted the guilt of Dreyfus on the authority of General
Mercier, and how many people in England were ready to
fight and die rather than to agree to arbitration with the
Transvaal after Chamberlain told them that arbitration was
out of the question !

There were a fourth set of people, who seemed to Tolstoy
the most contemptible of all. These were the epicureans :
people who saw the emptiness and purposelessness of their
lives, but said, " Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we
die." Belonging to the well-to-do classes and being materi-
ally better off than common people, they relied on this
advantage and tried to snatch as much pleasure from life
as they could.

None of these people could show Tolstoy the purpose of
his life. He began to despair, and was more and more
inclined to think suicide the best course open to a brave
and sincere man.

But there were the peasants — for whom he had always felt
great sympathy, and who lived all around him. How was it
that they — poor, ignorant, heavily-taxed, compelled to serve
in the army, and obliged to produce food, clothing and
houses, not only for themselves but for all their superiors —

12 TOLSTOY AND HIS PROBLEMS

how was it that they, on the whole, seemed to know the
meaning of life ? They did not commit suicide, but bore
their hard lot patiently, and when death came met it with
tranquillity. The more he thought about it, the more he
saw that these country peasants, tilling the soil and producing
those necessaries of life without which we should all starve,
were living a comparatively good and natural life, doing
what was obviously useful, and that they were nearer to a
true understanding of life than the priests or the scribes.
And he talked of these things with some of the best of such
men, and found that, even if many of them could not express
themselves clearly in words, they had firm ground under
their feet. Some of them, too, were remarkably clear in
thought and speech, free from superstition, and able to go
to the roots of the matter. But to break free from the
superstitions of science, and the prejudices of the ' cultured
crowd ' to which he belonged, was no easy matter even for
Tolstoy, nor was it quickly accomplished.

When the peasants spoke to him of " serving God " and
"not living for oneself," it perplexed him. What is this
" God " ? How can I know whether he, or it, really exists ?
But the question : What is the meaning of my life ? de-
manded an answer, and the peasants, hy example as well
as by words, helped him towards that answer.

He studied the sacred books of the East : the scriptures
of the Chinese, of the Buddhists, and of the Mahommedans ;
but it was in the Gospels, to which the peasants referred
him, that he found the meaning and purpose of life best
and most clearly expressed. The fundamental truths con-
cerning life and death and our relation to the unseen, are
the same in all the great religious books of the East or of
the West, but, for himself at least, Tolstoy found in the
Gospels (though they contain many blunders, perversions
and superstitions) the best, most helpful, and clearest ex-
pression of those truths.

He had always admired many passages in the Gospels, but

LEO TOLSTOY

had also found much that perplexed him. He now re-read
them in the following way : the only way, he says, in which
any sacred books can be profitably studied.

He first read them carefully through to see what they con-
tained that was perfectly clear and simple, and that quite
agreed with his own experience of life and accorded with
his reason and conscience. Having found (and even marked
in the margin with blue pencil) this core that had been ex-
pressed so plainly and strongly that it was easy to grasp, he
read the four little books again several times over, and found
that much that at first seemed obscure or perplexing, was
quite reasonable and helpful when read by the light of what
he had already seen to be the main message of the books.
Much still remained unintelligible, and therefore of no use to
him. This must be so in books dealing with great questions,
that were written down long ago, in languages not ours, by
people not highly educated and who were superstitious.

For instance, if one reads that Jesus walked on the water,
that Mahommed's coffin hung between heaven and earth, or
that a star entered the side of Buddha's mother before he V
was born, one may wonder how the statement got into the
book, and be perplexed and baffled by it i*ather than helped ;
but it need not hinder the effect of what one has understood
and recognised as true.

Reading the Gospels in this way, Tolstoy reached a view
of life that answered his question, and that has enabled him
to walk surefootedly, knowing the aim and purpose of his
life and ready to meet death calmly when it comes.

Each one of us has a reason and a conscience that come to
us from somewhere : we did not make them ourselves. They
oblige us to differentiate between good and evil ; we must
approve of some things and disapprove of others. We are
all alike in this respect, all members of one family, and in
this way sons of one Father. In each of us, dormant or
active, there is a higher and better nature, a spiritual nature,
a spark of the divine. If we open our hearts and mind we

14 TOLSTOY AND HIS PROBLEMS

can discern good from evil in relation to our own conduct :
the law is " very near unto you, in your heart and in your
mouth." The pui-pose of our life on earth should be to
serve, not our lower, animal nature but the power to which
our higher nature recognises its kinship. Jesus boldly
identifies himself with his higher nature, speaks of himself,
and of us, as Sons of the Father, and bids us be perfect as
our Father in heaven is perfect.

This then is the answer to the question : What is the
meaning and purpose of my life ? There is a Power enabling
me to discern what is good, and I am in touch with that
Power ; my reason and conscience flow from it, and the pur-
pose of my conscious life is to do its will, i.e. to do good.

Nor do the Gospels leave us without telling us how to
apply this teaching to practical life. The Sermon on the
Mount (Matthew, chaps, v. vi. and vii.) had always attracted
Tolstoy, but much of it had also perplexed him, especially
the text : " Resist not him that is evil ; but whosoever
smiteth thee on the right cheek, turn to him the other also."
It seemed to him unreasonable, and shocked all the preju-
dices of aristocratic, family and personal 'honour' in which
he had been brought up. But as long as he rejected and
tried to explain away that saying, he could get no coherent
sense out of the teaching of Jesus or out of the story of
his life.

As soon as he admitted to himself that perhaps Jesus
meant that saying seriously, it was as though he had found
the key to a puzzle ; the teaching and the example fitted
together and formed one complete and admirable whole. He
then saw that Jesus in these chapters is very definitely sum-
ming up his practical advice : pointing out, five times over,
what had been taught by " them of old times," and each time
following it by the words, " but I say unto you," and giving
an extension, or even a flat contradiction, to the old precept.

Here are the five commandments of Christ, an acceptance
of which, or even a comprehension of, and an attempt to follow

LEO TOLSTOY 15

which, would alter the whole course of men's lives in our
society.

(1) "Ye have heard that it was said to them of old time,
Thou shalt not kill ; and whosoever shall kill shall be in
danger of the judgment : but I say unto you, that every one
who is angry with his brother shall be in danger of the
judgment."

In the Russian version, as in our Authorised Version, the
words, " without a cause," have been inserted after the word
angry. This, of course, makes nonsense of the whole pas-
sage, for no one ever is angry without supposing that he
has some cause. Going to the best Greek sources, Tolstoy
detected this interpolation (which has been corrected in our
Revised Version), and he found other passages in which the
current translations obscure Christ's teaching : as for instance
the popular libel on Jesus which represents him as having
flogged people in the Temple with a scourge !

This, then, is the first of these great guiding rules : Do not
be angry.

Some people will say, We do not accept Christ's authority
— why should we not be angry ?

But test it any way you like : by experience, by the
advice of other great teachers, or by the example of the best
men and women in their best moods, and you will find that
the advice is good.

Try it expei-imentally, and you will find that even for your
physical nature it is the best advice. If under certain cir-
cumstances — say, if dinner is not ready when you want it —
you allow yourself to get very angry, you will secrete bile,
which is bad for you. But if under precisely similar circum-
stances you keep your temper, you won't secrete bile. It
will be better for you.

But, finally, one may say, " I cannot help being angry, it
is my nature ; I am made so." Very well ; there is no
danger of your not doing what you must do ; but religion
and philosophy exist in order to help us to think and feel

16 TOLSTOY AND HIS PROBLEMS

rightly, and to guide us in so far as our animal nature allows
us to be guided. If you can't abstain from anger altogether,
abstain from it as much as you can.

• •••••,

(2) " Ye have heard that it was said, Thou shalt not
commit adultery : but I say unto you, that every one that
looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery
with her already in his heart."

This second great rule of conduct is : Do not lust.

It is not generally accepted as good advice. In all our
towns things exist — certain ways of dressing, ways of dancing,
some entertainments, pictures, and theatrical posters — which
would not exist if everybody understood that lust is a bad
thing, spoiling our lives.

Being animals we probably cannot help lusting, but the
fact that we are imperfect does not prevent the advice from
being good. Lust as little as you can, if you cannot be
perfectly pure.

(3) " Again, ye have heard that it was said to them of old
time, Thou shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt perform unto
the Lord thine oaths : but I say unto you, Swear not at
all. . . . But let your speech be, Yea, yea ; Nay, nay."

How absurd ! says some one. Here are five great com-
mandments to guide us in life — the first is : " Don't be
angry," the second is : " Don't lust." These are really
broad, sweeping rules of conduct — but the third is : " Don't
say damn." What is the particular harm, or importance, of
using a few swear- words ?

But that, of course, is not at all the meaning of the com-
mandment. It, too, is a broad, sweeping rule, and it means :
Do not give away the control of your future actions. You have a
reason and a conscience to guide you, but if you set them aside
and swear allegiance elsewhere — to Tsar, Emperor, Kaiser,
King, Queen, President or General — they may some day
tell you to commit the most awful crimes ; perhaps even to

LEO TOLSTOY 17

kill your fellow-men. What are you going to do then ? To
break your oath ? or commit a crime you never would have
dreamt of committing had you not first taken an oath ?

The present Emperor of Germany, Wilhelm II., once
addressed some naval recruits just after they had taken the
oath of allegiance to him. (The oath had been administered
by a paid minister of Jesus Christ, on the book which says
" Swear not at all.") Wilhelm II. reminded them that they
had taken the oath, and that if he called them out to shoot their
own fathers they must now obey !

The whole organised and premeditated system of whole-
sale murder called war, is based and built up in all lands (in
England and Russia to-day as in the Roman Empire when
Jesus lived) on this practice of inducing people to entrust
their consciences to the keeping of others.

But it is the fourth commandment that people most object
to. In England, as in Russia, it is as yet hardly even begin-
ning to be understood.

(4) " Ye have heard that it was said, An eye for an eye,
and a tooth for a tooth : but I say unto you, Resist not him
that is evil; but whosoever smiteth thee on thy right cheek,
turn to him the other also."

That means, do not injure those who act in a way you
disapprove of.

There are two different and opposite ways of trying to
promote the triumph of good over evil. One way is the way
followed by the best men, from Buddha in India and Jesus
in Palestine, down to William Lloyd Garrison in America and
Leo Tolstoy in Russia. It is to seek to see the truth of
things clearly, to speak it out fearlessly, and to try to act up
to it, leaving it to influence other people as the rain and
the sunshine influence the plants. Men who live that way
influence others ; and their influence spreads from land to
land, and from age to age.

18 TOLSTOY AND HIS PROBLEMS

Think of the men who have done most good in the world,
and you will find that this has been their principle.

But there is another plan, much more often tried, and still
approved of by most people. It consists in making up one's
mind what other people should do, and then, if necessary,
using physical violence to make them do it.

For instance, we may think that the Boers ought to let
everybody vote for the election of their upper house and
chief ruler, and (instead of beginning by trying the experi-
ment at home) we may send out 300,000 men to kill Boers
until they leave it to us to decide whether they shall have
any votes at all.

People who act like that — Ahab, Attila, Caesar, Napoleon,
Bismarck, or Joseph Chamberlain — influence people as long
as they can reach them, and even longer ; but the influence
that lives after them and that spreads furthest, is to a very
great extent a bad influence, inflaming men's hearts with
anger, with bitter patriotism, and with malice.

These two lines of conduct are contrary the one to the
other. You cannot persuade a man while he thinks you wish
to hit or coerce him.

The last commandment is the most sweeping of all, and
especially re-enforces the 1st, 3rd, and 4th.

(5) " Ye have heard that it was said, Thou shalt love thy
neighbour and hate thine enemy ; but I say unto you, Love
your enemies . . . that ye may be sons of your Father which
is in heaven : for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and the
good, and sendeth rain on the just and the unjust. For if ye
love them that love you . . . what do ye more than others ?
Do not even the Gentiles (Foreigners : Boers, Turks, etc.)
the same ? Ye therefore shall be perfect, as your heavenly
Father is perfect."

The meaning of these five commandments, backed as they
are by the example of Jesus and the drift and substance of
his most emphatic teaching, is too plain to be misunderstood.

LEO TOLSTOY 19

It is becoming more and more difficult for the commentators
and the expositors to obscure it, though to many of them the
words apply : " Ye have made void the word of God because
of your traditions." What Jesus meant us to do, the direction
in which he pointed us, and the example he set us, are unmis-
takable. But, we are told, ' it is impracticable ! ' 'It must
be wrong because it is not what we are doing.' ' It is impos-
sible that Jesus can have pointed men to a morality higher
than ours ! '

There it is ! As long as we, men or nations, are self-satis-
fied — like the Pharisee who thanked God he was not as other
men are — we cannot progress. " They that are whole need
no physician." Religion and philosophy can be of use only
to those who will admit their imperfections and willingly
seek guidance.

' But it is impossible for us to cease killing men wholesale
at the command of our rulers, or to cease hanging men who
kill in retail without being told to. We must go on injuring
one another, or evil will be sure to come of it.' If so, then
let us throw away Christ's religion, for it leads us astray, and
let us find a better religion instead. The trouble is that the
best of the other religious teachers (such as Buddha) said the
same thing ! And we can hardly admit openly that we are
still worshipping Mars or Mammon.

The only other way is for us to be humble and honest
about the matter and confess : " I begin to see the truth of
this teaching. It points to perfection above the level we
have reached ; but if I am not good enough to apply it alto-
gether, I will apply it as far as I can, and will at least not
deny it, or pervert it, or try by sophistry to debase it to my
own level."

• • • •

After reaching this view of life (about the year 1880 or a
little earlier), Tolstoy saw that much he had formerly con-
sidered good was bad, and much he had thought bad was
good.

20 TOLSTOY AND HIS PROBLEMS

If the aim of life is to co-operate with our Father in doing
good, we should not seek to acquire as much property as pos-
sible for ourselves, but should seek to give as much to others,
and to take as little from others, as we can.

Instead of wanting the most expensive and luxurious food
for ourselves, we should seek the cheapest and simplest food
that will keep us in health.

Instead of wishing to be better dressed than our neigh-
bours, and wanting to have a shiny black chimney-pot hat to
show that we are superior to common folk, we should wish to
wear nothing that will separate us from the other children of
our Father.

Instead of seeking the most refined and pleasant work for
ourselves, and trying to put the rough, disagreeable work on
those weaker, less able, less fortunate, or less pushing and
selfish than ourselves, we should, on the contrary, make it a
point of honour to do our share of what is disagreeable and
ill-paid.

Economically speaking, what I take from my brethren
should go to my debit, only what service I do them should
go to the credit of my account.

Tolstoy became a strict vegetarian, eating only the sim-
plest food and avoiding stimulants. He ceased to smoke.
He dressed in the simplest and cheapest manner. Attaching
great importance to manual labour, he wr.s careful to take a
share of the housework : lighting his own fire and carrying
water. He also learned boot-making. Especially he enjoyed
labouring with the peasants in the fields, and found that hard
as the work was he enjoyed it, and, sti'ange to say, could do
better mental work when he only allowed himself a few hours
a day for it than he had been able to do when he gave him-
self up entirely to literary work. Instead of writing chiefly
novels and stories for the well-to-do and idle classes, he
devoted his wonderful powers principally to clearing up those

LEO TOLSTOY 21

perplexing problems of human conduct which seem to block
the path of progress.

Besides some stories (especially short stories for the people,
and some folk-stories which he wrote down in order that
they may reach those who are not accustomed to go to the
peasants for instruction), many essays and letters on impor-
tant questions, and a drama and a comedy, his chief works
during the last twenty years have been these thirteen
books : —

(1) My Confession.

(2) A Criticism of Dogmatic Theology, never yet translated.

(3) The Four Gospels Harmonised and Translated, of which
two parts out of three have been (not very well) translated.

(4) What I Believe, sometimes called My Religion.

(5) The Gospel in Brief, a summary of The Four Gospels,
and better suited for the general reader than the larger
work.

(6) What then must we do ? Sometimes called What
to do ?

(7) On Life, also called Life : a book not carefully
finished, and not easy to read in the original. The existing
English ti-anslation makes nonsense of it in many places,
but a new one has now (1902) been announced by the Free
Age Press.

(8) The Kreutzer Sonata : a story treating of the sex-question.
It should be read with the Afterword, explaining Tolstoy's
views on the subject.

(9) The Kingdom of God is Within You.

(10) The Chiistian Teaching : a brief summary of Tolstoy's
understanding of Christ's teaching. He considers that this
book still needs revision, but it will be found useful by those
who have understood the works numbered 1, 4, 5 and 6 in
this list.

(11) What is Art? In Tolstoy's opinion the best con-
structed of his books. The profound outcome of fifteen years'
consideration of the problem.

22 TOLSTOY AND HIS PROBLEMS

(12) Resurrection, a novel begun about 1894, laid aside in
favour of what seemed more important work, and completely
re-written and published in 1899, for the benefit of the
Doukhobors.

(13) What is Religion, and what is its Essence ? (Feb. 1902.)

The subjects that occupied him were the most important
subjects of human knowledge, those which should be (though
to-day they are not) emphatically called Science : the kind of
science that occupied " Moses, Solon, Socrates, Epictetus, Con-
fucius, Mencius, Marcus Aurelius, Spinoza, and all those who
have taught men to live a moral life." He examined " the re-
sults of good and bad actions," considered the "reasonableness
or unreasonableness of human institutions and beliefs," " how
human life should be lived in order to obtain the greatest
well-being for each," and "what one may and should, and
what one cannot and should not believe ; how to subdue one's
passions, and how to acquire the habit of virtue."

When Tolstoy began to write boldly and plainly about
these things, he quite expected to be persecuted. The
Russian Government, however, has considered it wiser not
to touch him personally, but to content itself with prohibiting
some of his books, mutilating others, and banishing several
of those who helped him. Under the auspices of the Holy
Synod, books were published denouncing him and his views
(an advertisement for which, as he remarked, Pears' Soap
would have paid thousands of pounds), his correspondence
was tampered with, spies were set to watch him and his
friends, and finally he was excommunicated, in a somewhat
half-hearted fashion which suggested that the authorities were
ashamed of their action.

These external matters, however, did not trouble him so
much as did a spiritual conflict. Indeed, at one time, im-
prisonment would have come as a relief, solving his difficulty.
The case was this : He wished to act in complete consistency
with the views he had expressed, but he could not do this —

LEO TOLSTOY 23

could not, for instance, give away his property — without
making his wife or some of his children angry, and without
the risk of their even appealing to the authorities to restrain
him. This perplexed him very much ; but he felt that he
could not do good by doing harm. No external rule, such
as that people should give all they have to the poor, would
justify him in creating anger and bitterness in the hearts of
those nearest to him. So, eventually, he handed over his
property to his wife and his family, and continued to live in
a good house with servants as before; meekly bearing the
reproach that he was 'inconsistent,' and contenting himself
with living as simply and frugally as possible.

At the time of the great famine in 1891-1892, circum-
stances seemed to compel him to undertake the great work
of organising and directing the distribution of relief to the
starving peasants. Large sums of money passed through his
hands, and all Europe and America applauded him. But he
himself felt that such activity, of collecting and distributing
money, " making a pipe of oneself," was not the best work
of which he was capable. It did not satisfy him. It is not
by what we get others to do for pay, but rather by what we
do with our own brains, hearts and muscles, that we can best
serve God and man.

Since 1895 he has again braved the Russian Government
by giving publicity to the facts it was trying to conceal about
the persecution of the Doukhobors in the Caucasus. To aid
these men, who refused military service on principle, he
broke his rule of taking no money for his writings, and sold
the first right of publication in Russia of Resurrection. But
of this act, too, he now repents. Whether for himself or for
others, he has found that the attempt to get property, money
or goods, is apt to be a hindrance to, rather than a means of
forwarding, the service of God and man.

Tolstoy is no faultless and infallible prophet whose works
should be swallowed as bibliolaters swallow the Bible ; but
he is a man of extraordinary capacity, sincerity and self-

24 TOLSTOY AND HIS PROBLEMS

sacrifice, who has for more than twenty years striven to make
absolutely plain to all, the solution of some of the most vital
problems of existence. What he has said, is part, and no
small part, of that truth which shall set men free. It is of
interest and importance to all who will hear it, especially to
the common folk who do most of the rough work and get
least of the praise or pay. But, in England and elsewhere,
his message is only beginning to reach those who most
need it, and has been greatly misunderstood. Many of the
c cultured crowd ' who write and talk about him as a genius,
twist his views beyond all recognition. They enter not in
themselves, neither suffer they them that are entering in,
to enter.

The work he has set himself to co-operate in is not the
expansion of an Empire, nor is it the establishment of a
Church ; for man's perception of truth is progressive, and
again and again finds itself hampered by forms and dogmas
of State and Church. Sooner or later we must break such
outward forms, as the chicken breaks its shell when the
time comes. The work to which Tolstoy has set himself
is a work to which each of us is also called : it is the estab-
lishment on earth of the Kingdom of God, that is, of Truth
and Good.

First published in pamphlet form (as The Teaching of Tolstoy), July
1900, by Albert Broadbent, Manchester.

TOLSTOY'S TEACHING

From his boyhood upwards, both when he listened to the
still, small voice within, and when he observed things out-
side himself, Tolstoy felt, though not always with equal
clearness, that life has a meaning and that man has power
to progress towards what is good. The intervals of doubt
and hesitation through which he passed, served to clarify
and shape his certainty that morality is in the nature of
things. Beginning with his earliest stories, and through all
his writings, the reader may notice how Tolstoy's strenuous
observation of things around him, and especially of what
went on in his own consciousness, led him towards an under-
standing of life different from that of people whose creed is
a matter of geography, and who have not worked at it them-
selves. He could not be content with a second-hand belief
prepared and expressed for him by professional expounders.

In trying to give a brief outline of his present views, it
will be convenient to confine the survey to woi'ks written
since Anna Karenina was finished — say since 1878. And no
more will here be attempted than to mention the chief
subjects he has written about during the last twenty-five
years, and to give a rough sketch of certain main conclusions
he has reached, as well as of his reasons for adopting them.

In My Confession (1879) 1 Tolstoy tells how he tried to
grasp the meaning of his life, and how unsatisfactory he
found the conventional answers. A law of his being obliged
him to approve and disapprove of things : to discriminate
between good and evil, and to follow after that which is

1 The dates given are not those of publication, but show when the

book (or the main part of the book) was written.

26 TOLSTOY AND HIS PROBLEMS

good. But what is Goodness ? Where can help or guidance
for our lives be found ? The results reached in My Confession
were not final, but led on to what followed. Tolstoy could
not brush away the claims of the Church without considera-
tion ; still less could he, as a truth-respecting man, profess
to believe what he saw no sufficient grounds for believing.
So, taking an authoritative text-book of the Eastern Church,
he sought the bases of doctrines and dogmas such as those
of the Trinity, the Sacraments, the scheme of Redemption,
the miraculous Conception and Resurrection, and the claim
of the Churches to authority over man's reason. His con-
clusion is expressed in A Criticism of Dogmatic Theology
(1880-81), which says that not only are such doctrines false
and harmful, but that they are fraudulent, and that the
original purpose of the fraud can be detected. The dogmas
bolster up the Church ; and ' the Church,' when we come
to practical business, means " power in the hands of certain
people." By inducing people to surrender their reason, and
to believe what is untrue, the rulers and officials of the
Churches obtained for themselves advantages and authority.
When the Church, in the time of Constantine, allied itself
with the State (which uses violence and causes men to be
killed), it abandoned the religion Christ believed in, and
substituted Churchianity for Christianity.

He next proceeded to a strenuous examination of the
Gospels. If the claims of the Church needed consideration
before they could be honestly accepted or rejected, equally
was this the case with the collection of Hebrew and Greek
literature called the Bible.

The best of the books of the Old Testament appear
to Tolstoy to rank with the greatest works of Chinese,
Indian, or Greek philosophy or religion. The Epistles of
St. Paul do not rank so high in his esteem, but the four
little booklets called the Gospels he has found more helpful
and convincing than anything else in literature. The under-
standing of life they have helped him to reach is explained in

TOLSTOY'S TEACHING 27

The Four Gospels Hannonised and Translated (1880-82); The
Gospel in Brief (1883); My Religion (or What I Believe)
(1883-4); and The Christian Teaching (written later, put on
one side, and published in 1898 without final revision).

Briefly (and by no means completely) summarised, the
conclusions arrived at in these books were these : —

We have reason and conscience (" the light which lighteth
every man ") to guide us forward. We did not originate
these for ourselves, but owe them to some Source outside our-
selves. The clue to the perplexities of life is, that life is not
our own to do as we like with, but we owe allegiance to what
has been called " Our Father in Heaven," from whom (or
from whence) proceeds the guidance we possess. Try to
define God as He, She, or It ; as three persons, or as thirty-
three persons ; as being the creator of the material universe
(and therefore responsible for all that is amiss in it) — and
we land ourselves in hopeless perplexities. But if we keep
closely to what we know and have ourselves experienced, we
may be as sure as Socrates was that we are in touch with
the Eternal Goodness. We know not how to speak of this
power within us and outside us, except to say that it is Love :
God is Love.

The practical application of Christ's teaching to life,
Tolstoy found given with special clearness in the Sermon
on the Mount, from which he extracted five precepts already
referred to in the preceding essay : —

(1) Do not be angry.

(2) Do not lust.

(3) Do not bind yourself by oaths.

(4) " Resist not him that is evil."

(5) Be good to the just and the unjust.

In a leaflet, How to read the Gospels (1896), Tolstoy tells us: —
"A great teacher is great just because he is able to

express the truth so that it can neither be hidden nor

obscured, but is as plain as daylight.

28 TOLSTOY AND HIS PROBLEMS

"And, indeed, the truth is there for all who will, with a
sincere wish to know the truth, read the Gospels without pre-
judice, and, above all, without supposing that the Gospels contain
some special sort of wisdom beyond human reason.

" The Gospels, as is known to all who have studied their
origin, far from being infallible expressions of Divine truth,
are the work of innumerable minds and hands, and contain
many errors. Therefore the Gospels can, in no case, be
taken as a production of the Holy Ghost, as Churchmen
assert. Were that so, God would have revealed the Gospels
as he is said to have revealed the Commandments on Mount
Sinai ; or he would have transmitted the complete book to
man as the Mormons declare was the case with their Holy
Scriptures. But we know how these works were written and
collected, and how they were corrected and translated ; and
therefore not only can we not accept them as infallible
revelations, but we must, if we respect truth, correct the
errors we find in them. Read them, putting aside all fore-
gone conclusions ; read them with the sole desire to under-
stand what is said there. But, just because the Gospels are
holy books, read them considerately, reasonably, and with
discernment, and not haphazard or mechanically, as though
all the words were of equal weight.

" To understand any book one must first choose out the
parts that are quite clear, dividing them from what is obscure
or confused. And from what is clear we must form our
idea of the drift and spirit of the whole work. Then, on the
basis of what we have understood, we may proceed to make
out what is confused or not quite intelligible. This is how
we read all kinds of books. And it is particularly necessary
thus to read the Gospels, which have passed through a multi-
plicity of compilations, translations and transcriptions, and
were composed eighteen centuries ago by men who were
not highly educated and were superstitious.

" Very likely, in selecting what is fully comprehensible
from what is not, people will not all choose the same passages.

TOLSTOY'S TEACHING 29

What is comprehensible to one may seem obscure to another.
But all will certainly agree in what is most important, and
these are things which will be found quite intelligible to every
one. It is just this — just what is fully comprehensible to
all men — that constitutes the essence of Christ's teaching."

In reading the Bible, or listening to the claims of the
Churches, one must discriminate between faith and credulity.
We must not accept as a virtue, faith of the kind defined
by the schoolboy who said : " Faith is believing what you
know to be untrue." Credulity is believing things you have
no sufficient reason to suppose true, and is not a virtue but
a fault. Faith is holding faithfully to what our reason and
conscience enable us to perceive of the reality of things. We
must not fear to trust our own judgment. The justification
for thinking with our own heads is that we have no one else's
to think with.

Tolstoy's acceptance of the advice : " Ye have heard that
it was said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth ; but
I say unto you, Resist not him that is evil : but whosoever
smiteth thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also/' is
explained in the works above mentioned, and yet more fully in
The Kingdom of God is Within You (1893). It means that we
should injure no one, but should influence one another, not
by physical force (nor even by unkindly compulsion stopping
short of violence), but by appeals to man's higher nature : his
sympathy, affection, reason, and respect for truth. It has
been said in reply to this, that even if the text bears such
a meaning, and even if the advice accords with the main
drift of Christ's teaching and example, yet the advice is
nevertheless unsound, for experience has shown that the use
of violence to destroy or injure bad men is beneficial. And
Tolstoy would admit that if the arrangements of society —
Governments based on violence, wars, executions, protection
of property by force, etc. — are satisfactory to man's highest
aspirations, then the precept quoted is a foolish one. His
position may be elucidated by taking a parallel case : —

30 TOLSTOY AND HIS PROBLEMS

We are advised to shun lies and to be truthful. This,
he would say, is a valid precept, and needful because it is
sometimes difficult to know how to speak, and we all need
guidance for our conduct. Yet cases arise in which a man
may not see his way to speak the truth. A feeble old man
asks me about his daughter's conduct. If I tell him how
she has behaved it may bring his grey hairs with sorrow
to the grave. Am I not justified in telling a lie ? And
does not it follow that truth is not better than falsehood ?
And that we can have no principle to guide us in choosing
between veracity and mendacity ? In regard to all such
sophistries Tolstoy replies that our reason and conscience,
faithfully used, are sufficient to enable us to discern prin-
ciples for the guidance of our conduct ; though we, and the
society in which we live, may be far from living up to the
principles so discerned. Truth, for instance, is better than
falsehood. And the two being opposites, you cannot culti-
vate your character towards both sincerity and duplicity at
the same time. Circumstances may arise in which it seems
to you better to lie. But we never really foreknow the
ultimate consequences of any action, and in such a case it is
not wise to say " I did right to lie," but rather, " Owing to
my limitations I did not see my way to escape lying." Truth
remains desirable though men may be mendacious.

To Tolstoy the case of violent coercion versus gentle per-
suasion is similar. Violence is employed in our society, and
we may, in this or that case, not have the wisdom or faith-
fulness to abstain from using it. Yet violence and gentle-
ness are opposites — and we can neither progress in two
directions at once nor remain safely without guidance. If
it is wrong to believe that the use of violence among men is
an evil causing incalculable suffering, then it is time some
one told us how much violence to use. We need a general
principle which will serve us when we are perplexed.

With the economic problem Tolstoy deals in What then
must we do ? (1885), a trenchant sequel to which, The Slavery

TOLSTOY'S TEACHING 31

of our Times, appeared in 1900. He quite rejects 'charity
organisation/ money-collecting activities, and the belief that
expenditure (including charitable expenditure : entertain-
ments, bazaars, balls, etc.) can supply the need of the poor.
People are fed, clothed, and sheltered by the results of
labour. Economically speaking, what a man produces, or
what service he renders to others, goes to his credit ; what
he consumes (were it but a crust of dry bread) goes to his
debit. The more a man takes for himself, and the less he
produces for others, the more of a burden he is to society.
And the fact that what he consumes was left him by his
father or given him by a friend does not alter the case.

Examining the fact that now, as in former ages, some
people are able to consume much while they produce little,
and others, while producing much, can hardly keep for
themselves the necessaries of life, Tolstoy came to investi-
gate the use of money, and arrived at the conclusion that
the organisation and justification of violence in the hands
of certain people called ' Government ' — who by the use of
force maintain taxation, the private ownership of land and
property, and the monetary system — have reproduced in the
modern world the essential evil of ancient slavery. In both
cases the many labour, not under natural, healthy, and free
conditions but under conditions imposed by those who own
the slaves, control the Government, or have the money, the
land, or the property.

On Life (1887) reminds us that besides what we perceive
objectively {i.e. all that can be known by the senses) we have
also a subjective consciousness of the moral law within us.
We must distinguish between our lower nature as animals,
and that higher nature which leads a Socrates to sacri-
fice physical existence for the sake of goodness. This is
the root of religion. Within our animal personality the
spirit matures, as the chicken grows within the shell. To
transfer our interest from the lower to the higher nature is
to be born again, to lay hold of eternal life. The things

32 TOLSTOY AND HIS PROBLEMS

which, at first, seem to us most real are evidently perishable ;
they disappoint and deceive us. But death and physical
destruction are no disaster to a Socrates, nor do they
threaten that which to him is important. We should shift
our centre of gravity from that in us which is temporary to
that which is permanent. " He that would save his life shall
lose it." Tolstoy makes no assertion of a personal future
life, nor even of the transmigration of souls (which seems so
plausible). For we should be very careful to discriminate
between conjectures and knowledge. We should in this
matter, as in mathematics, confine ourselves strictly to what
is ' necessary and sufficient ' ; and the ' necessary and sufficient '
is the recognition that though we live, as animals, in a tem-
porary and elusive world in which no permanent success is
possible, yet we have also a spiritual nature dealing with
goodness, and there is no reason to suppose that goodness
disappoints, or that the Divine spark within us, which
responds to it, is less eternal than goodness itself. Life is
always in the present ; here and now we must find out
whether it is the material or the spiritual that to our per-
ception is the more permanent and real.

The year 1889 saw the publication of the much-misunder-
stood Kreutzer Sonata. What then must we do ? had ended
with an appeal to mothers to fulfil their duty of bearing and
rearing children, and by setting an example of unselfish
devotion to duty to be the saviours of society. Reconsider-
ing the relations of the sexes subsequently, Tolstoy — with-
out abandoning his opinion that married people who have
conjugal relations should, as the natural result of physical
intimacy, have children — came to the further conclusion that
chastity, like gentleness and truthfulness, is a virtue of
universal application. And by chastity he means complete
purity in thought, word, and deed, and the absence of all
carnal desire.

The Kreutzer Sonata should be read with the Afterword,
which explains its intention. By putting his views into the

TOLSTOY'S TEACHING 33

mouth of a man who had murdered his wife out of jealousy
and had been acquitted on the ground of insanity, Tolstoy
was enabled to express them with extreme force and trench-
ancy. The side he wished to express being the one usually
burked, he preferred to put it in this aggressive fashion.
Though, of course, he had not ceased to know that sexual
relations (like war and commerce) have played, and are
playing, their part in the education of mankind, he felt no
need to re-state the side which has been put forward in the
literature of all ages and countries, and even in some of his
own previous writings. On the contrary, he felt that a
desire which is already far too strong is being continually
strengthened by works of art, and he set himself strenuously,
and even fiercely, to evoke those deep instincts of our nature
which, whether in Buddhist monk, in Catholic nun, or in
Puritan censure of worldly art, have never ceased to protest
against the belief that sexual pleasure is morally good.

The fundamental thought of the Kreutzer Sonata is this :
Mankind needs guidance in its sexual relations as on all
other matters of human conduct. The definite regulations
of the Mosaic, Mahommedan, or Church-Christian law, like the
regulations of monkish celibacy, etc., can at best apply only
to certain times and places. The authority behind such
regulations gradually breaks down, and if we trust only to
them we are finally left face to face with the problems of
life without guidance for our conduct. But guidance exists.
Chastity is a virtue. Aim towards it. At every stage of
progress, from the time reason awakes and you feel a need
to choose your path — whether you are boy or girl, man or
woman, married or single— choose the thoughts, feelings, and
acts which bring you nearest to chastity. You need not be
afraid of progressing too rapidly, or of defeating the ends of
God by becoming perfect too soon ! If you are entirely
satisfied with the life you are living you will ask for no
guidance. Philosophy and religion are required only for
people whose lives are not already perfect ! The funda-

34 TOLSTOY AND HIS PROBLEMS

mental feeling the book seeks to convey is that sexual
relations (however inevitable and natural they may be to
man's animal self), from the moment a reasonable being
deliberately seeks them as a means of pleasure, become re-
volting to our higher nature. They are instinctively carried
on in secret, nor can we even imagine to ourselves the love
affairs of a Christ.

The Ki?igdom of God is Within You (1893) has already been
referred to as dealing specially with ' non-resistance ' and
war. The most resolute upholder of himself as an example
of non-resistant principles you have ever met, may ultimately
have punched another man's head in anger. But the truth
of a principle is not invalidated by human limitations. A
straight line may be desirable and conceivable though no
man ever drew one. It is well to know whether the line
you have to draw is meant to be straight, whether your utter-
ance should be truthful, and whether your conduct to your
neighbour near at hand, or to the nation beyond the seas,
ought to be loving, gentle, and kindly.

All this time, while the urgent need of elucidating, for
himself and others, the great problems of religion, economics,
and philosophy, had kept Tolstoy from making any prolonged
excursions into the realms of art, the questions : " What is
Art ? Is it important ? Wherein does its importance lie ? "
had pursued him, and the answer had been slowly shaping
itself in his mind. What is Art? being specially treated of
in the next essays, we need not here do more than pause to
notice the intimate connection between Tolstoy's theory of
art, and the principle of non-resistance which figures so largely
in his interpretation of the Gospels and in his social and
economic studies.

So great is the influence men can, without any violence,
exert on one another by means of art, that : " Through the
influence of real art, aided by science, guided by religion,
that peaceful co-operation of man which is now obtained by
external means — by our law courts, police, charitable institu-

TOLSTOY'S TEACHING 35

tions, factory inspection, etc. — should be obtained by man's
free and joyous activity. Art should cause violence to be set
aside."

Following this came Resurrection (1899), the only long
work of fiction written by Tolstoy during the last twenty
years, and one faithfully reflecting his mature opinions on
all the great problems of life. That this book — conveying,
as it does, feelings (on such subjects as army service, legal
proceedings, church services, marriage, etc.) which run counter
to those that have grown up and become general in con-
nection with our established order of society — should, never-
theless, have had a great success in many lands, is an instance
of the power which literary art exerts among us to-day.
And when we remember how small a part a single book on
its first appearance can exercise of that cumulative influence
which has sometimes been wielded by art : for instance, by
Homer's art among the Greeks, or that of their scriptures
(a large part of which are artistic) among the Jews ; when,
moreover, we bear in mind Tolstoy's assurance that art has
never yet done nearly all it is capable of accomplishing for
the benefit of humanity — we begin to see how great a part
art may play in shaping the future of mankind.

Without, here, mentioning in detail Tolstoy's numerous
articles and essays dealing with the use of stimulants, with
vegetarianism, patriotism, manual labour, the famine, the
Doukhobors, and many other subjects, one may say, in
general, that they all show his profound conviction that the
primary guidance for our life lies not in what is outside us
and reaches us through our senses (as is generally implicitly
or explicitly affirmed among materialists, church people,
worldly people, and spiritualists), but that the essential thing
is to " know thyself," or, as George Fox said, to hearken to
the ' inward voice.'

Those who wish to get at the spirit of Tolstoy's teaching
should read his works in the way he says all books should be
read. " One must first choose out the parts that are quite

36 TOLSTOY AND HIS PROBLEMS

clear, dividing them from what is obscure or confused. And
from what is clear we must form our idea of the drift and
spirit of the whole work." And the clearness to be looked
for is, he would add, the clearness which comes from corre-
spondence with the best the reader is himself able to feel
and to perceive.

Tolstoy does not claim to set an example of right living.
Man's reason can always reach beyond his present attain-
ment. The Pharisee may be satisfied with himself, but the
sincere and thoughtful man is ever conscious of his own
shortcomings. Neither does Tolstoy claim any authority for
his teaching except what it derives from its appeal to man's
reason and conscience. There is no tenet of his he would
wish accepted without examination. In this sense his teach-
ing is truly catholic. Its appeal lies to all who possess a
reason and a conscience, and he would wish it to be verified,
and where necessary corrected, by the thought and experi-
ence of all who follow after truth and seek for goodness.

The above is a revision of an article published in the 'Tolstoy
Number' of Literature, 31st August 1901.

AN INTRODUCTION TO
"WHAT IS ART?"

What thoughtful man has not been perplexed by problems
relating to art ?

An estimable and charming Russian lady I knew, felt so
strongly the charm of the music and ritual of the services
of the Russo-Greek Church that she wished the peasants, in
whom she was interested, to retain their blind faith, though
she herself disbelieved the Church doctrines. "Their lives
are so poor and bare, they have so little art, so little poetry
and colour in their lives — let them at least enjoy what they
have ; it would be cruel to undeceive them," said she.

A false and antiquated view of life is supported by means
of art, and is inseparably linked to some manifestations of
art which we enjoy and prize. If the false view of life be
destroyed this art will cease to appear valuable. Is it better
to screen the error for the sake of preserving the art ? Or
should the art be sacrificed for the sake of truthfulness ?

Again and again in history a dominant Church has utilised
art to maintain its sway over men. Reformers (early Chris-
tians, Mahommedans, Puritans, and others) have perceived
that art bound people to the old faith, and have been angry
with art. They diligently chipped the noses from statues
and images, and were wroth with ceremonies, decorations,
stained-glass windows, and processions. They were even ready
to banish art altogether, for, besides the superstitions it upheld,
they saw that it depraved and perverted men by dramas, drink-
ing-songs, novels, pictures, and dances of a kind that awakened
man's lower nature. Yet art always reasserted her sway,

38 TOLSTOY AND HIS PROBLEiMS

and to-day we are told by many that art has nothing to do
with morality— that art should be followed for art's sake.

I went one day, with a lady artist, to the Bodkin Art
Gallery, in Moscow. In one of the rooms, on a table, lay
a book of coloured pictures, issued in Paris and supplied,
I believe, to private subscribers only. The pictures were
admirably executed, but represented scenes in the private
cabinets of a restaurant. Sexual indulgence was the chief
subject of each picture : women extravagantly dressed and
partly undressed ; women exposing their legs and breasts
to men in evening dress ; men and women taking liberties
with each other, or dancing the can-can, etc., etc. My com-
panion the artist, a maiden lady of irreproachable conduct
and reputation, began deliberately to look at these pictures.
I could not let my attention dwell on them without ill
effects. Such things had a certain attraction for me and
tended to make me restless and nervous. I ventured to
suggest that the subject-matter of the pictures was objection-
able. But my companion (who prided herself on being
an artist) remarked, with conscious superiority, that from
an artist's point of view the subject was of no consequence.
The pictures being very well executed were artistic, and
therefore worthy of attention and study. Morality had
nothing to do with art.

Here again is a problem. One remembers Plato's advice
not to let our thoughts run upon women, for if we do we
shall think clearly about nothing else, and one knows that
to neglect this advice is to lose tranquillity of mind ; but then
one does not wish to be considered narrow, ascetic, or in-
artistic, nor to lose artistic pleasures which those around
us esteem so highly.

Again, the newspapers not long ago printed proposals to
construct a Wagner Opera House, to cost, if I recollect
rightly, £100,000 — about as much as a hundred labourers
may earn by fifteen or twenty years' hard work. The
writers thought it would be a good thing if such an Opera

AN INTRODUCTION TO "WHAT IS ART?" 39

House were erected and endowed. But I had a talk lately
with a man who, till his health failed him, had worked
as a builder in London. He told me that when he was
younger he had been very fond of theatre-going, but later,
when he thought things over and considered that in almost
every number of his weekly paper he read of cases of people
whose death was hastened by lack of good food, he felt
it was not right that so much labour should be spent on
theatres.

In reply to this view it is urged that food for the mind
is as important as food for the body. As the labouring classes
work to produce food and necessaries for themselves and for
the cultured, so some of the cultured class produce plays
and operas. It is a division of labour. But this again
invites the rejoinder that, sure enough, the labourers produce
food for themselves and also food that the cultured class
accept and consume ; but that the artists seem too often
to produce their spiritual food for the cultured only — at any
rate, a singularly small share seems to reach the country
labourers who work to supply the bodily food ! Even were
the division of labour shown to be a fair one, the division
of products seems remarkably one-sided.

Once again : How is it that often when a new work is
produced, neither the critics, the artists, the publishers, nor
the public, seem to know whether it is valuable or worth-
less ? Some of the most famous books in English literature
could, at first, hardly find a publisher, or were savagely
derided by leading critics ; while other works once acclaimed
as masterpieces are now laughed at or utterly forgotten. A
play which nobody now reads was once passed off as a newly-
discovered masterpiece of Shakespear's, and was produced
at a leading London theatre. Are the critics playing blind-
man's buff? Are they relying on each other ? Is each
following his own whim and fancy ? Or do they possess a
criterion never revealed to those outside the profession ?

Such are a few of the many problems relating to art which

40 TOLSTOY AND HIS PROBLEMS

present themselves to us all, and it is the purpose of Tolstoy's
What is Art ? to enable us to reach such a comprehension of
art, and of the position art should occupy in our lives, as will
enable us to answer such questions.

The task is one of enormous difficulty. Under the cloak
of ' Art ' so much selfish amusement and self-indulgence tries
to justify itself, and so many mercenary interests are con-
cerned in preventing the light from shining in upon the
subject, that the clamour raised by this book can only be
compared to that raised by the silversmiths of Ephesus when
they shouted, " Great is Diana of the Ephesians ! " for about
the space of two hours.

Elaborate theories blocked the path with subtle sophistries
or ponderous pseudo-erudition. Merely to master these and
expose them was by itself a colossal labour, necessary in
order to clear the road for a statement of any fresh view.
To have accomplished this work of exposure in a few chap-
ters is a wonderful achievement. To have done it without
making the book intolerably dry is more wonderful still. In
Chapter III. (where a rapid summary of some sixty esthetic
writers is given) even Tolstoy's powers fail to make the sub-
ject interesting except to the specialist, and he has to plead
with his readers " not to be overcome bv dulness, but to read
these extracts through."

Among the writers mentioned, English readers miss the
names of John Ruskin and William Morris, especially as
much that Tolstoy says is in accord with their views.

Of Ruskin Tolstoy has a very high opinion. I have heard
him say, " I don't know why you English make such a fuss
about Gladstone — you have a much greater man in Ruskin."
As a stylist, too, Tolstoy spoke of him with high commenda-
tion. Ruskin, however, though he has written on art with
profound insight, and has said many things with which
Tolstoy fully agrees, as well as some things he dissents from,
has, I think, nowhere so systematised and summarised his
view that it can be readily quoted in the concise way which

AN INTRODUCTION TO "WHAT IS ART?" 41

has enabled Tolstoy to indicate his points of essential agree-
ment with Home (Lord Karnes), Veron, and Kant. Even
the attempt to summarise Kant's esthetic philosophy in a
dozen lines will hardly be of much service, except to readers
who have already some acquaintance with the subject. For
those to whom the distinction between -subjective' and 'ob-
jective ' perceptions is fresh, a dozen pages would be none
too much. And to summarise Ruskin would be perhaps
more difficult than to condense Kant. 1

As to William Morris, we are reminded of his dictum
that art is the workman's expression of joy in his work, by
Tolstoy's " As soon as the author is not producing art for his

1 I leave this as it stood in the first edition, but since it was written
I have heard from Tolstoy twice on the subject. First, my friend
Paul Boulanger wrote from Yasnaya Polyana (24th June 1901, O.S.),
duriug Tolstoy's illness as follows : —

"You ask why Leo Nikolayevitch did not mention Ruskin in What
is Art? He asks me to reply that he did not do so: first, because
Ruskin attributes a special moral importance to beauty in art ; and,
secondly, because all his writings, rich as they are in depth of thought,
are yet not bound together by any one ruling idea."

After Tolstoy's recovery, a letter (undated) reached me on 17th
August 1901, in which he wrote : —

"I have forgotten what I wrote you about Ruskin, and fear it
was not correct. I have lately read an excellent book about him,
Ruskin et la Bible, I think by Brunhes. Ruskin's chief limitation was
that he could never quite free himself from the Church-Christian
outlook upon life. At the time he commenced his work on social
questions, when he wrote Unto this Last, he freed himself from the
dogmatic tradition, but a cloudy Church-Christian understanding of
the demands of life — which made it possible for him to unite ethical
with esthetical ideals — remained with him to the end and weakened
his message. It was also weakened by the artificiality, and conse-
quent obscurity, of his poetic style. Do not imagine that I deny the
work of this great man, who has quite rightly been called a prophet.
I always was charmed and am charmed by him, but I point out
spots which exist even on the sun. He is specially good when a wise
writer, in accord with him, makes extracts from him, as is done in
Ruskin et la Bible (which read), but to read all Ruskin consecutively,
as I did, greatly weakens his effect."

42 TOLSTOY AND HIS PROBLEMS

own satisfaction — does not himself feel what he wishes to
express — a resistance immediately springs up" (p. 154);
and again, " In such transmission to others of the feelings
that have arisen in him, he (the artist) will find his happi-
ness " (p. 195). Tolstoy sweeps over a far wider range of
thought, but he and Morris are not opposed. Morris was
emphasising part of what Tolstoy is implying.

But to return to the difficulties of Tolstoy's task. There
is one, not yet mentioned, lurking in the hearts of most of
us. We have enjoyed works of 'art.' We have been in-
terested by the information conveyed in a novel, or we have
been thrilled by an unexpected ( effect ' ; have admired the
exactitude with which real life has been reproduced, or
have had our feelings touched by allusions to, or imitations
of, works — old German legends, Greek myths, or Hebrew
poetry — which moved us long ago, as they moved genera-
tions before us. And we thought all this was f art.' Not
clearly understanding what art is and wherein its importance
lies, we were not only attached to these things, but attributed
importance to them, calling them f artistic ' and ' beautiful '
without well knowing what we meant by those words.

But here is a book that obliges us to clear our minds. It
challenges us to define ' art ' and ' beauty,' and to say what
grounds we have for attaching importance to these things that
happen to please us.

As to beauty, we find that the definition given by esthetic
writers amounts merely to this, that " Beauty is a kind of
pleasure received by us, not having personal advantage for
its object." But it follows from this that ' beauty ' is a matter
of taste, differing among different people ; and to attach
special importance to what pleases me (and others who have
had the same sort of training that I have had) is merely
to repeat the old, old mistake which so divides human
society : it is like declaring that my race is the best race, my
nation the best nation, my Church the best Church, and my
family the best family. It indicates ignorance and selfishness.

AN INTRODUCTION TO "WHAT IS ART?" 43

But " truth angers those whom it does not convince " ;
there are people who do not wish to understand these things.
It seems, at first, as though Tolstoy were obliging us to
sacrifice something valuable. We do not realise that we are
being helped to select the best art, but we do feel that we
are being deprived of our sense of satisfaction in Rudyard
Kipling.

Both the magnitude and the difficulty of the task were
therefore very great, but they have been surmounted in a
marvellous manner. In its construction, in co-ordination in
concise form of many converging thoughts, this is, probably,
the most masterly of all Tolstoy's works. Of the effect the
book has had on me personally, I can only say that, though
sensitive to some forms of art, I was, when I took it up,
much in the dark on questions of esthetic philosophy ; when
I had done with it, I had grasped the main solution of the
problem so clearly that, though I subsequently read a number
of conflicting opinions on the subject, I never again became
perplexed upon the central issues.

Tolstoy was indeed peculiarly qualified for the task he has
accomplished. It was after many years of work as a writer of
fiction, and when he was already standing in the very fore-
most rank of European novelists, that he found himself com-
pelled to face, in deadly earnest, the deepest problems of
human life. He not only could not go on writing books, but
he felt he could not live, unless he found clear guidance, so
that he might walk sure-footedly and know the purpose and
meaning of his life. Not as a mere question of speculative
curiosity but as a matter of vital necessity, he devoted years
to re-discover the truths which underlie all religion.

To fit him for this task he possessed great knowledge of
men and books, a wide experience of life, a knowledge of
languages, and a freedom from bondage to any authority but
that of reason and conscience. He was pinned to no thirty-nine
articles, and was in receipt of no retaining fee which he was
not prepared to sacrifice. Another gift, rare among men of

44 TOLSTOY AND HIS PROBLEMS

his position, was his wonderful sincerity, and (due, I think,
to that sincerity) an amazing power of looking at the
phenomena of our complex and artificial life with the eyes
of a little child ; going straight to the real, obvious facts
of the case and brushing aside the sophistries, the conven-
tionalities, and the ' authorities ' by which they are obscured.

He commenced the task when he was about fifty years
of age, and during the next twenty years produced a dozen
philosophical or scientific works of first-rate importance, 1
besides many stories and short articles.

And all this time the problems of Art : What is Art ?
What importance is due to it ? How is it related to the
rest of life ? — were working in his mind. He was a great
artist, often upbraided for having abandoned his art. He, of
all men, was bound to clear his thoughts on this perplexing
subject and to express them. His whole philosophy of life
— the " religious perception " to which, with such tremen-
dous labour and effort, he had attained — forbade him to
detach art from life, and place it in a water-tight compart-
ment where it should not act on life or be re-acted upon
by life.

Life to him is rational. It has a clear aim and purpose,
discernible by the aid of reason and conscience. And no
human activity can be fully understood or rightly appreciated
until the central purpose of life is perceived.

You cannot piece together a puzzle-map as long as you
keep one bit in a wrong place, but when the pieces all fit
together you have a demonstration that they are all in their
right places. Tolstoy used that simile years ago when ex-
plaining how the comprehension of the text, " resist not him
that is evil," enabled him to perceive the reasonableness of
Christ's teaching, which had long baffled him. So it is with
the problem of Art. Wrongly understood, it will tend to
confuse and perplex your whole comprehension of life. But
the clue supplied by true "religious perception " enables you
1 For a list of these see the article, Leo Tolstoy, p. 21 of this book.

AN INTRODUCTION TO "WHAT IS ART?" 45

to place art so that it shall fit in with a right understanding
of politics, economics, sex-relationships, science, and all other
phases of human activity.

The basis on which the work rests is a perception of the
meaning of human life. This was lost sight of by some of
the reviewers, who, when the book first appeared, misrepre-
sented what Tolstoy said, and then demonstrated how stupid
he would have been had he said what they attributed to him.
Leaving his premises and arguments untouched, they dis-
sented from various conclusions — as though it were all a mere
question of taste. But such criticism can lead to nothing.
Discussions as to why one man likes pears and another pre-
fers meat do not help towards finding a definition of what
is essential in nourishment ; and, just so, " the solution of
questions of taste in art does not help to make clear
what this particular human activity which we call art really
consists in."

The object of the following summary of a few main points
is to help the reader to avoid pitfalls into which many
reviewers have fallen. It aims at being no more than a bare
statement of the positions — for more than that the reader
must turn to the book itself.

Let it be granted at the outset that Tolstoy writes for
those who have ears to hear. He seldom pauses to safeguard
himself against the captious critic, and cares little for minute
verbal accuracy. For instance, on page 144, 1 he mentions
" Paris," where an English writer (even one who knew to what
an extent Paris is the art centre of France, and how many
artists flock thither from Russia, America, and all ends of the
earth) would have been almost sure to say " France," for fear
of being thought to exaggerate. One needs some alertness
of mind to follow Tolstoy in his task of compressing so large
a subject into so small a space. Moreover, he is an emphatic
writer, who says what he means, and even, I think, sometimes

1 The references relate to my translation in the "Scott Library"
edition.

46 TOLSTOY AND HIS PROBLEMS

rather over-emphasises it. With this much warning let us
proceed to a brief summary of Tolstoy's view of art.

" Art is a human activity/' and consequently does not exist
for its own sake, but is valuable or objectionable in propor-
tion as it is serviceable or harmful to mankind. The object
of this activity is to transmit to others feelings the artist has
experienced. Such feelings — intentionally re-evoked and
successfully transmitted to others — are the subject-matter
of all art. By certain external signs — movements, lines,
colours, sounds, or arrangements of words — an artist infects
other people so that they share his feelings. Thus " art
is a means of union among men, joining them together in
the same feelings."

In Chapters II. to V. we have an examination of various
theories which have taken art to be something other than
this, and step by step we are brought to the conclusion that
art is this, and nothing but this.

Having got our definition of art, we first consider art inde-
pendently of its subject-matter, i.e. without asking whether
the feelings transmitted are good, bad, or indifferent. With-
out adequate expression there is no art, for there is no " infec-
tion," no transference to others of the author's feeling. The
test of art is infection. If an author has moved you so that
you feel as he felt, if you are so united to him in feeling that
it seems to you that he has expressed just what you have
long wished to express, the work that has so infected you is
a work of art.

In this sense it is true that art has nothing to do with
morality ; for the test lies in the infection, and not in any
consideration of the goodness or badness of the emotions con-
veyed. Thus the test of art is an internal one. 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 that moved the man
who expressed it. We all share the same common human
nature, and in this sense, at least, are sons of one Father.

AN INTRODUCTION TO "WHAT IS ART?" 47

To take the- simplest example : a man laughs, and another,
who hears, becomes merry ; or a man weeps, and another,
who hears, feels sorrow. But note in passing that it does not
amount to art " if a man infects others directly, immediately,
at the very time he experiences the feeling : if he causes
another man to yawn when he himself cannot help yawning,"
etc. Art begins when some one, with the object of making
others share his feeling, expresses that feeling by certain ex-
ternal indications.

This faculty of being infected by the expression of another
man's emotions is possessed by all normal human beings.
For a plain man of unperverted taste, living in contact with
nature, with animals, and with his fellow-men, say, 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."
And he will know indubitably whether a work presented to
him does, or does not, unite him in feeling with the author.
But very many people " of our circle " (upper and middle-
class society) live such unnatural lives, in such conventional
relations to the people around them, and in such artificial
surroundings, that they have lost "that simple feeling . . .
that sense of infection with another's feeling — compelling us
to joy in another's gladness, to sorrow in another's grief, and
to mingle souls with another — which is the essence of art."
Such people, therefore, have no inner test by which to recog-
nise a work of art ; and they will always be mistaking other
things for art, and seeking for external guides, such as the
opinions of 'recognised authorities.' Or they will mistake
for art something that produces a merely physiological effect :
lulling or exciting them ; or some intellectual puzzle that
gives them something to think about.

But if most people of the 'cultured crowd' are impervious
to true art, is it really possible that a common Russian
country peasant, for instance, whose work-days are filled with
agricultural labour, and whose brief leisure is largely taken up
by his family life and by his participation in the affairs of the

48 TOLSTOY AND HIS PROBLEMS

village commune — is it possible that he can recognise and be
touched by works of art ? Certainly it is ! Just as in ancient
Greece crowds assembled to hear the poems of Homer, so
to-day in Russia, as in many countries and many ages, the
Gospel parables, and much else of the highest art, are gladly
heard by the common people. And this does not refer to
any superstitious use of the Bible, but to its use as literature.

Not only do normal labouring country people possess the
capacity to be infected by good art — " the epic of Genesis,
folk-legends, fairy-tales, folk-songs, etc.,"— but they them-
selves produce songs, stories, dances, decorations, etc., which
are works of true art. Take as examples the works of Burns
or Bunyan, and the peasant women's song mentioned in
Chapter XIV. of What is Art?; or some of those melodies
produced by the negro slaves on the southern plantations,
which have touched, and still touch, many of us with the
emotions felt by their unknown and unpaid composers.

The one great quality which makes a work of art truly
contagious is its sincerity. If an artist is really actuated by a
feeling, and is strongly impelled to communicate that feeling
to other people — not for money or fame or anything else, but
because he feels he must impart it — then he will not be
satisfied till he has found a clear way of expressing it. And
the man who is not borrowing his feelings, but has drawn
what he expresses from the depths of his nature, is sure to be
original, for in the same way that no two people have exactly
similar faces or forms, no two people have exactly similar
minds or souls.

That, in brief outline, is what Tolstoy says about art con-
sidered apart from its subject-matter. And this is how
certain critics have met it. They say that when Tolstoy says
the test of art is internal, he must mean that it is external.
When he says that country peasants have in the past appre-
ciated, and do still appreciate, works of the highest art, he
means that the way to detect a work of art is to see what
is apparently most popular among the masses. Go into the

AN INTRODUCTION TO "WHAT IS ART?" 49

streets or music-halls of the cities in any particular country
and year, and observe what is most frequently sung, shouted,
or played on the barrel-organs. It may happen to be

" Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-av,"
or,

" We don't want to fight,
But, by Jingo, if we do ! "

But whatever it is, you may at once declare these songs to be
the highest musical art, without even pausing to ask to what
they owe their vogue : what actress, or singer, or politician,
or wave of patriotic passion has conduced to their popularity !
Nor need you consider whether that popularity is not merely
temporary and local. Tolstoy has said that works of the
highest art are understood by unperverted country peasants,
and here are things which are popular with the mob — ergo,
these things must be the highest art. The critics then pro-
ceed to say that such a test is utterly absurd. And on this
point we may agree with the critics.

Some of these writers commence their articles by saying
that Tolstoy is a most profound thinker, a great prophet, an
intellectual force, etc. Yet when Tolstoy, in his emphatic
way, makes the sweeping remark that "good art always
pleases every one," the critics do not read on to find out
what he means, but reply : " No ! good art does not please
every one ; some people are colour-blind, and some are deaf,
or have no ear for music."

It is as though a man strenuously arguing a point were to
say, " Every one knows that two and two make four," and a
boy who did not at all see what the speaker was driving at
were to reply : " No, our new-born baby doesn't know it ! "
It would be true enough, and would distract attention from
the subject in hand, but it would not elucidate matters.

There is, of course, a verbal contradiction between the
statements that " good art always pleases every one "
(p. 100), and the remark concerning "people of our circle,"

50 TOLSTOY AND HIS PROBLEMS

who, artists and public and critics, "with very few excep-
tions . . . cannot distinguish true works of art from counter-
feits, but continually mistake for real art the worst and most
artificial" (p. 151). But I venture to think that no unpre-
judiced and intelligent person, reading the book carefully,
should fail to reach the author's meaning.

A point to be well noted is the distinction between science
and art. " Science investigates and brings to human per-
ception such truths and such knowledge as the people of a
given time and society consider most important. Art trans-
mits these truths from the region of perception to the region
of emotion " (p. 102). Science is an " activity of the
understanding which demands preparation and a certain
sequence of knowledge, so that one cannot learn trigo-
nometry before knowing geometry." " The business of art,"
on the other hand, "lies just in this: to make that under-
stood and felt which in the form of an argument might be
incomprehensible and inaccessible" (p. 102). It "infects
any man, whatever his plane of development," and "(as
is said in the Gospel) the hindrance to understanding the
best and highest feelings does not at all lie in deficiency
of development or learning, but, on the contrary, in false
development and false learning" (pp. 102, 103). Science
and art are frequently blended in one work, e.g. in the
Gospel elucidation of Christ's comprehension of life, or, to
take a modern instance, in Henry George's elucidation of
the land question in Social Problems.

The class distinction to which Tolstoy repeatedly alludes
needs some explanation. The position of the lower classes
in England and in Russia is different. In Russia a much
larger number of people live on the verge of starvation,
the condition of the factory-hands is much worse than
in England, and there are many glaring cases of brutal
cruelty inflicted on the peasants by the officials, the police,
or the military ; but in Russia a far greater proportion of the
population live in the country, and a peasant usually has

AN INTRODUCTION TO "WHAT IS ART?" 51

his own house and tills his share of the communal lands.
The " unperverted country peasant" of whom Tolstoy
speaks, is a man who perhaps suffers grievous want when
there is a bad harvest in his province, but he is a man
accustomed to the experiences of a natural life, to the
management of his own affairs, and to a real voice in the
arrangements of the village commune. The Government
interferes from time to time to collect its taxes by force, to
take the young men for soldiers, or to maintain the ' rights '
of the upper classes ; but otherwise the peasant is free to do
what he sees to be necessary and reasonable. On the other
hand, English labourers are, for the most part, not so poor,
they have more legal rights, and they have votes ; but a far
larger number of them live in towns and are engaged in
unnatural occupations, while even those that do live in touch
with nature are usually mere wage-earners tilling other
men's land, and living often in abject submission to the
farmer, the parson, or the lady-bountiful. They are de-
pendent on an employer for daily bread, and the condition
of a wage-labourer is as unnatural as that of a landlord.

The tyranny of the Petersburg bureaucracy is more dra-
matic but less omnipresent, and is probably far less fatal to
the capacity to enjoy art. than the tyranny of our respectable,
self-satisfied, and property-loving middle-class. I am, there-
fore, afraid that we have no great number of " unperverted "
country labourers to compare with those of whom Tolstoy
speaks, and some of whom I have known personally. But
the truth Tolstoy elucidates lies far too deep in human nature
to be infringed by such differences of local circumstance.
Whatever those circumstances may be, the fact remains Lhat
in proportion as a man approaches towards the condition not
only of " earning his subsistence by some kind of labour,"
but of " living on all its sides the life natural and proper
to mankind," his capacity to appreciate true art tends to
increase. On the other hand, when a class settles down into
an artificial way of life — loses touch with nature, becomes

52 TOLSTOY AND HIS PROBLEMS

confused in its perceptions of what is good and what is bad,
and prefers the condition of a parasite to that of a producer —
its capacity to appreciate true art must diminish. Losing all
clear perception of the meaning of life, such people are
necessarily left without any criterion which will enable them
to distinguish good from bad art, and they are sure to follow
eagerly after beauty, i.e. " that which pleases them."

The artists of our society can usually only reach people of
the upper and middle classes. But is the great artist he
who delights a select audience of his own day and class, or
he whose works link generation to generation and race to
race in a common bond of feeling ? Surely art should fulfil its
purpose as completely as possible. A work of art that united
every one with the author and with one another, would be
perfect art. Tolstoy, in his emphatic way, speaks of works
of " universal " art, and (though the profound critics hasten
to inform us that no work of art ever reached everybody)
certainly the more nearly a work of art approaches to such
expression of feeling that every one may be infected by it,
the nearer (apart from all question of subject-matter) it
approaches perfection.

But now as to subject-matter. The subject-matter of art
consists of feelings which can be spread from man to man,
feelings which are "contagious" or "infectious." Is it of
no importance what feelings increase and multiply among
men ?

One man feels that submission to the authority of his
Church, and belief in all that it teaches him, is good ; another
is imbued by a sense of each man's duty to think with his
own head : to use for his guidance in life the reason and
conscience given him. One man feels that his nation ought
to wipe out in blood the shame of a defeat inflicted on her ;
another feels that we are brothers, sons of one spirit, and
that the slaughter of man by man is always wrong. One
man feels that the most desirable thing in life is the satis-
faction obtainable by the love of women ; another man feels

AN INTRODUCTION TO "WHAT IS ART>" 53

that sex-love is an entanglement and a snare, hindering his
real work in life. And each of these, if he possess an artist's
gift of expression and if the feeling be really his own and
sincere, may infect other men. But some of these feelings
will benefit and some will harm mankind, and the more
widely they are spread the greater will be their effect.

Art unites men. Surely it is desirable that the feelings in
which it unites them should be " the best and highest to
which men have risen," or at least should not run contrary
to our perception of what makes for the well-being of our-
selves and of others. And our perception of what makes
for the well-being of ourselves and of others is what Tolstoy
calls our "religious perception."

Therefore the subject-matter of what we, in our day, can
esteem as being the best art, can be of two kinds only : —

(1) Feelings flowing from the highest perception now
attainable by man, of our right relation to our neighbour and
to the Source from which we come. Of such art, Dickens's
Christmas Carol, uniting us in a more vivid sense of compas-
sion and love, is a ready example.

(2) The simple feelings of common life, accessible to every
one, provided that they are such as do not hinder progress
towards well-being. Art of this kind makes us realise to how
great an extent we already are members one of another,
sharing the feelings of one common human nature.

The success of a very primitive novel, the story of Joseph,
which made its way into the sacred books of the Jews, spread
from land to land and from age to age, and continues to be
read to-day among people quite free from bibliolatry — shows
how nearly " universal " may be the appeal of this kind of
art. This branch includes all harmless jokes, folk-stories,
nursery rhymes, and even dolls, if only the author or designer
has expressed a feeling (tenderness, pleasure, humour, or
what not) so as to infect others.

But how are we to know what are the ' best ' feelings ?
What is good ? and what is evil ? This is decided by

54 TOLSTOY AND HIS PROBLEMS

religious perception. Some such perception exists in every
human being ; there is always something he approves of,
and something he disapproves of. Reason and conscience
are always present, active or latent, as long as man lives.
Miss Flora Shaw tells that the most degraded cannibal she
ever met, drew the line at eating his own mother : nothing
would induce him to entertain the idea, his moral sense was
revolted by the suggestion. In most societies the religious
perception to which they have advanced — the foremost
stage which has been discerned in mankind's long march
towards perfection — has been clearly expressed by some one,
and more or less consciously accepted as an ideal by the
many. But there are transition periods in history when the
worn-out formularies of a past age have ceased to satisfy
men, or have become so incrusted with superstitions that
their original brightness is lost. The religious perception
that is dawning may not yet have found such expression as
to be generally understood, but for all that it exists, and
shows itself by compelling men to repudiate beliefs that
satisfied their forefathers, the outward and visible signs of
which are still endowed and dominant long after their spirit
has taken refuge in temples not made with hands.

At such times it is difficult for men to understand each
other, for the very words needed to express the deepest ex-
periences of men's consciousness mean different things to
different men. So, among us to-day, to many minds ' faith '
means 'credulity,' and ' God ' suggests a person of the male sex,
father of one only-begotten son, and creator of the universe.

This is why Tolstoy's clear and rational religious percep-
tion, expressed in the books referred to on a previous page,
is frequently spoken of by people who have not grasped it, as
'mysticism.'

The narrow materialist is shocked to find that Tolstoy
will not confine himself to the 'objective' view of life.
Encountering in himself that ' inward voice ' which compels
us all to choose between good and evil, Tolstoy refuses to be

AN INTRODUCTION TO "WHAT IS ART?" 55

diverted from a matter of immediate and vital importance
to him by discussions as to the derivation of the external
manifestations of conscience which biologists are able to
detect in remote forms of life. The mystic, 1 on the other
hand, shrinks from Tolstoy's desire to try all things by the
light of reason, to depend on nothing vague, and to accept
nothing on authority. The man who does not trust his own
reason, fears that life thus squarely faced will prove less worth
having than it is when clothed in mist.

In this work, however, Tolstoy does not recapitulate at
length what he has said before. He does not pause to re-
explain why he condemns Patriotism, i.e. each man's pre-
ference for the predominance of his own country, which leads
to the murder of man by man in war ; or Churches, which
are sectarian, i.e. which (striving to assert that your doxy
is heterodoxy, but that our doxy is orthodoxy) make external
authorities (Popes, Bibles, Councils) supreme, and cling to
superstitions (their own miracles, legends, and myths), thus
separating themselves from communion with the rest of
mankind. Nor does he re-explain why he (like Christ) says
" pitiable is your plight, ye rich," who live artificial lives,
maintainable only by the unbrotherly use of force (police
and soldiers), but " blessed are ye poor," who, by your way
of life, are within easier reach of brotherly conditions if
you will but trust to reason and conscience and change
the direction of your hearts and of your labour : working
no more primarily from fear or greed, but seeking Jirst the
kingdom of righteousness, in which all good things will be
added unto you. He merely summarises it all in a few
sentences, defining the " religious perception " of to-day,

1 As the term 'mystic' is used in more than one sense in English,
I must explain that I use it to denote one who believes in a wisdom
"sacredly obscure or secret" (Chambers's Dictionary), or "not dis-
criminated or tested by the reason" (Century Dictionary). This is
the sense in which it would generally be used in foreign languages,
and in which Tolstoy uses the word.

56 TOLSTOY AND HIS PROBLEMS

which alone can decide for us "the degree of importance
both of the feelings transmitted by art, and of the informa-
tion transmitted by science."

" 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 men — in their loving harmony with one another"
(p. 159).

And again : —

" However differently in form people belonging to our
Christian woi'ld 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" (p. 188).

This is the foundation on which the whole work is based.
It follows necessarily from this perception that we should
consider as most important in science "investigations into
the results of good and bad actions, considerations of the
reasonableness or unreasonableness of human institutions and
beliefs, considerations of how human life should be lived in
order to obtain the greatest well-being for each ; as to what
one may and should, and what one cannot and should not
believe ; how to subdue one's passions, and how to acquire
the habit of virtue." This is the science that occupied the
greatest sages of the ancient world, and it is precisely to
this kind of scientific investigation that Tolstoy has devoted
most of the last twenty years, and for the sake of which the
author of Resurrection is often said to have abandoned art.

Since science, like art, is " a human activity," that science

AN INTRODUCTION TO "WHAT IS ART?" 57

best deserves our esteem, best deserves to be " chosen,
tolerated, approved, and diffused," which treats of what is
supremely important to man ; which deals with urgent, vital,
inevitable problems of actual life. Such science as this
brings "to the consciousness of men the truths that flow
from the religious perception of our times," and " indicates
the various methods of applying this consciousness to life."
" Art should transform this perception into feeling."

Experimental science studies questions of pure curiosity,
or things harmful to mankind (such as quick-firing cannon),
or technical improvements which in a better state of society
would lighten the workers' burden. But, even at its best,
such science "cannot serve as a basis for art," for it is
occupied with subjects unrelated to human conduct.

Naturally enough, the last chapter of the book deals with
the relation between science and art. And the conclusion
is, that :

" 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 recognise to be the highest
aim of human life."

And this art of the future will, in subject-matter, not
be poorer, but far richer, than the art of to-day. From the
lullaby — that will delight millions of people, generation after
generation — to the highest religious art, dealing with strong,
rich, and varied emotions flowing from a fresh outlook upon
life and all its problems, the field open for good art is enormous.
With so much to say that is urgently important to all, the
art of the future will, in matter of form also, be far superior
to our art in "clearness, beauty, simplicity, and compression "
(p. 194).

For beauty (i.e. " that which pleases ") — though it depends
on taste, and can furnish no criterion for art — will be a
natural characteristic of work done, not for hire nor even

58 TOLSTOY AND HIS PROBLEMS

for fame, but because men, living a natural and healthy life,
wish to share the " highest spiritual strength which passes
through them " with the greatest possible number of others.
The feelings such an artist wishes to share, he will transmit
in a way that will please him, and that will, therefore, please
other men who share his nature.

In the subject-matter of art that really lives, morality is
as unavoidable as in life itself. It is in the nature of things
and we cannot escape it.

In a society where each man sets himself to obtain wealth,
the difficulty of obtaining an honest living tends to become
greater and greater. The more keenly a society pants to
obtain "that which pleases," and puts this forward as the
first and great consideration, the more puerile and worthless
will their art become. But in a society which seeks, pri-
marily, for right relations between its members, an abundance
will be obtainable for all ; and when " religious perception "
guides a people's art — beauty inevitably results, as has always
been the case when men have seized a fresh perception of
life and of its purpose.

An illustration which Tolstoy struck out of the work while
it was being printed, may serve to illustrate how, with the
aid of the principles explained above, we may judge of the
merits of any work professing to be art.

Take Romeo and Juliet. The conventional view is that
Shakespear is the greatest of artists, and that Romeo and Juliet
is one of his good plays. That is the way certain people feel
about it ; they are the ' authorities,' and to doubt their
dictum is to show that you know nothing about art. If
Tolstoy does not agree with them in their estimate of Shake-
spear, Tolstoy must be wrong !

But now let us apply Tolstoy's view of art to Romeo and
Juliet. He does not deny that it infects. "Let us admit
that it is a work of art, that it infects (though it is so arti-
ficial that it can infect only those who have been carefully
educated thereunto) ; but what are the feelings it transmits ? "

AN INTRODUCTION TO "WHAT IS ART?" 59

That is to say, judging by the internal test Tolstoy admits
that Romeo and Juliet unites him to its author and to other
people in feeling. But the work is very far from being one
of " universal " art — only a small minority of people ever
have cared, or ever will care, for it. Even in England, or
even in the layer of European society it is best adapted to
reach, it only touches a minority, and does not approach the
universality attained by the story of Joseph and by many
pieces of folk-lore.

But perhaps the subject-matter, the feeling with which
Romeo and Juliet infects those whom it does reach, lifts it
into the class of the highest religious art ? Not so. The
feeling is that of the attractiveness of love at first sight. A
girl of fourteen, and a young man, meet at an aristocratic
party, where there is feasting and pleasure and idleness ;
and, without knowing each other's minds at all, they fall in
love as the birds and beasts do. If any feeling is transmitted
to us, it is the feeling that there is a pleasure in these things.
Somewhere in most natures there dwells, dominant or dor-
mant, an inclination to let such physical sexual attraction
guide our course in life. To give it a plain name it is " sen-
suality." " How can I, father or mother of a daughter of
Juliet's age, wish that those foul feelings which the play
transmits should be communicated to my daughter ? And if
the feelings transmitted by the play are bad, how can I call
it good in subject-matter ? "

But, objects a friend, the moral of Romeo and Juliet is ex-
cellent. See what disasters followed from the physical love
at first sight. But that is quite another matter. It is the
feelings with which you are infected when reading, and not
any moral you can deduce, that is subject-matter of art.
Pondering upon the consequences that flow from Romeo and
Juliet's behaviour may belong to the domain of moral science,
but not to that of art.

I have hesitated to use an illustration Tolstoy struck out,
but I think it serves its purpose. No doubt there are other,

60 TOLSTOY AND HIS PROBLEMS

subordinate, feelings {e.g. humour) to be found in Romeo and
Juliet ; but much in Shakespear that has been highly es-
teemed, and that occupies our brains, does not come under
Tolstoy's definition of art because, however ingenious the
reflections evoked may be, it is thought and not feeling that
is imparted.

Tried by such tests the enormous majority of the things
we have been taught to consider great works of art are found
wanting. Either they fail to infect (and attract merely by
being interesting, realistic, effectful, or by borrowing from
others) and are therefore not works of art at all ; or they aye
works of " exclusive art," poor in form and capable of infect-
ing only a select audience trained and habituated to such
inferior art ; or they are bad in subject-matter, transmitting
feelings harmful to mankind.

But strive as we may to be clear and explicit, our approval
and disapproval is a matter of degree. The thought which
underlay the remark : " Why callest thou me good ? none is
good, save one, even God," applies, not to man only but to
all things human.

Tolstoy does not shrink from condemning his own artistic
productions ; with the exception of two short stories, 1 he
tells us, they are works of bad art. Take, for instance, the
novel Resurrection, of which he has, somewhere, spoken dis-
paragingly, as being " written in my former style." 2 What
does this mean ? The book is a masterpiece in its own line ;
it undoubtedly infects many people, and the feelings trans-
mitted are, in the main, such as Tolstoy approves of : in fact,
they are the feelings to which his religious perception has
brought him. If for a moment lust is felt, the reaction follows

1 Both of which were written in the interval between War and
Peace and Anna Karinina (1869-1872) and during his school-teaching
period.

2 The remark quoted above referred to the book as it was originally
written. It was to so large an extent re-written in 1899, before its
publication, that the criticism only applies in a very limited degree to
he work now before the public.

AN INTRODUCTION TO "WHAT IS ART?" 61

as inevitably as in real life, and is transmitted with great
artistic power. Tolstoy approves of treating all the problems
of life, including the sex-question, quite plainly and explicitly.
To guide us in life we need, not ignorance nor evasion of
facts but soundness of religious perception, clearness of
thought, and a right direction and development of feeling.
In subject-matter, then, Resurrection is as clearly a work of
religious art as any novel mentioned by Tolstoy in Chapter
XVI. of What is Art ? And with regard to the manner in
which the matter is presented, I think it may safely be said
tr^it in " clearness," as well as in " simplicity and compres-
sion/' it stands easily first among Tolstoy's novels. Of its
"individuality and sincerity," to say that it equals his former
works is to say that it is unsurpassed in those qualities by
any novel we possess. Why the work does not fully satisfy
Tolstoy is, I think, because it is a work of "exclusive art,"
laden with details of time and place. " Simplicity and com-
pression " it possesses, but not in the degree required from
works of " universal " art. It is a novel : appealing mainly
to the class that has leisure for novel-reading because it
neglects to produce its own food, make its own clothes, or
build its own houses. But if these considerations apply to
Resurrection, they apply, with at least equal force, to all the
best novels extant. If Tolstoy is sometimes severe on others,
it must be admitted that he is at least as severe on himself,
and, to enable us to discern the comparative merits of different
works of art, we may use his principles without applying
them as exactingly as he does himself.

There is one defect in Tolstoy's writings in general, which
needs to be noted. It is observable in his novels, but it is
more serious in his essays and in his philosophical works.
He does not write a style always easy to read. He seems to
expect a greater amount of strenuous co-operation from his
readers than can safely be looked for from the ordinary man.
His sentences are often long, sometimes extremely involved,
and occasionally they are even faulty in structure. The

62 TOLSTOY AND HIS PROBLEMS

strenuous labour he puts into his work all goes to elucidate
his perception of the matter, and the sequence of the ideas.
For the mere phraseology he seems to trust to his great
power of expression, and to have as little inclination to polish
it on a final revision as when writing the first rough draft.
He will re-shape an article again and again if the thoughts
expressed do not satisfy him. But he will, sometimes, leave
uncorrected a careless sentence which may baffle many an
unwary reader. This characteristic was not noticeable in his
earlier works, when the matter he wrote about was less
absorbingly important. 1 He certainly now cares nothing at
all for the elegant verbosity so highly prized by writers
who, having nothing particular to express, attach supreme
importance to their power of expression. But his readers
have occasionally, especially in such a book as On Life, to pay
for his indifference.

What is Art? itself is a work of science, though many
passages, and even some whole chapters, appeal to us as
works of art, and we feel the contagion of the author's hope,
his anxiety to serve the cause of truth and love, his indigna-
tion (sometimes rather sharply expressed) at whatever blocks
the path of progress, and his contempt for much that the
• cultured crowd ' in our erudite, perverted society have
persuaded themselves, and would ^in persuade others, is the
highest art.

One result which follows inevitably from Tolstoy's view (and
which illustrates how widely his views differ from the fashion-
able esthetic mysticism), is that art is not stationary but pro-
gressive. It is true that our highest religious perception
found expression eighteen hundred years ago, and then
served as the basis of an art which is still unmatched ; and

1 Indeed, in the earlier period of his literary activity he devoted
much attention to style, and spent great pains upon the matter.
About the period at which he wrote Three Deaths (1859), it is said,
the style of his great artistic contemporary, Tourge"nef, exercised
much influence on his own.

AN INTRODUCTION TO "WHAT IS ART?" 63

that similar cases can be instanced from the farther East.
But allowing for such great exceptions — to which, not in-
aptly, the term ' inspiration ' has been specially applied —
the subject-matter of art improves, though long periods of
time may have to be viewed to make this obvious. Our
power of verbal expression, for instance, may be no better
now than it was in the days of David, but we must no
longer esteem as good in subject-matter poems which appeal
to the Eternal to destroy a man's private or national foes ;
for we have reached a religious perception which bids us
have no foes, and the ultimate source (undefinable by us)
from which this consciousness has come, is what Ave mean
when we speak of God.

Tolstoy's What is Art? both in Russian and in my translation,
appeared in separate parts during the first half of 1898. The foregoing
Introduction first appeared about a year later in the " Scott Library "
edition, issued in April 1899.

John C. Kenworthy in Tolstoy, His Life and Works — a book parts of
which may be commended for a clear and trenchant statement of the
relation of religion to economics — expresses an opinion that " Dr.
Traill and Mr. Spielmann were put off the track of Tolstoy's real
thought" by my Introduction, in which, he says, "Tolstoy's spirit
is dissipated." But the articles by the gentlemen named appeared
in Literature, July 1898 — months before my Introduction was com-
menced — and, moreover, against J. C. Kenworthy's condemnation of
my essay may be set Tolstoy's approbation of it, for the latter wrote
me: "I have read your Introduction with great pleasure. You
have admirably and strongly expressed the fundamental thought of
the book."

TOLSTOY'S VIEW OF ART

[Written in reply to certain critics of What is Art?, this essay
unavoidably includes a brief re-statement of matters dealt with in
the foregoing essay. I ask the reader's pardon for repetitions notice-
able now that the two essays stand side by side. ]

The forefathers of the scribes and Pharisees of old stoned
the prophets, and in more i-ecent days so respectable an
organ as The Times has spoken with intolerance of men as
estimable as Macaulay, Cobden, Bright, and Abraham Lincoln.
History and experience alike show how difficult it is to treat
with fairness the prominent exponents of views we do not
share.

A striking instance of this is furnished by the palpable
unfairness of certain recent attacks on the philosophical
writings of Leo Tolstoy, a man whose views deserve, at least,
serious examination.

Tolstoy has had very great difficulty in presenting his
opinions (especially his religious and philosophic opinions)
to the world. Several of his books are totally prohibited in
Russia ; when printed in Russian at Geneva they were most
carelessly edited, and, missing the attention Tolstoy usually
devotes to his proof-sheets, contain errors that have proved a
stumbling-block to translators. Other works of his, permitted
in Russia, were tampered with by the Censor, who struck
out what Tolstoy wrote, and, worse still, sometimes inserted
words of his own.

But for non-Russian readers the heaviest blow to Tolstoy's
reputation as a clear and sane thinker, was struck, not by
Censor or by editor, but by translators who, if perhaps cap-
able of dealing with his stories, were incompetent to render

TOLSTOY'S VIEW OF ART 65

his philosophy. Versions of his most serious work appeared
containing much absolute nonsense. A comparison with the
original shows that the usual Russian double negative was
sometimes mistaken for the affirmative, and that the trans-
lations contained other almost incredible blunders. They
appeared at a time when readers, surprised that a novelist
should attempt philosophical work, were wondering whether
they ought to take Tolstoy seriously in his new role ; and
they caused many people to conclude that, as a philosopher,
he must not be taken seriously. Once created, such a pre-
judice is not easily broken down, and his subsequent works
have not received the serious attention they deserve.

A man who has spoken the truth as he saw it, under
constant risk of persecution ; who has had his works sup-
pressed or mutilated at home, and badly edited abroad ; who
has been translated so that he has appeared to assert what
he wished to deny — such a man surely has a special claim
to scrupulously fair treatment at the hands of his reviewers.
But to show that this claim is not always recognised, it will
only be necessary to instance the reception accorded by
certain critics to the Count's last philosophical work, What
is AH ?

Tolstoy's novels and stories, with the solitary exception
of the Kreutzer Sonata, have been very well received. It is
no mean tribute to his power of infecting his reader with
his own feelings, that though his last novel, Resurrection,
indicts fundamental principles of civil and criminal law in
the validity of which most men still firmly believe, it has yet
been welcomed with enthusiasm by a considerable part of
the Press and passed over in almost absolute silence by the
rest. Of attack on the book there has been next to none.
In fact, in this country, since Ralston, at Tourgenef s instiga-
tion, drew attention to him, and especially since Matthew
Arnold and William Dean Howells commended him to
English readers, Tolstoy's rank among the very foremost
writers of fiction has not been seriously questioned. His

66 TOLSTOY AND HIS PROBLEMS

philosophical and scientific works, treating of human conduct,
activities, institutions, and beliefs, have had a different fate,
but even they met with some cordial appreciation. For
instance, on the appearance of What is Art ?, at a time when
it took some courage to say such a thing, A. B. Walkley
was prompt to assert that " this calmly and cogently reasoned
effort to put art on a new basis is a literary event of the first
importance." Another early and appreciative review of the
same work was G. Bernard Shaw's in the Daily Chronicle.
The opening sentences : " This book is a most effective booby
trap. It is written with so utter a contempt for the objec-
tions which the routine critic is sure to allege against it, that
many a dilettantist reviewer has already accepted it as a butt
set up by Providence . . ." precisely hit off one aspect of
the matter, for many of the reviewers had abstained entirely
from explaining Tolstoy's views, and contented themselves
with derision and denunciation.

For example, a leading article in Literature (30th July 1898)
accorded to the author of such " clotted nonsense," " dis-
tinction among aesthetic circle-squarers." After stating that
" there never was any reason for inferring . . . that Count
Tolstoi's opinions on the philosophy of art would be worth
the paper on which they are written " ; and that the ex-
pounder of these "fantastic doctrines surpasses all other
advocates of this same theory in perverse unreason," the
writer proceeds with an examination of "the melancholy
case of the eminent Russian novelist," and tells us that :

" The notion of turning for guidance to a Russian man
of letters of whom all we know, outside his literary record,
is that he has embraced Socialism on much the same grounds
of conviction as a Sunday afternoon listener to a Hyde
Park orator, and 'found religion' in much the same spirit
as one of the 'Hallelujah lasses' of the Salvation Army,
is on the face of it absurd. Nobody, however eminent as
a novelist . . . has any business to invite his fellow-men to
step with him outside the region of sanity . . . and sit down

TOLSTOY'S VIEW OF ART 67

beside him like Alice beside the Hatter or the March Hare
for the solemn examination of so lunatic a thesis as this."

All this is somewhat bewildering to those who have read
What is Art ? and understood it ; but light is thrown upon
the real state of the case by the following sentence from
the same article : " We respectfully but firmly decline his
proposal that we should study his opinions."

The respect is not very obvious, but the frankness of the
writer's admission that he will not study the views he is
denouncing is all that could be desired. It had cost Tolstoy
fifteen years of effort to produce and clarify his thesis. But,
as there are none so deaf as those who won't hear, we may
well believe that a man who would not study it, really did
not understand it.

To tell the simple truth, Tolstoy had said much that was
new and startling but that could not be quickly digested;
and he had expressed it in such a caustic manner, had been
so severe on critics, specialists, professional artists, and art
schools, as well as on whole groups of other people, from
spiritualists to scientists (and to fifty or more well-known
living people into the bargain), had, in fact, hit so freely and
so hard, that counter attacks of considerable asperity were
inevitable. It was only natural that people whose cherished
beliefs were ruthlessly trampled under foot should resist
with all their might. But were their blows effective, or did
they merely beat the air ? In order to answer this question
it will be necessary to take a representative criticism and
examine it with some care. It would be hardly fair to take
for this purpose one of the reviews that appeared while
the book was still new. It is true that one of the earliest
reviewers hailed it as being " the most important essay in
pure criticism of recent years, and destined to become a
classic," but most of the critics at that time had not beerun
to realise this importance. Let us therefore rather take
the review that appeared in the April 1900 number of the
Quarterly Review, under the title : Tolstoi's Views of Art.

68 TOLSTOY AND HIS PROBLEMS

First, however, it will be well to sketch in bare outline the
main position taken up by Tolstoy. This is the more neces-
sary as it is a task generally neglected by the reviewers.

No department of science, as Veron justly remarks, has
been more generally abandoned to the dreams of the meta-
physicians than esthetic philosophy. The task Tolstoy
undertook was to clear up " the frightful obscurity which
reigns in this region of speculation."

What is Art ? Its manifestations are " bounded on one
side by the practically useful and on the other by unsuccess-
ful attempts at art." But what working definition of Art
have we, that would enable us to feel sure that this or that
production of human activity is a work of art ? The answer
at first seems very simple to those " who talk without think-
in°\" They are accustomed to say that "Art is such activity
as produces beauty." But this only shifts the matter a step.
We have now to ask for a working definition of beauty, and
on careful examination we find that this has nowhere been
given. Every attempt to define beauty objectively, as con-
sisting "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" (p. 38), has broken down
utterly, and we have nothing left but a subjective definition
which amounts to this, that beauty is " that which pleases
us" without evoking in us desire. In other words, "Beauty
is simply a certain kind of disinterested pleasui'e received by
us." This definition seems clear enough, but unfortunately
it is inexact, and can be widened out to include the pleasure
derived from drink, from food, from touching a delicate skin,
etc., as is done by Guyau, Kralik, and other estheticians.

A yet more serious trouble is, that different things please
different people. Instead of getting a solid basis for a science,
we get landed in confusion arising from the fact that tastes
differ. If we use the word beauty in our definition of art,
and if beauty means "that which pleases," and if different

TOLSTOY'S VIEW OF ART 69

things please different people — our definition is useless.
One man will say a certain thing is a work of art because
it pleases him, another will reply that it is not a work of art
because he does not like it.

And this is precisely what has happened and is happening.
Is Walt Whitman a great poet ? Yes, says A, he is, because
I like his poems and agree with them. No, says B, he is not,
because I don't like his poems and disagree with them.

Thus the science of esthetics has as yet failed to get even
a start. It has not told us what art is, still less has it enabled
us to judge of the quality of art. " So that the whole exist-
ing science of esthetics 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
esthetics consists in first acknowledging a certain set of pro-
ductions to be art (because they please us), and then framing
such a theory of art that all these productions which please a
certain circle of people shall fit into it" (p. 41).

Such being the case, reasonable men should be not merely
ready but anxious to avoid the use of the word beauty in
framing their definition of art, and should select words which
mean the same thing to each of us who uses them. Yet,
strange to say, the estheticians, the specialists, and the f cul-
tured crowd ' cling tenaciously, and even fanatically, to the use
of a word which they cannot define in a serviceable manner.
They are as angry with any one who protests against its use
in a scientific definition, as the Scarboro' roughs 1 are with a
Quaker who says that men ought not to kill each other.

1 Written soon after the Rowntrees had been attacked by a patriotic
mob, whose feelings were harrowed by an attempt to hold a peace-
meeting.

70 TOLSTOY AND HIS PROBLEMS

" 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 "
(p. 14).

For his part, Tolstoy prefers to understand, and to let
other people understand, what he means by the words he
uses, and he has therefore framed a definition of art which
avoids all obscurity.

" Art is a human activity, consisting in this, that one man con-
sciously, by means of certain external signs, hands on to other's
feelings he has lived through, and that other people are infected
by these feelings and also experience them " (p. 50).

Art is possible because we shax - e one common human
nature. One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.
All who are capable of experiencing "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" (p. 151), possess the mental and
emotional telegraph wires along which an artist's influence
may pass.

A common crowd may be swayed by an orator, but not by
the ablest mathematical lecturer ; for, whereas thoughts can
only be transferred to minds sufficiently prepared to receive
them, the feelings that are the birthright of our common
humanity are shared by all normal people. When an orator
fails to sway his audience, we say the orator has failed,
not the audience. But when a boy fails to understand the
fifth proposition because he has not understood those that
preceded it, we do not say that Euclid has failed, but that
the boy has not understood him. Science is a human activity
transmitting thoughts from man to man : Art is a human

TOLSTOY'S VIEW OF ART 71

activity transmitting feelings. They have some features in
common. Clearness, simplicity, and compression are desir-
able in both, and the same book, or the same speech, may
contain both science and art ; it is desirable to discriminate
clearly between the one and the other, though both alike
are " indispensable means of communication, without which
mankind could not exist " (pp. 52 and 200).

Before passing from definitions to deductions based on
them, reference should be made to the physiological evolu-
tionary definition of Schiller, Darwin, and Herbert Spencer,
which Tolstoy sums up thus : " Art is an activity arising
even in the animal kingdom and 'springing from sexual
desire and the propensity to play' " (p. 46). This, though
superior to the definitions which depend on the conception
of beauty, is unsatisfactory because, "instead of speaking
about the artistic activity itself, which is the real matter in
hand, it treats of the derivation of art " (p. 46).

Accepting Tolstoy's definition of art, we at once see that art
covers a much wider ground than we have been accustomed
to suppose.

" We are accustomed to understand art to be only what
we hear and see in theatres, concerts, and exhibitions ;
together with buildings, statues, poems, novels. . . . But all
this is but the smallest part of the art by which we com-
municate 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 " (p. 51).

But we generally use the word in a special and restricted
sense to mean, not all human activity that deliberately and
with premeditation transmits feelings, "but only that part
which we for some reason select from it, and to which we
attach special importance" (p. 51).

Before considering what kind of art deserves to be thus
specially selected for our highest esteem, we must clearly

72 TOLSTOY AND HIS PROBLEMS

distinguish between two different things : the subject-
matter of art, and the form of art apart from its subject-
matter. This distinction is fundamentally important, and as
soon as it is made the vexed question of the relation of art to
morality solves itself easily and inevitably.

Let us take art apart from its subject-matter first.

" 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" (p. 152).

" 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 con-
sidering the quality of the feelings it transmits " (p. 153).

From this point of view, art has really nothing to do with
morality. The feelings transmitted may be good or bad
feelings, and may produce the best or the worst results on
those who are influenced by them, yet, in either case, the
man who transmits them is an artist.

"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, humour 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" (p. 49).

TOLSTOY'S VIEW OF ART 73

If you have not lost the capacity — usually possessed by
people leading a sane and natural life — to share the feelings
expressed by others, you may try the quality of a production
first of all by this internal test : Does it unite you in feeling
with its author and with others who are exposed to its in-
fluence ? Only if it does this, have you any right to testify
to its being a work of art.

If you are infected by the work, and are therefore sure
that it is a work of art, the next question is whether it is a
weak work of " exclusive " art, or a great work of " universal "
art. It may influence you — who have, perhaps, been specially
trained and accustomed to that kind of art, or who share
the prepossessions of the artist and belong to his set, class,
school, sect, or race — but is it capable of influencing men
of other classes, races, and ages ? Here the primary internal
test is supplemented by an external one. There are works
of " universal " art (using the word, of course, in a comparative
and not in an absolute sense). The Iliad, the Odyssey, the
story of Joseph, the Psalms, the Gospel parables, the story of
Sakya Muni, the hymns of the Vedas, the best folk-legends,
fairy-tales, and folk-songs, are understood by all. If only they
are adequately rendered, and are received not superstitiously
but with an open mind, they are " 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 labourers" (pp. 102-103).

Even a strictly national art, such as Japanese decorative
art, may be admirable and " universal." " The feeling (of
admiration at, and delight in, the combination of lines and
colours) which the artist has experienced, and with which he
infects the spectator" (p. 171), may be so sincere that it acts
on men of other races without demanding from them any
laborious preparation before they can enjoy it.

When we find ourselves admiring "exclusive art," we
must beware of flattering ourselves with the supposition
that great masses of people do not like what we consider

74 TOLSTOY AND HIS PROBLEMS

undoubtedly good — because they are not sufficiently developed,
while we are very superior people. Perhaps we admire and
enjoy these things, not because they are very good but
merely because we have trained ourselves to admire them
and have got into the habit of doing so. But " 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 " (p. 101).

Nor should we let our self-sufficiency blind us to the ob-
vious lesson of history : " 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 people of the upper classes when they were pro-
duced, never were afterwards either understood or valued
by the great masses of mankind, but have remained, what
they were at first, a mere pastime for the rich people of
their time, for whom alone they ever were of any import-
ance " (pp. 70-71).

" Art is a human activity," and, consequently, does not exist
for its own sake, but is valuable or objectionable in propor-
tion to the benefit or the harm it brings to mankind. Its
subject-matter consists of feelings which are contagious or
infectious — i.e. which can spread from man to man. Is it
not supremely important what feelings spread among us ?

From this point of view the connection between morality and
art is intimate and inevitable. It is a fact of human life from
which we can no more escape than we can from gravitation.

Art unites men ; and the better the feelings in which it
unites them the better it will be for humanity.

But which are the best and highest feelings ? How are
we to discern or to define them ? Thev have differed, and
men's definitions of them have differed, from age to age ;
but, as Tolstoy explains, each age has had its dominant view
of life, which may be called its " religious perception."

TOLSTOY'S VIEW OF ART 75

Humanity progresses, and our view of life, our religious per-
ception, is in many things different from that, say, of the
ancient Greeks. In relation, not to the forms of art but to its
subject-matter, it would be a mistake to suppose " 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 " (p. 65).

And Tolstoy, having begun by giving us his definition of
art, concludes by giving us a statement of the view of life he
has accepted, and which he believes is influencing us all
whether we know it or not. It is, he says, Christ's teach-
ing in its real — and not in its customary and perverted —
meaning.

" 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 " (p. 188).

" 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 "

(p. 159).

And whether we accept this view of life or some other,
it is certain that the view we hold will influence our approval
or disapproval of the various feelings transmitted by art.

Accepting Tolstoy's standpoint, we should allow the highest
honour to " positive feelings of love to God and one's neigh-
bour, and negative feelings of indignation and horror at the
violation of love " ; but the realm of subject-matter for good
art includes much more than that.

" The artist of the future will understand that to com-
pose a fairy-tale, a little song which will touch, a lullaby or a

76 TOLSTOY AND HIS PROBLEMS

riddle which will entertain, a jest which will amuse, or to
draw a sketch in such a way that it 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 of the kind which will divert
some members of the wealthy classes for a short time and
then for ever be forgotten. The region of this art of the
simple feelings accessible to all is enormous, and it is as yet
almost untouched " (p. 197).

The artist should know that this art of the simple feelings
of common life, like the highest religious art, tends to unite
us all and to exclude none.

" Sometimes people who are together are, if not hostile to
one another, at least estranged in mood and feeling, till, per-
chance, 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 com-
munion 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 " (p. 165).

Thus, apart from subject-matter, the best art is that which
best accomplishes its purpose of infecting others with the
feelings the artist wishes to impart. And the best subject-
matter is that which, directly or indirectly, tends to forward
brotherly union among all men.

The good art of the future should be superior to our
present art in a clearness, beauty, simplicity, and compres-
sion," for one penalty of forgetting the primary aim of art is
that we greatly lose that which is a natural accompaniment
of art — the pleasure given by beauty. We are like men who,

TOLSTOY'S VIEW OF ART 77

living to eat, eventually lose even the natural pleasure food
affords to those who eat to live.

Such, in brief outline, are Tolstoy's essential views of art.
Even so bare and incomplete a recapitulation, stripped as it
is of the convincing arguments, the brilliant examples, and
the masterly support and elucidation which are crammed into
the 237 pages of this marvellous book, may suffice to show
that it is a work deserving study rather than abuse. To
some men it seems so obviously and fundamentally true that
they teach it in Sunday Schools and talk about it at Pleasant
Sunday Afternoons ; others (who from their tone of authority
must be men of the highest ability) tell us it is " clotted non-
sense " and " confusion worse confounded." The only way is
to read the book for oneself, just as men flee to the Gospels
to escape the commentators.

Now that we have seen what the book is about, it will not
take long to show the unfairness and incompetence of the
Quarterly Reviewer's article. He begins, as is customary, by
telling us that Tolstoy is a prophet, and then (as is also cus-
tomary) he proceeds to attribute to him views that could
only come — as Diavolo in The Heavenly Twins put it — from
"a sort of prophet to whom God does not speak."

But we must beware of taking the reviewer too seriously.
It is told of an Irish member that he once palmed off some
sentences of gibberish on the House of Commons, pretending
they were a Greek quotation ; and I am half inclined to sus-
pect we have before us in this review a yet more elaborate
and audacious hoax. The grounds for my suspicion are :
that the reviewer ignores the definition of art on which the
work is based ; ignores the view of life essential to its com-
prehension ; misquotes Tolstoy four times (using inverted
commas), building attacks on the basis of his own blunders ;
imputes to Tolstoy absurd opinions ; re-states fallacies Tolstoy
had exposed and then says "such facts and principles as
these have never occurred to Tolstoi " ; ignores the English

78 TOLSTOY AND HIS PROBLEMS

version of What is Art ?, and finally he mis-spells Tolstoy's
name.

By treading in the steps of previous reviewers, and adding
here and there a slight touch of exaggeration, he exposes the
futility of their criticisms. And I should have no hesitation
in welcoming the Quarterly Revietver as a valuable ally, were it
not for these words of Tolstoy (who is truly a prophet) : —

" I know that most men — not only those considered clever,
but even those who are very clever, and capable of under-
standing 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 " (p. 143).

It would need a long article to expose all the mistakes of
the review, and I will here merely produce evidence enough
to show that my indictment of it is not made without cause.

Of the misquotations, here is a single instance : —

" The majority of men has always understood all that
we consider as the highest art : the Book of Genesis, etc.,"
quotes the reviewer, and proceeds to speak of the incompre-
hensibility of the opening chapters of Genesis to many people.
But what Tolstoy really said was : " The majority always have
understood, and still understand, what we also recognise as
being the very best art : the epic of Genesis, etc." (p. 101) —
i.e. the story part of Genesis, especially the story of Joseph,
to which Tolstoy particularly refers.

1 It almost looks as if the outward and visible sign adopted by a
large part of our Press to indicate their ignorance of Leo Tolstoy is to
miss-spell his name. In French there is some excuse for spelling the
name Tolstoi', but what excuse is there in English for not spelling it as
Tolstoy does ?

TOLSTOY'S VIEW OF ART 79

Of opinions wrongly attributed to Tolstoy I will also give
but one out of many. The review ends : " despite Tolstoi's
statement to the contrary, art ... is necessary to mankind's
full and harmonious life."

In the very book under review, Tolstoy wrote : " Art is
. . . indispensable for the life and progress towards well-
being of individuals and of humanity " (p. 50).

In defence of some of his mistakes, the Quarterly Reviewer
may plead that he relied on a French translation. But
that is just what he had no business to do, for, after the
Russian original had been mutilated by the Censor, Tolstoy,
in his preface to the English translation I made under his
guidance, had written: "I request all who are interested in
my views of art to judge them only by the work in its present
shape." That translation was obtainable in the " Scott
Library " edition (to which the pages quoted in this article
refer), and the French version which, presumably, the
Quarterly Reviewer used, is in parts unreliable. The test
of the reviewer's sincerity is, in this case, a very simple one.
If he has erred by inadvertence, he owes an explanation to
the author he has misrepresented and to the readers he has
misled ; if he i*emain silent we may take it he was joking.

The article does not lack humour, conscious or unconscious.
Beauty is adopted as the criterion of art, and in sentences
which combine a maximum of involution with a minimum of
sense, the reviewer, with great show of erudition, explains
that it is difficult and "in the present backward state of
aesthetic science, perhaps impossible, to define " what the
word beauty means. But " the progress of science will one
day explain " it, as being a desirable thing causing pleasure.

Tolstoy had said : " 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, psycho-
logical, physiological, and even historical discussions as to

80 TOLSTOY AND HIS PROBLEMS

why such a production pleases one person and such another
displeases or pleases some one else), it renders such definition
impossible " (p. 44). So that it comes to this — Tolstoy says :
We must keep to words we understand. His critic replies
(if he means anything at all, and is not merely poking fun
at us) that we may use words we don't understand, because
the " progress of science " will enable our grandchildren to
understand them !

He plays the same trick a second time, with, I suspect, a
sly laugh at those applications, so common to-day, of evolu-
tionary science to problems of human conduct. For once
he agrees with Tolstoy. Most of what in our society is called
art, "is in our days largely artificial, often unwholesome,
always difficult of appreciation, and, above all, a luxury : . . .
it is mere nonsense and cant to talk of the usefulness of"
(such) " art to mankind as a whole, and the only sincere
statement is that of the cynical and immoral persons who
calmly admit that art is one of the many luxuries of the rich
and leisured minority, and maintained for their sole enjoy-
ment." The conclusion evidently should be that, as what we
are accustomed to call l Art ' is in such a bad way, we must
try to understand the malady, that we may not hinder but
help the substitution, for all that is bad in our present art, of
something more genuine, wholesome, and true, based on a real
understanding of the purpose of our life. But the reviewer
escapes from this conclusion as easily as the juggler escapes
from the corded box. We, forsooth, need not alter our
views or our habits — self-acting evolution will do all that is
necessary for us.

" We would explain," says the reviewer, " not to Tolstoi,
for whom all scientific explanations are mere lumber, but
to those readers of Tolstoi whom his arguments may have
shaken, first that the present state of things " (like everything
else) " has had antecedent causes, and, secondly, that these
wrong conditions cannot fail to right themselves." " In
what precise manner this may take place it would be pre-

TOLSTOY'S VIEW OF ART 81

sumptuous to forecast/' and therefore, the reviewer assures
us, it is not selfishness to " foster the art of the present" (i.e.
the art which he has just agreed in condemning) for the
sake of the future.

Truly this review helps us to realise how keen a prophet is
the man who wrote, of such ' scientific ' explanations : " It
seems to us that science is only then real science when a
man . . . weaves in a specialised, scientific jargon an obscure
network of conventional phrases — theological, philosophical,
historical, juridical, or politico-economic — semi-intelligible to
the man himself, and intended to demonstrate that what now
is, is what should be " (p. 205).

What is Art ? is a work on esthetic philosophy, and is,
in the true sense, a great scientific work. But after what
has gone before, one is hardly surprised when the Quarterly
Reviewer asserts that to Tolstoy " all science and all philo-
sophy are worthless," and proceeds to repeat this as-
sertion just ten times over without once attempting to
substantiate it.

The reviewer makes no serious attempt to explain, to
confirm, or to refute, Tolstoy's fundamental views, and the
space that he saves by neglecting these views he devotes
to depreciation of their author.

Tolstoy gives some examples of art good in subject-
matter, and says : " While offering as examples of art those
that seem to me the best, I attach no special importance
to my selection. . . . My only purpose in mentioning ex-
amples of works of this or that class is to make my meaning
clearer" (p. 170).

The reviewer treats these examples as though they were
a full catalogue and as if Tolstoy approved of nothing else :
"There remain," says he, "besides the Gospels, the more
obvious moralising works of Victor Hugo and of Dickens," etc.

The article teems with the usual amenities, to which the
old Russian — struggling so hard, amid discouragement, to help
his fellow-men to truths which may set us free from the

82 TOLSTOY AND HIS PROBLEMS

prejudices and fallacies that underlie so much unwise activity —
is by this time so well accustomed.

" He has become incapable of admitting more than one
side to any question," the reviewer informs us. " Destitute
of all historic sense." " Unreasonableness like this is conta-
gious " (which is serious news for the readers of the Quarterly).
" He has lost all sense of cause and effect/' etc., etc.

Many causes have conspired to conceal from English
readers the fact that Tolstoy is a great thinker as well as a
great artist ; but is it not time that respectable journals
ceased to mis-state his views ? There are many people who
are to-day perplexed how to act in relation to art. For
themselves, for their children, and for the people, they desire
guidance, and are ready to welcome an explanation of broad
principles helping them to know what to seek and what to
shun. They would like to know how to judge for them-
selves, independently of the infallible critics who contradict
each other week by week. Most of the specialists, the pro-
fessionals, and the erudite estheticians, do not want Tolstoy's
explanations — " They that are whole have no need of a
physician." Let them, then, remain outside the edifice he
has erected, but why will they not suffer "them that were
entering in to enter " ?

From the Contemporary Review, August 1900.

HOW " RESURRECTION"

WAS WRITTEN

Tolstoy is never satisfied with himself or with what he has
accomplished. He is always striving forward and aiming
toward perfection. Whether you talk to him about his life,
or your own, his novels, or his philosophical works, he will
speak with equal clearness and sincerity of what is accom-
plished and of what is yet lacking. When his fifteen years'
efforts to elucidate his view of the relation in which art
stands to life were approaching completion, and he was
finishing What is Art ?, he remarked to the present writer
that he felt to blame for having spent so much time and
effort on a work which would be read only by well-to-do
and leisured people, on whom too much attention is already
lavished. " It is not a book that can reach the people."

I replied that at least it gave me and others like me the
clue to a perplexing question with reference to which we
had been much at sea, and that that was a great service to
us, and made it possible to feel and act as we could not have
done without such assistance.

Yes, he quite agreed. It was just what he hoped to accom-
plish ; but the fact remained that he had allowed himself to
devote much labour to what was, at best, but a secondary,
not a primary, service to those who most lack aid.

Tolstoy does not seem to be depressed by such reflections.
He wishes to see and state things as they are. Another in
his place might have emphasised the indirect benefit to the
labouring classes that may result from an exposure of the
worthless and harmful nature of much that is called f Art/

84 TOLSTOY AND HIS PROBLEMS

and on which an enormous amount of human labour is
wasted. But Tolstoy always considers the sequence. What
is the first and most direct duty ? is an ever-present question
with him.

With regard to his own life, living as he does with his own
family, who are comparatively well off, he has, of course, a
room, food and clothes, etc., provided for him. And he does
not satisfy himself with the thought that his clothes are of
the plainest and cheapest ; that he is a strict vegetarian,
avoiding butter, milk, and eggs, as well as all expensive food,
all intoxicants, and usually even such stimulants as tea and
coffee ; that his room has only the plainest old furniture, and
that he uses as little money as possible. No ! he says plainly
that he cannot justify this way of life. To allow things to
be provided for one by the use of money is not right. Cir-
cumstances — family ties — have led him into a position which
gives him leisure to write books, and he hopes these books
do good. But to say, as he does, " I could not see my way
to act otherwise ; it came natmally to me to act so," though
it is an explanation, does not pretend to be a justification.
When all is said and done, we are unprofitable servants.

This, indeed, is the frame of mind to which Tolstoy's view
of life inevitably tends to bring every sincere man who accepts
it. Ways of life, occupations, customs and beliefs generally
approved by society are analysed, and shown to be based on
selfishness, credulity, or stupidity. Arriving at these con-
clusions of the intellect, however, though they may modify
our feelings and influence our life, does not abolish those
defects or that nature in us which made the former occupa-
tions, customs, beliefs, etc., possible. What we shall do, or
even what we can do, in the future, depends very largely on
what we have done in the past. Finite and imperfect beings
cannot act perfectly, and if they could they would be out of
place in a world in which not perfection but progress is man's
normal condition.

All this follows inevitably from the belief that the human

HOW "RESURRECTION" WAS WRITTEN 85

race has progressed, is progressing, and should progress.
We must not advance at random, or mechanically, but have
first to discern some aim ahead of our present practice.
Self-satisfaction produces stagnation. The publican who feels
himself to be a sinner is more capable of improvement than
the contented Pharisee.

To have discerned, and to have compelled others to
recognise, defects in social, political, national, and religious
conventions which we were in danger of regarding as saci - o-
sanct, is one of the greatest services Tolstoy has performed
for his generation. And nowhere has he done this more
powerfully and effectively than in his last novel, Resurrection.
It reminds one of Soci'ates, who told his judges that he was
a gadfly stinging that lazy horse, the Athenian people, into
action ! Humanity must be up and doing — ever approaching
a step nearer to the ideal of being "perfect, as your Father
in heaven is perfect."

The story of the production of Resurrection is marked all
through with traces of the struggle between what could be
done and what ideally should be done.

When his legal friend, Senator Koni, gave Tolstoy an out-
line of the story as it occurred in real life, Tolstoy at once
perceived its value as framework for a novel. But he had
much other woi'k on hand that seemed more important.
His artistic nature, long deprived of free and full scope, drew
him on to write the novel, and he knew how many readers
can be reached by a novel who can be touched by no other
book-work ; but there was the other work to do which
seemed to him of more serious importance. What is AH?
was not then written ; The Christian Teaching was not finished
(indeed, it never has been finished, and was eventually
printed in England, in English and in Russian, in a some-
what incomplete condition). He has long wished to write
on education, a subject on which prevailing opinions and
customs seem to him greatly in need of sweeping reform.
A clear, short work on philosophy : one which should put

86 TOLSTOY AND HIS PROBLEMS

the best human thoughts on life, death, matter, spirit, good-
ness, destiny, faith, and credulity so simply that they might
be grasped by any intelligent cabman, was another of the
many tasks he had in contemplation. A thousand and one
projects teemed in his fertile brain, and the novel had to
struggle for existence with many a project that his conscience
more fully approved of.

The result was that the novel got itself written with diffi-
culty, again and again being put aside for other work. We
may be quite sure that this struggle was not without, influence
on the writer and on what he wrote. It was this desire to
render the utmost service of which he was capable that made
even the novel, of which he only partly approved, what it
is: a most powerful piece of propaganda. As W. T. Stead
says : " It is gravid with all Count Tolstoy's distinctive teach-
ing. It is a kind of shrapnel-shell of a novel. The novel
is but the containing case. The genius of the author is
the explosive force, which scatters its doctrines like closely-
packed bullets among the enemy." What subject of vital
interest to the forward movement of humanity does it not
touch upon? and which of them does it fail to set in a
fresh light, while almost compelling the reader to share
the author's feeling? Non-resistance and the employment
of violence among men, government and legality, the sex-
question, militarism, capital punishment, prisons, luxury,
class distinctions, officialism, church superstition, vegetari-
anism, socialism, the land question, anarchism, nihilism, and
Christianity, real and spurious — all come under survey, and
the author's feeling about each is passed on to the reader
as only an artist of first-rate power could pass it on.

When the story had been written in the rough, it was laid
aside unfinished and with little apparent chance of ever
being finished. Tolstoy had resolved to spend no more
time on it, and not to allow it to be published during his
lifetime. But " there is a destiny that shapes our ends,"
and things occurred which altered this resolution.

HOW "RESURRECTION" WAS WRITTEN 87

In the Caucasus the persecution of the Doukhobcrs for
refusing military service broke out with fury in the year
1895. In one district, of 4000 Doukhobors as many as 1000
perished within three years owing to want, exposure, anxiety
and unhealthy conditions, caused by their being driven from
their homes and placed in localities where it was impossible
for them to find sufficient work or means of livelihood. At
last, in 1898, permission was granted them to emigrate.
The conditions were, that those who had been called upon
to serve in the army must remain, as well as the leaders
and others (about one hundred and ten in all) who had
been exiled to Siberia. The rest might go at their own
expense (after being in many cases completely ruined),
but if any of them ever returned they would be exiled
to distant parts of the empire.

The conditions were rigorous enough, but at least they
made it possible to save the lives of these people — men,
women, and children — who could not have been kept alive
in the conditions in which they were then situated.

Once again Tolstoy was drawn by two different tendencies.
He had long before considered the economic enigmas of our
social system, and had made up his mind definitely that
it is a gigantic delusion to suppose that we do good by
sucking up money in rent, interest, or profits, and then
pouring it out again in charities. We are in such a case
only " making pipes of ourselves " : we take the money from
people who want it, and who, perhaps, know how to use it
better than we do ; we hamper ourselves, and consume our
own time and energy, in first collecting and then disbursing
it, and finally we often distribute it unwisely, and the results
are never what we expect them to be. So that the wise
course is to tread in the footsteps of Buddha, Socrates, or
Jesus : be as little absorbed by or encumbered with money
as possible. A man's service to his fellows consists in what
he himself does, not in what he bribes other people to do.
Indeed, he serves others far better by offering them advice

88 TOLSTOY AND HIS PROBLEMS

and good example and leaving them free to act, than he
can ever do by seeking to control their activities by the
inducement or the constraint of money.

This was no merely abstract theory : it was the line of
life he had definitely adopted. When people demanded
money of him, he could usually reply with perfect truth,
" I have no money." But now thousands of poor peasants
were starving and dying because they were faithful to prin-
ciples of non-resistance which he entirely shared. They
were almost friendless, or at any rate they had no other
friend who was so well able to help them as he — and he
all the time was eating his regular three meals a day while
they were starving. An almost similar problem had faced
him at the time of the famine in 1891 and 1892. Europe
and America have rung with praises of the work he then
did in organising i % elief in the famine districts. Contributions
flowed to him from all sides. He worked indefatigably and
admirably. But (it is entirely characteristic of the man)
he does not approve of what he did, and is sure that the
handling of money in order to make other people work
as he wishes them to, is not a worthy activity in which to
spend his time. " I cannot get away from the conclusion. If
I believed that money does good, I ought to alter my whole
way of life and go back to money-making," says Tolstoy.

But when water is badly wanted in a given place, a
pipe may be extremely valuable to bring it there ; and, simi-
larly, there are times when a sympathetic man can hardly
decline to "make a pipe of himself" in order to bring
succour to the afflicted. So it happened that now, as in
1891, Tolstoy's feelings were too strong for his intellectual
conclusions.

He had, from 1895 onward, written in strong condemna-
tion of the persecution, thus giving publicity to facts the
Russian Government was most anxious to conceal, and to
which no reference was permitted in the Russian press ; and
now, not without hesitation, he resolved to allow the pub-

HOW "RESURRECTION" WAS WRITTEN 89

lication of Resurrection, that the profits might be used to
assist the Doukhobors.

The work was sold to Marx, the editor of an illustrated
Petersburg weekly paper, for a sum of money to be paid in
advance. But fresh perplexities awaited the author. He
had for twenty years past refused to work for pay, and had
announced that he wished to retain no copyright in anything
he wrote : it was all, when once published, to be free to
whoever liked to use it. He had, moreover, always strenu-
ously avoided working against time — that is, being obliged
to have a certain quantity of copy ready corrected by a
certain date. Now everything that he disliked and wished
to avoid befell him. There were many claimants for the
privilege of producing the work, and to select between them
without giving offence was no easy matter. Even after
Marx had secured the prize there were vexatious problems
to be faced. The work was not to be copyrighted in
Russia, the freedom promised to any one to reproduce the
Russian original of Tolstoy's works after they were once
published was to be respected ; but Marx was paying money,
and wanted to know precisely what he was to have for his
money. He would give Rs. 30,000 if he might have the sole
rights for even a few weeks after serial publication ended, or
he would give Rs. 12,000 only, if he was merely to have the
opportunity of first publication in serial form. Tolstoy, after
hesitating, decided to take the smaller amount. But unfore-
seen troubles were in store. Other editors began to reprint
the weekly instalments directly Marx published them. Marx
protested that he had expected to remain in undisturbed
possession of the work at least until it was completed. Tolstoy
was persuaded to write an open letter appealing to the good
feeling of the other editors to abstain from reprinting the
story before its completion. They acceded to his request,
but the difficulties and complications were far from ending
there. There were, of course, the usual troubles with the
Press Censor in St. Petersburg. Whatever was likely to impair

90 TOLSTOY AND HIS PROBLEMS

the authority of Church or State, and whatever else might
seem objectionable to the official whose duty it was to revise
the book, had to be omitted. Naturally, Part III., in which
the treatment of the prisoners on their way to Siberia and
in Siberia is described, suffered most. But all through the
book whole chapters, as well as parts of chapters and many
stray sentences here and there, fell under the strokes of the
executioner with the red pencil.

In Part I., of Chapters XXXIX. and XL., only the words :
"The church service began," were left, and the whole of
Chapter XIII., describing the effect of army life, disap-
peared. In Part II., Chapter XXVII., describing the visit to
Toporof, the head of the Holy Synod, had, of course, to be
struck out ; indeed, had the book been by almost any one
but Tolstoy, such a life-like portrait of the arch-persecutor
Pobedonostsef would probably have caused the suppression
of the book and the arrest of its author. Among the other
chapters that suffered heavily in Part II. were Chapter XIX. :
the general in charge of the prison in Petersburg ; Chapter
XXX. : the classification of criminals ; and Chapter XXXVIII. :
the starting of the convict train from Moscow.

On the whole, Russian readers wonder that the book got
through the Censor's hands as well as it did. It surely
deserved the honour of being burned at least as much as
those previous works by the same author which received
that mark of attention from a paternal Government. But,
though nothing better could have been expected, it can
never be a pleasure to watch the gradual mutilation of the
latest offspring of one's brain, especially when one knows
that the same process will be repeated in other countries,
not to please an autocratic Government, but simply to suit
the taste of a public who want the story the novelist has to
tell, but do not want the message the prophet is bent on
delivering.

M. Wysewa, for instance, who has an admirable command
of the French language, not content with polishing Tolstoy's

HOW "RESURRECTION" WAS WRITTEN 91

simple and direct style into exquisitely flowing book-lan-
guage, omits the description of the church service in order
to conciliate the Catholics, and leaves out what Tolstoy says
about the army lest it should alienate the sympathy of the
anti-Dreyfusites.

Tolstoy's translators have, indeed, in the past been guilty
of many offences, both wilfully and involuntarily. As an
instance of the latter class of delinquencies one recalls the
German translation of Anna Kar'enina which altered the
motto of the book from : "Vengeance is mine : I will repay,"
into " Revenge is sweet : I play the ace ! "

But besides the Russian Censor and the foreign transla-
tors, there are the editors and publishers to be reckoned
with before those dangerous explosives — the thoughts of
Tolstoy — can reach the public, who might be harmed by
them.

As an instance of what publishers can do, take the follow-
ing case : The Echo de Paris, in which Resurrection appeared,
received letters from some of its readers complaining that
Nehludof did not occupy himself sufficiently with Katiisha.
There was, they said, not enough love story in the book.
The editor thereupon — knowing that his business was to
cater for his public and to supply what they wanted —
omitted the next instalment and hurried on to a scene in
which Nehludof again occupied himself with Katiisha,
though, it is to be feared, not quite in the manner
desired.

What happened in America with the serial publication of
the work is too well known to need special mention.
Tolstoy's point of view on the sex-question, and the opinion
which is dominant and blatant in many religious circles of
the English-speaking world, are wide as the poles asunder.
Both disapprove of and would discourage what is lewd and
sensual, but the method too often followed among us is to
seek to inflict penalties on those of whose actions we dis-
approve, and to fine, punish, or imprison them, while we

92 TOLSTOY AND HIS PROBLEMS

abandon all consideration and discussion of sex-questions to
those who approach the subject for pleasure or for gain.
Tolstoy would leave penalties to be inflicted by " Him that
hath no sin/' but would express his opinions and feelings as
simply, freely, and fully on this as on any other subject,
hoping to convert or to influence those whom he would never
consent to coerce.

When once the publication of Resurrection was decided on,
Tolstoy set eagerly to work revising it. And the revision
amounted to completely re-writing the book, and re-writing
parts of it several times over. So greatly did he lengthen
the work that (in spite of the damage done by the Censor)
Marx voluntarily added another Rs. 10,000 to the payment
of Rs. 12,000 which he had made in advance.

Tolstoy was never satisfied. Whenever proofs reached
him, fresh and ever fresh corrections and alterations had to
be made ; so that the translators abroad were unable to
receive the final version of some chapters till they were
already published in Petersburg. This increased the danger
of unauthorised versions appearing, which would contribute
nothing to the cause which had spurred Tolstoy on to allow
the book to be produced.

So exacting was he to his work, and so prolific in correc-
tions, that on several occasions even after the ' final ' version
had come to hand, been translated, and even set up in type,
a fresh and yet more finally final version of the chapter
would arrive, and the translator's and type-setter's work had
to be done over again.

A couple of years ago, Tolstoy mentioned in a private
letter that whereas in earlier life, when he sold his works in
the usual manner, the publication of each new work afforded
him pleasure ; now, when he wishes to do better and refuses
to receive pay for his work, he finds that the publication of
each new book involves him in perplexity and trouble, many
people are displeased with him, and publication, instead of
being a pleasure, has become a pain.

HOW "RESURRECTION" WAS WRITTEN 93

His experience with Resurrection has been even more pain-
ful than usual. Tolstoy's great desire is to live at peace
with all men, to do nothing that may create anger and ill-
will ; but, on the contrary, to serve others, and bring them
into harmony with himself and with one another. But if
merely abjuring the beaten track and preferring to give
rather than to sell his works, involved him in trouble, the
case was far worse now that he allowed his sympathy for
the persecuted Doukhobors to cause him to swerve from the
direction he had taken, a direction to which those about him
had begun to adapt themselves.

Busy with his work, and quite out of touch with commer-
cial ways of thought and action, Tolstoy had to intrust the
foreign (non-Russian) editions of his work to others, and if the
difficulties in Russia were great, abroad they were yet greater.
In Germany a quarrel broke out owing to the fact that Marx
was supplying some newspapers, while others were receiving
copy from Tolstoy's representative in England. And each side
urgently demanded that Tolstoy should support them and
repudiate the other. In America the serial publication in
the Cosmopolitan broke down, and at one time there was
danger of legal proceedings between the editor of that
magazine and the agent employed by Tolstoy's English
representative.

However, at last the work was published, and published in
an unmutilated form. Nothing was omitted in the English
translation. In Germany the work had a great success, and
quickly ran through a dozen editions. A second (and this
time a complete) French translation was prepared. And the
complete Russian text was published both in England and in
Germany.

The book has also appeared in Swedish and even in
Slovak, 1 and whatever difficulties arose anywhere were

1 I do not know into bow many languages Resurrection has been
already translated, but translations of Tolstoy have appeared in thirty-
eight languages, including Arabic, Turkish, Chinese, and Hebrew.

94 TOLSTOY AND HIS PROBLEMS

smoothed over by the feeling that it would not do to go to
law over a book of Tolstoy's. Everybody knew that Tolstoy
was doing his best and was acting unselfishly, and, whether
they agreed as to the expediency of his course or not, they
put up with it.

As showing Tolstoy's own state of mind at different times,
the following extracts from his letters may be of interest.

On the 24th of January 1899, when the work had been
sold to Marx and the question of allowing or not allowing
any copyright in Russia or elsewhere was being discussed, he
said in a letter to the present, writer : " In this whole business
there is something indefinite, confused, and seemingly dis-
cordant with the principles we profess. Sometimes, in bad
moments, this acts on me too, and I wish to get rid of the
affair as quickly as I can ; but when I am in a good, serious
frame of mind I am even glad of the unpleasantness bound
up with it. I know that my motives were, if not good, at
least quite innocent ; and therefore if in men's eyes it makes
me appear inconsistent or even something still worse, it is all
good for me, teaching me to act quite independently of men's
judgment, and in accord only with conscience. One should
prize such experiences. They are rare, and very useful."

When the work was drawing toward its close, and he was
fagged out with the distasteful task of having to correct the
weekly instalment by a fixed date, and was approaching
the very severe illness that showed itself in an acute attack
on the 24th of December 1899, he wrote to another friend :
" I am much absorbed in my work. And, regularly, as soon
as I see the proof-sheets from Marx I feel sick and have
pain. ... I am so occupied with writing the book that
I spend my whole strength on it. Other movements of the
soul go on within me ; and, thank God, I see the light, and
see it more and more. More and more often I feel myself
not the master of my life, but a labourer. . . ."

A very few days later, when the work at last seemed
finished, he wrote : " All that money business that I under-

HOW "RESURRECTION" WAS WRITTEN 95

took, and of which I now repent, has been so tormentingly
painful that now, when it is over, I have decided to have
nothing more to do with the matter, but to return to my
former attitude toward the publication of my writings — that
is, while letting others do as they please with them, to stand
quite aside from the business myself."

But is Tolstoy satisfied with Resurrection now that it is
completed ?

Not altogether. In What is Art ? he has shown us how
necessary it is to view every work of art in two aspects ;
considering it in relation to (l) Form, and to (2) Subject-
matter.

Resurrection undoubtedly deals with feelings deeply ex-
perienced by the author, and re-evoked by him in order to
infect others and cause them to share these feelings with
him and with each other. In reply, then, to the question,
Does it infect us ? — is the form such as to produce the
intended effect? I feel no hesitation in replying for myself
that it does. But its intention is to influence as many people
as possible, and to influence them as much as possible ; to
what extent does it succeed in this attempt ?

Granting that it has all the signs of genuine art — that it is
sincere, and possesses both individuality and clearness — how
far does it reach ? Many versions and many editions have
appeared already, and more are coming ; tens of thousands
of copies have been sold already — but will it reach the
people ? Will it, like that ancient Egyptian novel, the story
of Joseph, pass from age to age, reaching rich and poor,
young and old, learned and simple ? No ; we must admit
that, to a certain extent, it is " exclusive " art : art not
confined to, but chiefly suited to, leisured and cultured
people, to whom a novel of over five hundred pages is not
a heavy burden. Compared with other novels, especially
compared with Tolstoy's former novels, and allowing for the
tremendous amount of matter in it, it is not lacking in com-
pression. The indictment against it is one which well-nigh

96 TOLSTOY AND HIS PROBLEMS

all novels must share, for no doubt it is to some extent
weighted with superfluous details, and lacking in that sim-
plicity, brevity, and compression essential to the. form of any
story that aims at becoming ' universal art.'

On the 29th of December 1 899, Tolstoy wrote : "... the
day before yesterday I sent off the last chapters of Resurrec-
tion. I am dissatisfied with them, but feel that that task is
ended, and with joy and hope I waver in the choice of my
next work."

Some readers complain that the hero, Nehludof, did not
achieve tangible results : did not reform society, found a
colony, influence the Tsar, or do something that the news-
papers would take notice of. But Tolstoy is describing life
as he has seen and known it. He perceives that the
principles of Jesus condemn the Prince of this World, and
that society, as we know it, is as certainly doomed to pass
away as was imperial Rome and the slave-world of two
thousand years ago. But he knows, too, by experience, that
for men to be willing co-workers with Jesus in establishing
a better order of society, the first condition must be a re-
birth, a change of the inner man. We must learn to see
things as they are ; to discern good from evil ; to distinguish
the real from the apparent, and to know the true purpose of
human life. External changes in the form and structure of
society will (as they always have done) follow and depend
upon the character of the men who form the society.

We live in a time of transition, when men hardly know in
which direction they wish to advance. Some believe in
imperialism and the reign of force, a few believe in non-
resistance and the bi*otherhood of man. Some believe in the
divine right of kings, others in the divine right of majorities
and the infallibility of the odd voter ; a few believe in the
inward voice of reason and conscience.

It would be untrue to life — untrue to the experience of
such a man even as Tolstoy himself — to represent the resur-
rection to a new purpose and meaning in life as producing

HOW "RESURRECTION" WAS WRITTEN 97

large and immediate external results, other than that the
individual when re-born seeks to leave the path of evil and
choose the good. Those who want quick returns and visible
advantages must deal with the surface of events and shun
fundamental problems. The mills of God grind slowly.
As well demand of a shoot that has felt the approach of
Spring and begun to bud, that it should plant a garden, as
demand of a man who, touched by the spirit of truth and
love, is turning his back upon an evil past, that he should
re-organise society.

As to subject-matter, the book will stand any test that can
be applied. It belongs both to " universal " and to " religious "
art, especially to the latter and higher branch of art. That
is to say, again and again Tolstoy evokes feelings in us which
remind us that we are all of one spirit, sons of one Father,
and he awakens even more frequently sentiments which have
slumbered in the depths of our nature so that we hardly
knew we possessed them, and impels us to take purer and
less selfish views of our relation one to another, and of the
purpose of our life.

First published in the New York Bookman, June 1900.

INTRODUCTION TO "THE SLAVERY
OF OUR TIMES "

This little book shows, in a short, clear, and systematic
manner, how the principle of non-resistance, about which
Tolstoy has written so much, is related to economic and
political life.

It is a sequel to the larger and more artistically powerful
work, What then must we do ? which deals with the same
problems from a more personal aspect. An attempt to
consider Tolstoy's view of this matter at all fully will be
more in place if, at some future time, I have occasion to deal
with the greater of the two books. Here I will do no more
than ask the reader into whose hands The Slavery of Our
Times may come, not lightly to put it aside as being extreme
or unreasonable, but to recognise that, far as Tolstoy's con-
clusions are from the theories and practices to which we
are accustomed, he is, nevertheless, dealing with a profound
truth, so that to listen to and understand his message
cannot hurt us, but, on the contrary, will help us to realise
our own position in relation to this important question.

The great majority of men, without knowing why, are
constrained to labour long hours at tasks they dislike, and
often have to live in unhealthy conditions. This is not be-
cause Nature is niggardly : mother-earth is willing to yield
enough for us all ; neither is man incompetent to utilise
Nature's gifts. The necessity for most men to work under
such conditions in order to obtain a subsistence, lies in the
fact that men have made laws about land, taxes, and pro-
perty, which result in placing the great bulk of the people

"THE SLAVERY OF OUR TIMES" 99

in conditions which compel them to labour thus, or go to the
workhouse, or starve.

It may be said that man's natm*e is so bad that were it
not for these laws an even worse state of things would exist ;
that the laws we make and tolerate are outward and visible
signs of an inward and spiritual disgrace— the selfishness of
man — which is the real root of the evil. But granting that,
in a sense, this is true, we need not suppose man's nature
to be immutable and all progress for ever impossible. Nor
need we suppose it our duty to leave progress in the hands
of some kind of self-acting evolution, whose operations we
can only watch as a passenger watches the working of a
ship's engines. We may consider the effect of the laws we
have made, may approve or disapprove of them, may discern
the direction in which it is possible to advance, and may take
our part in furthering or hampering that advance.

Laws are made by Governments, and are enforced by
physical violence. We have been so long taught that it is
good for some people to make laws for others, that most men
approve of this. Just as genteel people have been known to
approve of wholesale while they turned up their noses at retail
business, so people in general, while disapproving of robbery
and murder when done on a small scale, admire them when
they are organised : and when they result in allotting to a
few thousands most of the land on which forty millions have
to live, and in maintaining a system which periodically
causes thousands of men to be sent out to kill and be killed.
Nor are people much shocked at isolated murders provided
that the responsibility for them is subdivided between the
King, hangman, judge, jury, and officials.

To Tolstoy's mind, violence done by man to man is wrong.
We cannot escape the wrongness by doing it wholesale, or
by subdividing the responsibility.

But what would happen if we ceased to abet it ?

If it were possible forcibly to oblige men to cease from
using force, the selfishness which is at the root of the matter

100 TOLSTOY AND HIS PROBLEMS

would, no doubt, burst out in some, fresh form. That is, in
fact, pretty much what has happened : weary of strife and
private feuds, people consented to leave to Governments the
use of force. External peace among individuals ensued, but
in place of strife with club or sword a new struggle almost
as fierce is carried on under legal and commercial forms.
Tolstoy's desire is not that people should be compelled to
cease from violence, but that violence should become to
them abhorrent, and that they should not wish to sway
others more than they can sway them by reason and by
sympathy. Were that accomplished, surely we may trust
that good would come of good, as now ill comes of ill. At
any rate, as Tolstoy shows, there is no other path of advance.
We can neither revert to the belief that to use violence is a
divine right of kings, nor can we maintain the current belief
that to do so is a divine right of majorities. To be subjected
by force to a rule we disapprove of is slavery, and we are all
slaves or slave-owners (sometimes both together) as long as
our society bases itself on violence.

But can we abolish the use of violence, and cease to
imprison and kill our fellow-men ?

We can at least consider what Tolstoy says on the matter,
and realise that organised violence exists, claiming our
approval, and that it is possible to withhold that approval.
As for abolishing violence, it is for us not a question of Yes
or No, but a question of more or less. The amount of
violence committed depends on the amount of support the
violators receive. There are places where it is now impos-
sible to get any one to become a hangman, and even in
England, comparatively brutal as we are, it would be
impossible to re-enact the penal code of George III., under
which 160 different crimes were punishable with death. To
shake ourselves completely free from all share in violence, if
we are not quite ready to become martyrs, may seem and
does seem impossible. Tolstoy himself does not profess to
have ceased to use postage-stamps which are issued, or the

"THE SLAVERY OF OUR TIMES" 101

highway that is maintained, by a Government which collects
taxes by force ; but reforms come by men doing what they
can, not what they can't. It would be an easy and a silly
reply to the teaching of Jesus, to say that as he tells us to
be perfect, and we can't be perfect, we can get no guidance
from his teaching. In the same way, any one who wishes to
be logical but not reasonable, may say that as Tolstoy tells us
to stand aside from all violence, and we cannot do so, his
guidance is useless. Tolstoy relies on his readers to use
common sense, and the common sense of the matter is, that
if we are so enmeshed in a system based on violence, and if
we ourselves are so weak and faulty, that we cannot avoid
being parties to acts of violence, we should avoid this as
much as we can.

The mind is more free than the body, — let us at least try
to understand the truth of the matter, and not excuse a
vicious system in order to shelter ourselves. When we have
understood the matter, let us not fear to speak out; and
when we have confessed our views, let us try to bring our
lives more and more into harmony with them.

To free ourselves from the perplexity produced by the
dual standard of legality and of right, would in itself be
an enormous gain. Take, for instance, the drink traffic in
England ; — what friction and waste of power has resulted
from attempts to legislate on the matter. How greatly
brewers, distillers, and dealers have gained in respectability
by the fact that their occupations are legal, if not right.
And is it not becoming evident that it is not by laws
that such evils as excess in eating and drinking can be
amended ?

But, we are told, people are so inconsiderate and so wrong-
headed that nothing but the strong arm of the law will
restrain them. To disturb their inspect for the law is
dangerous.

Of course it is dangei'ous ! Every great moral movement,
and every strong reform movement, has its very real dangers.

102 TOLSTOY AND HIS PROBLEMS

A century and a half after St. Francis of Assisi had stirred
Europe by his example of self-renunciation and devotion to
the service of others, such a crowd of impudent mendicants
shirking the drudgery of a workaday world were preying on
society in his name, that Wyclif denounced them as sturdy
beggars, and strongly censured any man " who gives alms to
a begging friar."

History is apt to repeat itself in such matters, and, no
doubt, Tolstoy's views will again and again be exploited by
unworthy disciples. But is humanity to stagnate because
what is evil is so easily grafted on what is good ? To think
and to move may be dangerous, but to stagnate is to die ;
and progress along the path of violence — as Babylon, Assyria,
Egypt, Rome, Spain, and many other nations have shown — is
progress to destruction.

No doubt, too, many good people will be shocked at Tol-
stoy's statement that " Laws are rules made by people who
govern by means of organised violence." They will plead
that, in modern Governments, the administrative functions
are becoming more and more predominant, and the coercive
ones are falling more and more into abeyance. But the
reply is, that Governments need only drop these dwindling
and secondary functions in order to escape the criticism here
levelled at them. Governments which, without insisting on
having their services accepted, are content to offer to organise
society on a voluntary basis — killing no one, imprisoning no
one, and relying on reason and persuasion to make their
decrees prevail — are not here attacked. Tolstoy would wel-
come such a Government as that of which Guizot (himself
afterwards Prime Minister in a Government not of the type
he here mentions) wrote : " I think I have shown that the
necessity for, and the existence of a Government, are very
conceivable, even though there should be no room for com-
pulsion, even though it should be absolutely forbidden," a
Government which should exist : " for the purpose of dis-
covering the truth which by right ought to govern society,

"THE SLAVERY OF OUR TIMES" 103

for the purpose of persuading men to acknowledge this truth,
to adopt and respect it willingly and freely."

But whatever good-natured people may wish to believe
about existing Governments, the fact is that they rely on
force, and that when they do not rely on force we do not call
them Governments, but voluntary associations.

That men concerned in governing others know this, is
shown all through history, and has been again shown recently
in South Africa. As long as Kruger and his party had the
armed force, the Boer reform party, the miners, and even
Messrs. Beit, Rhodes & Co., had to submit. At the time of
the Raid the question who should make the laws in future,
hung in the balance — it might be Kruger, or Rhodes, or
somebody else ; but it was sure to be the man, or men, who
could obtain the advantage of being allowed openly, syste-
matically, and unblushingly, to do violence to those who dis-
obeyed them. Men who were organising the buccaneers one
day might become a ' Government ' another day. In fact,
just as in Sparta it was considered immoral, not to thieve but
to be caught thieving, so among modern moralists (such as
Paley) it has been gravely argued that the morality of using
violence against the men in power depends on the chance of
being successful.

Tolstoy says that the systematic use of organised violence
lies at the root of the ills from which our society suffers ; and
while agreeing with the indictment Socialism brings against
the present system, he points out that the establishment of
a Socialist State would necessitate the enforcement of a fresh
form of slavery : direct compulsion to labour. And if he is
not at one with the Socialists, neither is he at one with the
Russian Revolutionary party usually spoken of in England
as " Nihilists." They, indeed, are often very bitter in their
denunciations of Tolstoy, whose influence has increased the
moral repugnance felt for their policy of assassination. Their
accusation that Tolstoy wishes to oppose despotism by mere
metaphysics is, however, met in the present work by a direct

104 TOLSTOY AND HIS PROBLEMS

and explicit appeal to conscientious people not voluntarily
to pay taxes to Governments which spend the money on
organising violence and murder.

This view of the duty of individuals towards Governments
has had exponents in our own language. The saintly Quaker,
John Woolman, wrote in his journal in 1757 : —

" A few years past, money being made current in our pro-
vince for carrying on wars, and to be called in again by taxes
laid on the inhabitants, my mind was often affected with the
thoughts of paying such taxes . . . there was in the depth of
my mind a scruple which I never could get over ; and at
certain times I was greatly distressed on that account. I
believed that there were some upright-hearted men who paid
such taxes, yet could not see that their example was a suffi-
cient reason for me to do so, while I believe that the spirit
of truth required of me, as an individual, to suffer patiently
the distress of goods, rather than pay actively." He found
he was not alone among the Philadelphian c Friends ' in this
matter.

Nearly a century later Henry Thoreau wrote in his admir-
able essay, Civil Disobedience : —

" I heartily accept the motto — ' That Government is best
which governs least ' ; and I should like to see it acted up
to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally
amounts to this, which also I believe — 'That Government is
best which governs not at all ' ; and when men are prepared
for it, that will be the kind of Government which they will
have. . . .

" It is not a man's duty, as a matter of course, to devote
himself to the eradication of any, even the most enormous
wrong ; he may properly have other concerns to engage him ;
but it is his duty, at least, to wash his hands of it, and, if he
gives it no thought longer, not to give it practically his
support.

" I do not hesitate to say that those who call themselves
Abolitionists should at once effectually withdraw their sup-

"THE SLAVERY OF OUR TIMES" 105

port, both in person and property, from the Government
of Massachusetts, and not wait till they constitute a majority
of one, before they suffer the right to prevail through them.
I think it is enough if they have God on their side, without
waiting for that other one."

Holding these views, he refused to pay the poll-tax, and
was put in prison for one night, till some one paid the tax
for him — much to his disgust.

Tolstoy, therefore, is in good company in holding the
view that it were better to offer a passive resistance to
Governments than voluntarily to pay what they demand and
misapply. Such refusals might bring about the bloodless
revolution of which Thoreau spoke : —

" If a thousand men were not to pay their tax bills this
year, that would not be a violent and bloody measure, as
it would be to pay them, and enable the State to commit
violence and shed innocent blood. This is, in fact, the
definition of a peaceful revolution, if any such is possible
If the tax-gatherer or any other public officer asks me, as
one has done, ' But what shall I do ? ' my answer is, c If
you really wish to do anything, resign your office.' When
the subject has refused allegiance, and the officer has resigned
his office, then the revolution is accomplished."

But while we remember that Tolstoy is in good company
in this matter, and that he here offers just what some people
pine for : something definite and decided to do or to refuse
to do, we shall, I think, make a sad mistake if we fail to
differentiate between the main philosophical principle of his
work and such a piece of practical advice as this.

The main intention and drift of the work is to show that
progress in human well-being can only be achieved by relying
more and more on reason and conscience and less and less
on man-made laws ; that we must be ready to sacrifice the
material progress we have been taught to esteem so highly,
rather than acquiesce in such injustice and inequality as is
flagrant among us to-day ; that what we should desire is

106 TOLSTOY AND HIS PROBLEMS

the supremacy of truth and goodness, and that consequently
violence between man and man must more and more be
recognised as evil, whether it boasts itself in high places
or lurks in slums ; and that we must more and more free
ourselves from the taint of murder that clings to all robes
of state.

These things, to my mind, seem certainly true ; we must
turn our back on the religion of Jesus if we would rebut
them.

But as soon as it comes to any definite precept and ex-
ternal rule to do this, or not to do that, we must remember
that what is really needed, and what Tolstoy is aiming at,
is that mankind should steadily advance towards perfection.
And no one action can be the next step for all men in all
places.

Of the three things Tolstoy here definitely advises —
viz. : (1) not to take part in Governmental activity ; (2) not
to pay taxes, but to submit rather to imprisonment or seizure
of goods ; (3) to possess only what others do not claim from
us — it is the third that is the most difficult and the most
important. Without it the othei's would have no great
value ; and our own falling short in it is a reminder of
what is so important — viz. that we form parts of the obstacle
hindering the coming of the Kingdom of God.

Nor would external obedience avail : "If I bestow all
my goods to feed the poor, but have not love, it profiteth
me nothing." I knew a man who performed an act of
heroic generosity, but was so self-willed and wrong-headed
that he set others at discord ; and I knew a woman whose
advance along the path of unselfishness was almost free
from friction, who, beyond going to live in a slum, did
little that shocked the prejudices of her well-to-do friends,
and yet who helped an ever-increasing circle of men and
women to shape their lives better than they would have
done without her aid and encouragement.

I will not stop to discuss the tempting subject (more than

"THE SLAVERY OF OUR TIMES"' 107

once treated of by Tolstoy in other books) of Christ's relation
to Caesar and to taxes. A very fair case may be made
out for the view that the hardest blow ever dealt at the
power of the prince of this world, was dealt by carrying the
doctrine of non-resistance one step further than Tolstoy
takes it in this book. Why not, it may be asked, hand over
the tribute-money to Caesar as one might yield one's purse to
a highway robber without waiting for him to put his hand
in one's pocket ?

But whatever may be the best method of undermining the
authority of the prince of this world, the condemnation pro-
nounced by Jesus makes in the same direction as Thoreau's
Civil Disobedience, and Tolstoy's theory of non-resistance.
Each in his own way says, " The kings of the Gentiles have
lordship over them ; and they that have authority over
them are called benefactors. But ye shall not be so : but
he that is the greater among you, let him become as the
younger ; and he that is chief, as he that doth serve " (Luke
xxii. 25, 26).

The prince of this world is judged: the change foreshadowed
is a vast one, and must commence with a change of each
man's inner self. But its outward manifestations may be as
various as the flowers of the field which are all fed by the
same rain and sunshine from above.

The direction of the change is shown in this book on
Slavery, and the heart of the matter is reached in the truth
that he who would reform society must first reform himself.
It is not by retaining India, by being paramount in Africa,
or by insisting on our rights as individuals or as nations,
that we shall establish the Kingdom of God. " For who-
soever would save his life shall lose it : and whosoever shall
lose his life — shall find it." When men have learnt not to
desire to retain what others claim, the Kingdom of God
within them will make itself outwardly manifest. Nor will
this change be a sudden one ; age after age it is going on,
step by step, inch by inch, in men's hearts and consciences,

108 TOLSTOY AND HIS PROBLEMS

and even in their manners and customs. And it is because
we dimly perceive and desire that the poor shall be blessed
and the meek shall inherit the earth, that we sympathise
with those who strive to hasten the process, whether by
the tender persuasion of a Woolman or the vehement logic
of a Tolstoy.

First published by " The Free Age Press," as Introduction to my
translation of The Slavery of Our Times, October 1900.

THE TSAR'S CORONATION

The coronation, in Moscow, of Nicholas II. — more destruc-
tive of wealth and more fatal to life than many a pitched
battle — I witnessed, not as a special correspondent bound to
telegraph columns of descriptive copy day by day, but as
a resident ; and having time to chew the cud of reflection,
I ask myself in how far does a demoniac possession by the
passions of patriotism and loyalty, such as I have witnessed
here in Russia, afflict also the inhabitants of the British
Empire ?

I fear that the worship of rank, wealth, and especially of
royalty, in many English people amounts to an hypnotic in-
fluence, depriving them of reasoning power and of all sense of
proportion. A curious instance of this occurred in a letter I
received lately from a near relation of my own, who, a propos of
this very coronation calamity, wrote: "The Moscow disaster
has been very terrible to read about, and I feel so sorry for the
Emperor and Empress." Which is as though when a house falls
in, killing and maiming the members of several families, one's
first thought were to feel pity for the ground landlord ! Yet
it is a fair sample of the feeling expressed by many people.

A still more striking example of the same sentiment came
under my notice some years ago. Another near relative
of mine had an acquaintance, a Miss Wells. A Russian
lady, who pronounces English rather badly, came into her
room one day with the announcement, " Wales is dead ! "
" What ? " cried my relation ; " the Prince of Wales is dead ? "
and she burst into a flood of genuine tears for a man she had
never spoken to, but cheered up promptly on discovering that
it was only her friend Miss Wells who had departed this life.

109

110 TOLSTOY AND HIS PROBLEMS

Such 'loyalty' may have seemed suitable in the time of Edward
the Black Prince (whose courage outweighed his cruelty in
the eyes of his contemporaries), but it seems somewhat out of
place when applied to Albert Edward, Prince of Wales.

Again, I recollect a Canadian clergyman who took my
father's duty and came to live at the parsonage for
some months, when I was a boy of nine, a couple of
years after the close of the Civil War in the United States.
He was very friendly to me, and under his guidance my
mind expanded ; on politics, however (a subject to which he
introduced me), the main point he made clear to my boyish
perceptions was the terrible blunder committed by the
English Government in not seizing the opportunity afforded
by the American War. He pointed out that by joining the
Confederate States — a policy in which we should have been
enthusiastically supported by both Canada and France — we
could have broken the United States in two, and the hege-
mony of the English- speaking nations would have remained
with England. I accepted this teaching with faith and
enthusiasm, never asking what would have been the fate of
the slaves, or what I should have gained personally by an
arrangement which might have condemned North America
to a militarism similar to that which has since then grown
like a cancer on Europe. Nor did either he or I consider
how the transaction would look from the standpoint of an
Eternal that loveth righteousness.

I now, thanks to the teaching of Tolstoy, see the insanity
of attempting to guide the destinies of mankind on motives
of expediency which run counter to the laws of morality.
We have not seen the ultimate results of England's non-
intervention in that war, still less can we tell what would
have resulted had she fought ; but we may know that no
aim can justify the use of evil means, and that hatred and
bloodshed are evil whether we think they tend to "establish
the empire " (which is not the Kingdom of God) or not.

Yet what but my Canadian friend's conception of right and

THE TSAR'S CORONATION 111

wrong can justify Palmerston's or Disraeli's policy of defend-
ing the integrity of the Ottoman Empire by force or by
threats ? and what will be the end of these things ? Will
not "the Eternal have them in derision" ? Or what shall be
said for the Christian journalists who defend Cecil Rhodes
and Dr. Jameson by quoting the example of Clive and of
Warren Hastings — as men once defended the slave trade by
quoting the example of John Hawkins. Is the growth of
our moral perceptions to be stopped until the British Empire
has been sufficiently expanded to satisfy the ambition of the
most inflated Englander ? Who, after all, can yet tell what
the final outcome of the conquest of India, of the greed that
caused it and of the violence that characterised it, will be ?
Does a nation's life consist in the abundance of the things
it possesses ? And does an empire gain in well-being when
a small minority 'make fortunes' in a distant land, and
return to establish families which henceforth live, generation
after generation, on the labour of their fellow-men, for
whom, in exchange, they perchance make laws which con-
travene, but do not surpass, the two great commandments
approved by Christ ?

We grasp at what we fancy is desirable, as a baby reaches
out for a knife that would cut it or a bottle that holds
poison. Our pretence that we murder and steal in order to
do good to less civilised nations, amounts to a declaration
that the best results are obtainable, not by doing right but
by doing wrong, and that as a nation we have reached a state
of civilisation which we are prepared to force upon others.

And what is this civilisation which, since it does not
attract the savages, is to be thrust upon them with rifles and
maxim-guns ?

Is not the scramble and massacre on the Hodfnskoe
Field 1 the very type of what our boasted civilisation has

1 Fields near Moscow, where, as part of the Coronation Festivities,
on 18th May 1896 (O.S.), a People's Fete was held, at which some 3000
people perished.

112 TOLSTOY AND HIS PROBLEMS

brought us to ? The grab for enamelled mugs and bad
sausages at the People's Fete was mere child's play (even
with all its bloodshed) to the grab for money which year
by year crushes thousands into the workhouses and prisons,
and into that worst of deaths — prostitution. Some unwhole-
some food or petty rewards are offered, by men who never
made or earned them, to those who can push hard enough
to get them. A struggle ensues : each strives to be first
served ; some seize several times their share but many have
to go hungry ; lives are lost, projierty destroyed, and a festival
is turned into a house of mourning

"... where men sit and hear each other groan ;
Where but to think is to be full of sorrow."

And the rich and great, whose example and guidance has
led to such a result, harden their hearts like Pharaoh of old,
and hasten to find occupations or amusements, to prepare
which the labour and lives of the common people are again
demanded.

Of the eighteen on whom the tower in ,Siloam fell, Jesus
said : " Think ye that they were offenders above all the men
that dwell in Jerusalem ? I tell you, nay : but except ye
repent, ye shall all likewise perish." May we not say the
same with reference to the three thousand who were mas-
sacred on the Hodinka ? Is not our society actuated by the
same motives of greed (selfish for ourselves, selfish for our
families, selfish for our nation) which led those poor peasants
to their doom ? and do we not see around us misery and death
caused by the industrial competition in which we share?
Within these last hundred and fifty years the productive
power of man's labour has doubled and much more than
doubled. Men were fed, clothed, and lodged before the
steam-engine was used, the spinning-jenny, the mule, or the
power-loom invented ; before the ocean was crossed by a
steamer, or a locomotive had been designed, or the triumphs

THE TSARS CORONATION 113

ol applied science (that we hear so much of) had been
achieved. Surely all might now be well provided for, were
it not for the waste and loss in the scramble, and for the mis-
direction and ill example of those who profess to lead us !

There is in England a certain old lady whom poets have
panegyrised and about whom the newspapers are never tired
of writing ; she is much respected, and is looked up to as an
example of all the virtues ; and what she — the Queen — does
is generally accepted as being f the right thing.' No doubt
she is morally very much superior to the average of people of
her class. But what sort of example does she set in so simple
and practical a matter as dressing ? A magazine lately stated
that she wears silk stockings of such extreme fineness that a
man has been continually engaged for many years past doing
no other productive work than weave stockings for Her Most
Gracious Majesty, the Defender of the Christian Faith !

How can want and poverty be avoided in a society in
which people think it right and reasonable that the whole
labour of a highly-skilled workman shall be devoted to pro-
viding the coverings for one woman's legs ?

Think, again, of what a Queen's Drawing-Room means.
Women not only dress themselves in extravagant clothes,
which many people have laboured many days in poverty to
produce, but men are tempted from useful work, and
paid high wages to serve, together with strong, well-fed
horses, in conveying these women, shut up in expensive
boxes, to the drawing-room, where they will not do anything
more useful than courtesy and kiss Her Most Gracious
Majesty's hand. This performance is carried on repeatedly
and openly, in a city where hungry people lack food, cloth-
ing and lodging to enable them to live and work ; and neither
the Queen nor the newspapers, nor the people who waste
their time and money at the court, seem even to suspect that
there is aught to be ashamed of in the matter.

What wonder if the rest of society, from the burglar to the
financier, also aim at enjoying the fruits of other men's

114 TOLSTOY AND HIS PROBLEMS

labour, and are not particular by what means they gratify
their wish ! It is as Isaiah said : " They fight every one
against his brother, and every one against his neighbour ;
city against city, and kingdom against kingdom." Mother
earth would yield enough for all without excessive toil or
need for any to scramble, to envy, or to hate ; but the aim
our competitive system sets before men — namely, the out-
stripping of their fellows in the race for wealth, the grasping
and retaining of ' property rights ' to make ten or one hun-
dred of our fellow-men obey our orders — can only be reached
by a few ; can only be held precai'iously and by the use of
violence ; and can never be approved by any one to whom
Christ's example seems admirable.

Once upon a time five thousand people went out into a
wilderness to hear a favourite preacher. The day was far
spent, and no regular provision had been made for their
supper. Baskets were to be seen here and there, but what
they contained had not been reckoned up. The preacher's
own immediate followers had only five barley loaves and two
fishes at hand, but with these he gave a practical lesson in
economics. Letting the people sit down in companies of
about fifty each, he took the five loaves and two fishes, and
having blessed them he brake them and gave to the disciples,
not to eat themselves but to offer to the people. The
example, following on his teaching and coinciding with his
known manner of life, was readily imitated. All shared what
they had like members of one family ; and the food pro-
duced not only sufficed, but, each being careful for the sake
of his fellows to waste nothing and to take no more than he
needed, there turned out to be a superabundance ; and when
they gathered up the fragments there remained twelve
baskets full of provisions.

That lesson, alas ! has been forgotten or lost, owing, per-
chance, to slowness of understanding in evil and adulterous
generations who sought after a sign.

The virtue of selfishly ' getting on ' ; the thrift which

THE TSAR'S CORONATION 115

means hoarding up to-day what our brother man requires,
in order to be able to compel his labour to-morrow — these
things have been so diligently instilled into our minds, that
it needs an intellectual effort for us even to understand that
if men sought first the righteousness of God's kingdom, all
these things (necessaries, comforts, arts, and sciences) would
be added unto us in good measure, perhaps even pressed
down and running over.

Yet how evident the waste and loss of our un-Christian
individualistic system is. Consider, for instance, an Insurance
Company. It occupies fine premises; has in its employ agents,
correspondents, bookkeepers ; it advertises much, calculates
much, does much banking, and uses up many books. The
whole machine is brought to great perfection — but what does
it produce ? How much does it add to the wealth of the
community ? Nothing at all ! It is merely one of our many
elaborate and expensive contrivances for maintaining a selfish
system of society. It safeguards the wealth of individuals,
but it leaves the community poorer ; for all the men who
are unproductively engaged in it have to be fed, clothed,
and lodged by the labour of workers. Think of trade
secrets : manufacturers carefully hiding their processes one
from another, and making goods less durable in order that
they may be more saleable. Or take another instance : a
merchant, trading in Eastern Siberia, finds a cheaper way of
getting his goods shipped thither, but the knowledge is only
profitable to him so long as he can conceal it from his com-
petitors. And so it is in all the processes of trade : it would
be easy to multiply examples to any extent. We are so sunk
in the bog, that hardly with our utmost effort can we get out
of it. But why pretend the thing is good ? Why say it is
better to live in a bog than on dry ground ? Why boast so
glibly of our progress and our civilisation, when we have
well-nigh lost sight of the ideals which were plainly set up
before men thousands of years ago ? With an art that, in
its efforts to satisfy the rich, demands labour from the poor

116 TOLSTOY AND HIS PROBLEMS

to build its studios and exhibitions and provide its materials ;
with a science that is as ready to perfect instruments for
human slaughter as it is to write learnedly upon the data
of ethics — we pride ourselves, forsooth, on our 'advance'
beyond the man who said, " What doth the Lord require
of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk
humbly with thy God ? "

And who really profits by the present system ?

Measured in money, and considering the tremendous waste,
how few gain and how many lose ! Measured by any other
standard than filthy lucre, among the people I know, there
are none who profit : all are losers. The city man has his
nervous and digestive troubles, his irritability and anxiety,
and he has lost well-nigh the capacity to tell good from evil,
or to be healthily interested even in his own children. His
son is cut off from the natural and healthy activity — helpful
to others — for which nature has fitted him, and is constrained
by his surroundings to find an outlet for his physical energy
in rushing like a lunatic after a tennis or a cricket ball, over
ground carefully prepared and kept in order by the labour
of working-men. The satisfaction and the moral growth
which attend on service well rendered to one's fellows
(which, rationally organised, in good company, might be so
pleasant) is denied him : and who can say how great in its
ultimate effect on mind and character that deprivation is ?

The daughter may not share the work her father and
brother are to devote their lives to, nor is that work such
as would be likely to attract her or any rational being ; but
she is well fed, and requires an outlet for her energies till
she gets married and has children, — and, too often, she finds
it in family quarrels, or in balls, visiting and theatre-going,
or in slave-driving — which is called housekeeping. Instead
of using her health and ability to lighten the toil of humanity,
she is, economically, a dead-weight, making the world poorer
by her presence and failing to reap satisfaction for herself.
This indeed is the problem which faces Dives to-day. What

THE TSAR'S CORONATION 117

will you do with your sons and daughters ? Which will you
stunt : their minds ? or their consciences ? For if both are
allowed to develop, the day is not far off when they will
feel a moral revulsion against the system you represent ; and
the activity you force on the one, and the inactivity you
inflict on the other, will alike be moral torture to them.

The injustice of our present system to the great bulk of
humanity, who have to labour excessively, who are ill-trained,
ill-taught, and ill-cared for, and for whom art and science
hardly exist, is painfully obvious. If you search the registers
of London churches, I am told, you will find the same family
names cropping up for two or three generations and then
dying off. Among the classes who do not get away to the
seaside or go for long holidays to the country, three, or at
most four, generations of city life destroy the family. I do
not wish to underrate the importance of free picture-galleries,
museums, and libraries open to ' the people/ but, in so far as
they have an effect, they tend to draw more and more of the
lower classes into the cities, there, as a rule, to die out. This
is a most serious set-off against the good such institutions do
to those who have already been engulfed by the city.

Worst of all in the indictment against our civilisation is
this, that the ideal held up for men's admiration — that of
freedom from the obligation to toil, and the having a legal
'right' to consume extravagantly the fruits of other men's
laboui' — is a false light, luring them towards moral quick-
sands. The difference which divides the economic teaching;
and example of respectable society from those of Jesus, is
not a difference of degree only but of direction ; and before
we can know whether to steer north or south in this matter,
we have to make up our minds (1) whether Jesus meant
what he taught, or whether his statements on economic
matters were mere windy verbosity — " divine paradoxes," as
Dean Farrar calls them ; and (2) supposing that he meant
what he said, whether he was talking sense.

Christ did not denounce slavery, polygamy, patriotism, or

118 TOLSTOY AND HIS PROBLEMS

pride of race or of family, because the forms under which
man exploits his brother man, and the excuses whereby he
justifies his conduct to himself and to others, can be endlessly
varied ; but he struck at the root of the whole matter by
appealing to the heart of man. He proclaimed the brother-
hood of man, and said that to whom much (whether in
capacity, in strength, or in means) has been given, from him
much shall be required.

The world, age after age, tries other lines : claims ' rights '
for the skilful, clever, strong, or lucky, and for their descend-
ants after them. But these experiments, such as slavery or
feudalism, have broken down in the past, and to-day indi-
vidualism and the competitive system of production are on
their trial, and they too seem to be breaking down. Some
faith in them still exists, and holds the system together.
You may still meet people who talk about wealth being the
reward of industry, and poverty being always the merited
reward of idleness ; but year by year it requires an increasing
degree of obtuseness to enable a man to talk in that way
without conscious hypocrisy. Mill's indictment of society
remains unanswered and unanswerable : it is evidently wrong
that " the produce of labour should be apportioned as we now
see it, almost in an inverse ratio to the labour — the largest
portions to those who have never worked at all, the next
largest to those whose work is almost nominal, and so on in a
descending scale, the remuneration dwindling as the work
grows harder and more disagreeable, until the most fatiguing
and exhausting bodily labour cannot count with certainty on
being able to earn even the necessaries of life." And, as he
rightly says: " If this or communism were the alternative, all
the difficulties, great or small, of communism, would be but as
dust in the balance." x

" Well," says a friend, " but granting that things are not as
they should be, we are at any rate progressing. This very
coronation shows how much worse the Government of Russia
1 J. S. Mill, Political Economy, People's edition, p. 128.

THE TSAR'S CORONATION 119

is than that of England, and progress in the future must go
along the same lines as in the past."

The case seems to be this. The English Government is in
closer touch with the people than the Russian Government is.
No doubt, in England as in Russia, the rich and educated
make the laws, chiefly for their own advantage ; but in
England they have to reckon with the whims, the passions,
and the opinions of an active and audible section of the
people who occupy themselves with politics. The sins of the
English Government are therefore, in a sense, the sins of
the people. In Russia the case is different. An autocratic
Government blunders along, not asking advice, resenting
criticism, pretending to infallibility, and even trying to dic-
tate to its subjects what they may read and what they
must believe. The failure of representative Governments,
in England, France, and America, to free men from the yoke
that greed and selfishness have put upon them, to divide
the fruits of labour more equally, or to make men happier,
prevents such faith from growing up in Russia as gave the
revolutionary movements of a century or two ago their force
in those other countries.

Far be it from me to underrate the service to humanity of
those true men who strove for political emancipation, and who
kept alive in the hearts of men the sacred hope of a coming
time when truth and justice should reign on earth ; but is it
not obvious, for instance, that the great Reform Bill of 1832
has not done what Macaulay and his contemporaries hoped
from it ? How different are its effects to those of the agita-
tion led by Christ, which did not aim at any one special
practical political change, and yet the echoes of which, last-
ing through the ages, have inspired, and will yet inspire, re-
formers in all lands. The agitation for a Reform or a Home
Rule Act concentrates and buries itself in one object, which
is accomplished to our disappointment, or perhaps never is
accomplished at all.

The line of advance in Russia may lie, not in upsetting the

120 TOLSTOY AND HIS PROBLEMS

Government but in ignoring it. What is desirable is, not
that another and a better Pougatehef should dethrone the
Emperor and declare a Constitution, but that men should
open their minds to what is true, and, seeing the right,
should "obey God rather than men."

Take the example of Prince Hilkof. Finding by actual
experience how impossible it was for him, living as a rich
man, to ' do good ' to the labourers on his estate in the
Kharkof government, to gain their confidence, or to set them
any useful example ; and seeing that this was necessarily so
as long as he demanded from them labour that he might live
sumptuously, he gave up his land to the peasant commune,
and began to live as nearly as possible like one of them. His
influence then became great. Seeing that in plain practical
matters they were the better and not the worse off for his
life, the people came to him for religious guidance also,
which he and they found in the Gospels, reading simply
"like little children" ; looking for what was plain and clear,
and practically applicable to the guidance of the life we are
all living. Looked at in this way, the stress and emphasis of
Christ's teaching did not appear to lie in the announcement
of a mysterious Trinity, or in a theory of Redemption by
blood, or in the founding of an infallible Church, or in the
institution of any rites or ceremonies, but in the inculcation
of love and goodwill among men, who are all sons of one
Father ; a sonship that should be practically shown by
burdening others as little as possible, and doing as much as
possible ourselves : devoting one's talents, not to the service
of mammon but to the service of righteousness.

This view, being totally different from that taught by the
Holy Orthodox Russian Church, caused the peasants to cease
going to church, and also caused the revenues of the village
priests to stnink ; and, Church and State leaning upon each
other for mutual support, a persecution was commenced, and
Prince Hilkof was exiled to the Caucasus. There he fell in
with the Doukhobors, whose views coincided with his own ;

THE TSAR'S CORONATION 121

and after a time the authorities found it advisable to re-exile
him to an out-of-the-way part of the Baltic Provinces. 1 His
children have been taken from him, to be brought up in the
true religion professed by Pobedonostsef and the Most Holy
Synod.

The English Government would not have persecuted
Prince Hilkof; but, on the other hand, have we a Prince
Hilkof to persecute ? How does the activity of our most
Radical peers compare with his ? Not, of course, that such
men are common in Russia either ; but among the Russian
peasants there are many who, though they have not hatl
to renounce so much, see things eye to eye with Hilkof.
Such men would neither put up a fence to protect private
property in land, nor serve as soldiers or policemen to en-
force 'legal rights,' nor be lawyers to plead the cause of those
who can pay for it, nor judges to administer iniquitous laws,
nor politicians to set an example of quarrelling where what
is wanted is an example of useful and self-sacrificing work,
nor priests claiming an endowment and petrifying the beliefs
of one age to check the spiritual advance of the next.

There are two different and incompatible lines of advance.
One is that followed, say, by Gladstone (to take a prominent
instance), which is that of aiming at immediate practical
results by legal enactments. It may not be always useless,
but what is made legal is not always right and what is made
illegal is not always wrong ; it generates much friction, is
disappointing in its results, and sets no example which all
men can follow. It is a line which can, indeed, hardly be
pursued except by men who have divorced themselves from
the universal duty of man to earn his bread by the sweat
of his brow. The other line, followed by such men as Paul,
Wyclif, or George Fox, and most conspicuously by Jesus, is
that of doing what is right and speaking what is true, leaving

1 Since the above was written he has been allowed to leave Russia
(but not to return thither), and has taken an active part in settling
the Doukhobors in Canada.

122 TOLSTOY AND HIS PROBLEMS

the results to be enforced, not by the policeman but by the
Eternal. Who can ever measure or tell what results have
followed, or will follow, from any action or example ? Is it
not better to leave the calculations of expediency to those
who do not believe that truth is great and shall prevail ?

Even on a lower plane, do we not see that the quiet and
thoughtful work of Adam Smith, for instance, has had far
more wide-reaching effects, even in the making and altering
of laws, than the labours of six hundred and seventy members
of Parliament, with all their election committees and political
campaigns, for the last ten years ? And, however much the
influence of the advance of the physical sciences on the
happiness of the human race has been overrated, is it not
certain that Newton and Darwin have done more to liberate
mankind from the thraldom of an ignorant and bigoted
priesthood than could be effected by a dozen church-dis-
establishment bills ?

But "What is truth?" asks, not Pilate only but all
thoughtful men who have pierced to the heart of the
materialistic philosophy of the day, hoping in it to find
solid ground to build on.

God, say they, is a reflection of himself which man has
cast upon the clouds. Granted that there may be a great
first cause of all things, we can know nothing of it, and must
leave it completely out of our reckoning. What we can know
is matter and its movements ; what can be known of higher
forms of life towards which man may be tending must be
learnt by studying the evolution of lower forms which he
has already surpassed. Morality is a question of expediency :
it is one thing for the ants, another for the bees, and a dozen
different things for man, according to his race and climate
and surroundings. Do not, therefore, elevate your whims
and guesses and fancies into the decrees of an " Eternal
who makes for righteousness."

That is about as far as the materialistic philosopher cares
to go in his public speech or writings ; it is perhaps as far

THE TSAR'S CORONATION 123

even as some of them care to penetrate in their own thoughts.
But get an intellectually honest and sincere materialist, who
will not shirk the issue (nor, like so many intellectually
dishonest Christians, simply refuse to discuss his beliefs),
and you come to something further, which marks the real
dividing line between a thoroughly consistent materialist
and a spiritualist (if I may use that word to denote one who
thinks that conscience and reason afford indications of eternal
truth). The consistent materialist will say that what we
see around us is a huge evolutionary process tending we
know not whence or whither, that we cannot stop it, and
whether we go against it and are wiped out, or go with it
and are wiped out, does not really seem to matter much ;
for the power will certainly destroy first you and me, then
the human race and the earth itself, and eventually the
whole solar system to which we belong. All our morality
is but relative ; probably there is no such thing as absolute
right or wrong, and no such thing as moral truth or false-
hood, or, if there be, we are probably quite incapable of
grasping them.

That, really, is the root of the whole matter. Is anything
true ? Is anything right or wrong ?

We may, with the thoroughgoing materialist, assume that
there are no such things as righteousness or moral truth
(indeed, accepting his assertion that conscience gives us no
perception of the Eternal, I do not see how that conclusion
can logically be avoided) ; and having assumed that, it does
not seem to matter much what else we assume for the short
remainder of our days. Or we may take up the spiritual
hypothesis that there is an eternal right, a truth leading
towards it, and that our minds and consciences are so framed
that if we are intellectually honest, and strive to act up to
what we know, we can obtain such glimpses of these eternal
truths as are needful to enable us to steer our course aright
through our brief sojourn here.

The distant mountain does not look the same to all eyes

124 TOLSTOY AND HIS PROBLEMS

or from all points of view, but it is one and the same, and we
can approach towards it if we will.

One of these two conclusions the thoughtful man who
goes unflinchingly to the heart of the matter must ultimately
reach, even if he first takes it on trial merely, as a working
hypothesis. Afterwards — by its fruits shall ye judge it.
Once assume that we dwell, not in a chaos but in a universe
designed for objects which transcend our comprehension,
and one can work quietly at what the great Taskmaster sets
before us. Expediency and tangible success lose their
importance, and even death for ourselves and extinction for
our race, cease to be the inexplicable curse from the very
thought of which we sought to escape.

Now, to return to the coronation. No one I have met
attempts to justify it as reasonable, right, or necessary in
itself : the sham and tinsel of the whole affair was too
obvious ; but many try to explain that it was expedient or
necessary, as being likely to impress the people or the
foreign visitors. Some Russians thought it would favour-
ably impress foreigners, and some foreigners excused it as
necessary to impress the semi-savage delegates from Asiatic
Russia. What was especially noticeable, however, was the
disinclination of most people to consider anything more than
the mere surface of the event. The thought, lurking at the
back of their minds, seemed to be : If we admit that our
social system is founded on selfishness and wrong, and that
the Government exists in order that the rich may oppress the
poor, what will happen ? what have we to put in place of the
present system ?

Well, whether we speak the truth or whether we lie,
whether we worship God or mammon, we none of us know
what will happen ; we can, however, see the past more
clearly than the future. Suppose, then, that a Romiin slave-
owner had realised that though Paul wrote " Slaves, obey
your masters," yet slavery was wrong. He would have been
tempted to ask, " But how will the abolition of slavery work ?

THE TSAR'S CORONATION 125

Who will ever labour at slavish tasks, unless a whip is held
over him ? " He would be apt to say, " Even with con-
tinual flogging, my slaves can hardly be got to do a decent
day's work, any of them." And he would ask, " How, for
instance, can woollen cloth ever get made if there are no
slaves to pasture the sheep, or to shear them or wash them,
or make the fleeces into bundles, or spin it into yarn, or
weave it into cloth, or dye it ? " Had he tried to forecast
in his mind what a modern Yorkshire mill would be like, he
would have failed completely. Yet the conclusion presented
by his conscience was right. Slavery was bad, economically
as well as morally ; and the emancipation of slaves has not
impoverished the world nor left us without cloth.

In such problems, the question of conscience and motive is
the one we are capable of forming a sound judgment on,
not the question of the results of actions. And whether we
believe that conscience is a guide to be consulted and
followed, depends again on whether we believe that there
is a Power " lasting through the ages, which makes for
righteousness " and which acts upon us.

As to the moral revolution which is now fermenting in
many lands, especially with regard to economic questions, it
can neither be helped nor hindered by shams and lies — and
surely, as to this revolution, it behoves all men to take heed
what side they are on ; for "if this counsel or this work be of
men, it will be overthrown ; but if it be of God, ye will not
be able to overthrow it ; lest haply ye be found even to be
fighting against God."

Nemtchi'novsky Post,

near Moscow, June 1896.

The above formed the " Epilogue " to a pamphlet describing "The
Tsar's Coronation," in which I tried to draw attention to the unreason-
ableness of such performances.

RIGHT AND WRONG

When I was about thirty-seven years old I acted in a
manner of which I had always disapproved. I had known of
other people acting in the same way, and had always felt
that they were doing wrong. It was in sex matters that I
sinned, and the matter was the more startling because I had
been guilty of no outwardly wrong action of the kind since I
was quite a young man, and for about a year before the lapse
I had been stirred by a strong desire to change my whole
way of life and be of more use in the world than heretofore.
And the question arose : Was I to confess my conduct to
those whose lives were linked to mine and whom I could
not wound without lacerating myself? or had I better con-
ceal it ?

If I told the truth it would hurt them and I should fall in
their esteem, while, on the other hand, by not telling them, I
should be entering on a course of concealment which would
easily lead to untruthfulness and ultimately, perhaps, to
systematic deception.

I had from childhood kept a clear perception that truth is
better than falsehood, and the feelings which had grown up
on this opinion caused me now to be frank ; and as soon as I
had confessed, and saw how the knowledge of my conduct
acted on those who were nearest to me, it became obvious
that I must not repeat my misconduct. All the excuses and
justifications which seemed so plausible while I was looking
at the matter from my own point of view — swayed by a
strong personal bias — vanished when I had to face the case
as it really stood, and saw that it did not affect one or two

126

RIGHT AND WRONG 127

people only, but necessarily reacted upon all with whom
they were in touch.

I haoV, in fact, run up against the root question of human
conduct : Is thei'e a right and a wrong ? I had assumed that
it is right to tell the truth and wrong to tell lies, and this
had decided for me another important question of conduct.
Evidently each part of our conduct is linked on to all the
rest. Morality (i.e. right conduct) relates to all we do and
knits our life into one organic whole. We cannot be moral
in one thing and irresponsible in another. If right and
wrong can be predicated of human actions at all, they relate
to all our actions, and we cannot separate out some one
section of life (our family, our business life, our sexual rela-
tions, our friendships and enmities, our amusements, or our
studies) and say that in this department we wish to be free
from the rule of right and wrong.

I was resident at that time in Russia, where such problems
are discussed with great frankness, and with these thoughts
working in my mind it came natural to me to speak of them
to some personal friends. I found that more than one acquaint-
ance had gone through experiences similar to my own, but
not all of them had felt it necessary or desirable to confess
their actions. This one, and that one, had chosen the path
of concealment, the ultimate consequences of which were not
yet apparent. For convenience' sake let me speak as though
the considerations which were presented to me, and claimed
my attention, all came from one and the same friend.

I pleaded that surely truth is better than falsehood. This
my friend would not admit to be necessarily so ; he said he
had become convinced that our ideas of morality are con-
ventional. He recognised an evolutionary process going on
in the world. Some power of which we know nothing, for
reasons we cannot discern, ages ago evolved enormous ante-
diluvian animals with tremendous teeth and claws adapted to
their environment, and enabling them to fight, which was
what they were destined for. When the power (Nature) had

128 TOLSTOY AND HIS PROBLEMS

done with them, it wiped them all out and continued its
process of evolving fresh types, which it successively used up
and wiped out. Among the rest came man. To man nature
has not given such terrible teeth and claws, but it has fur-
nished him with faculties which adapt him also to his environ-
ment. It has given him a conscience, and a capacity to feel
sympathy and love. These, he said, are evidently mere
adaptations of the primitive tribal instincts of the savage,
which, in turn, were adaptations of the sexual and maternal
instincts of the animals. Love is a lubricant designed to
enable the machinery of human society to work without too
much friction. It is merely one more adaptation of creatures
to their environment just as were the teeth and claws of the
antediluvian monsters. What we call { promptings of con-
science ' are merely inherited habits, the results of the fear
of punishment transmitted through the nervous system.
My friend stated the matter somewhat in this way : —
" We do not understand this Nature of which we are a
part, nor do we know its purpose. An earthquake swallows
up a town ; the bird tears the worm to pieces ; the beautiful
rainbow represents both the fruitful and life-giving rain, and
the destructive and life-destroying flood which sweeps the
helpless child from its despairing mother.

" Deify this Nature if you like ; talk, as the sentimentalists
do, of the perfect harmony which (they say) exists, or will
some day exist, between what is going on in Nature and what
we feel would satisfy us. Or, like Moses, say that an all-
good and all-powerful God created this world as we see it
and pronounced it to be quite satisfactory ; or, like the pessi-
mists, curse Nature for her heartless cruelty, for being 'red
in tooth and claw.' But for those of us who care to be at all
truthful in the matter, the plain fact remains that we simply
do not know what Nature is aiming at ; many of her pro-
cesses and operations are terrible, shocking and l-evolting to
what we are accustomed to call e our best feelings/ and we
do not even know whether Nature is aiming at anything at all.

RIGHT AND WRONG 129

"We may dislike death, decay, destruction, and misery;
but they exist and have to be reckoned with. All the efforts
to believe, as the Greeks did, in a beautiful harmony of
Nature, like the Jewish attempts to believe in a good God
who overrules all things for the best, are merely attempts to
lull ourselves into a comfortable state of mind. They are
not rational beliefs but Epicurean consolations — a kind of
intellectual opium-eating.

" We are infinitesimally small parts of an infinitely large
whole which we do not understand. If we knew the scheme
of creation we might be able to see how tve fit into it, and
whether our life has or has not any meaning. But not under-
standing the plan and purpose of the whole machine, it is
hopeless to ask what this or that particular little wheel is
for. We are simply groping in the dark, and when we speak
of 'right' and 'wrong' we are only deceiving ourselves.
Not knowing what Nature has designed us for, we cannot
know whether it is more moral to oppose her in her designs
and be wiped out, or to assist her in her plans and equally be
wiped out.

" For science tells us (only men dislike what is unpleasant,
and therefore this is often slurred over or kept in the back-
ground) that not only is death inevitable, both for ourselves
and our friends, but that the human race itself will come to
an end, and the earth will perish, and the whole solar system
will pass away. No doctor ever yet saved any life ; the utmost
he could by any possibility do was to postpone the inevit-
able death. All the progress people talk about is progress
towards the destruction of the world and the termination of
the race.

" Reason, conscience, and love, therefore, are expedients,
adaptations designed by nature for her own unknown pur-
poses ; and more than this, they are merely temporary ex-
pedients. There is nothing permanent about them. What
is called the ' soul ' or the ' spirit ' is to the body what the
flame is to a candle — a result of its gradual combustion.

130 TOLSTOY AND HIS PROBLEMS

The ' spirit ' can no more continue to exist after the body
has decomposed than the flame can go on burning after the
candle has been consumed.

" Some people are fond of advising you to develop powers,
and form habits which tend towards life, and to shun others
which tend towards death. But this is a fallacious manner
of expressing oneself, for none of our faculties or habits tend
anywhere but towards ultimate death. The difference is only
that some paths lead to the goal more quickly than others.

" So far from any clear rule of right or morality being
discernible in the operations of Nature, nothing of the kind
exists even in the mind of man. Human morality is merely
conventional. It not only differs from the morality of the
bees and the ants and other animals, but even among men
themselves what is right in one age is wrong in another, and
what is moral in one country is immoral in another. Under
the Mosaic law it was right to slaughter one's national
enemies and to have a hundred wives. In modern England
most people are shocked if you have even half-a-dozen wives,
and though many people still admire a Cecil Rhodes for
' painting the map of Africa red ' with human blood, some
people begin to disapprove of killing men, and of regarding
the lives of foreigners as less sacred than the lives of one's
own countrymen."

My friend instanced to me a case in which his own con-
science had misled him. He had been brought up to think
it wrong to read novels on Sunday. When he was a young
man he wanted to read a novel on Sunday and did so, but his
conscience made him perfectly wretched about it. This, how-
ever, only lasted till he had become accustomed to reading
novels on Sunday. Then he perceived that he " had been
hampered by a ridiculous Jewish superstition, the power of
which was called conscience."

" There is a continual shifting and surging of opinions
backwards and forwards — now to the left hand and now to
the right. Under such circumstances only the fanatic will

RIGHT AND WRONG 131

try to dogmatise, and only the ascetic will forego the few
pleasures, not harmful to our physical life, which are open
to us."

Again, my friend argued : " Even admitting that we could
discern right from wrong, could we alter our conduct ? Could
we be any better or any worse than we are ?

" In nature there is no effect without an antecedent cause.
Whatever is now going on in the world is the effect of what
was happening millions of years ago. We have been shaped
to what we are by the combined influence of soil and climate
acting on our food and our surroundings, and on those of
our ancestors for thousands of generations. There is no spot
on your body, no atom in your brain, no thought that rises
within you, but is an inevitable result of antecedent physical
causes. The cause may be what you had for dinner yes-
terday (causing indigestion and irritability), but even the
way you ate your yesterday's dinner was influenced by
what your remote ancestors fed on millions of years ago,
when the foundations were laid of the character you have
inherited.

" Is it not sheer self-conceit and self-deception to imagine
that we can counteract the accumulated results of all these
antecedent causes, which have been operating steadily
through the ages ? Can we work miracles ? Can we bid
the sun stand still ? or (what is equally impossible) say to
the inevitable result which must follow from what has ffone
before, ' Thou shalt not be ! ' We fancy we are free to act,
only because we do not see the threads by which we are
moved — in reality we are mere automata."

It is always painful to disagree with one's friends on the
fundamental problems of life and conduct. It was so in this
case, and, moreover, a dread haunted me that perhaps the
power which had presented these problems to me and given
me a desire to solve them and a perception that their solution
was necessary, had yet left me incapable of solving them — as

132 TOLSTOY AND HIS PROBLEMS

a fish is sometimes left on dry land a few feet from the river,
struggling and gasping for the water it is unable to reach.

This fear disappeared when I came to face the difficulties
seriously. There was much that I could not solve or fathom,
but what man needs to know in order to steer his course
aright can be found by those who really seek it. The diffi-
culty (it now seems to me) lies not so much in perceiving
what is right as in doing it. But thought is enormously im-
portant, because it is to man what the rudder is to a ship ; it
gives the direction. The tide may carry the ship to one side,
the wind may even drive it back, but that does not mean that
it is unimportant how the ship is steered. Unless it be steered
rightly, what hope is there of reaching harbour ? So with
man ; his actions result from his feelings, but his feelings
grow up rooted on his sense of the meaning of life.

Thoughts such as those expressed by my friend do not
often trouble plain, honest folk, but they colour and influence
the minds of many of the sophisticated and over-instructed
people of our day ; and what makes them perplexing is that
they contain a certain proportion of truth and are often
mixed up with theories and conclusions which are valid.

Pure gold is easily distinguishable from alloy, but it is
difficult to separate the one from the other in a coin. So
with a man's view of life. What is true and what is false
may be easily distinguished if they are once separated :
perplexity arises from having them intermixed.

What I first felt about my friend's arguments was that it
would not do for me to yield to them, for if I admitted them
I should never know what to like and what to dislike, what
to do and what not to do. But no sooner did this thought
form itself than I felt ashamed of it. I felt (not with my
reason only but with my whole being) that : " Truth is great
and shall prevail " : that to truth we must be ready to say,
"Though thou shouldst slay me, yet will I love thee."
A passage from Huxley recurred to my memory : " Granting
that a religious creed Avould be beneficial, my next step is to

RIGHT AND WRONG 133

ask for a proof of the dogma. If this is forthcoming it is my
conviction that no drowning sailor ever clutched a hencoop
more tenaciously than mankind will hold by such dogma,
whatever it may be. But if not, then I verily believe that
the human race will go its own evil way; and my only con-
solation lies in the reflection that however bad our posterity
may become, so long as they hold by the plain rule of not
pretending to believe what they see no reason to believe,
because it may be to their advantage so to pretend, they will
not have reached the lowest depths of immorality."

Yes, surely ! No pleasure, no expediency, no profit, no
utility, will ever justify us in believing in the existence of
right and wrong if it indeed be true that modern thought
(Science) has demonstrated that we are but parts of an in-
scrutable whole, that we and our race must perish utterly,
body and spirit, that all morality is merely conventional, and
that even our conscience and our reason are but inevitable
results of integrations and disintegrations of matter over
which we have no control.

The view of life which my friend represented, flows
logically enough, I think, from the materialistic or synthetic
philosophy which is to the fore in our day.

We are surrounded by something which we call the
material universe. The perceptions which reach us through
our five senses reveal to us an order of nature. What we
perceive seems to obey fixed and definite laws which we can
investigate. Our own bodies, and even our brains, belong to
this external universe which we know through our senses,
and the evolutionary and synthetic philosophy deals with all
this. It goes further, and undertakes to tell us all that can
be known of the spirit in man. The mainspring of life,
the prime mover, it speaks of as " the unknown and the
unknowable," and it invites us to dismiss it from our thoughts
in order to concentrate our attention on the knowable.

This philosophy professes to cover the whole ground of
human knowledge, and as long as I admitted that claim, and

134 TOLSTOY AND HIS PROBLEMS

looked to it for guidance in my own conduct, it baffled and
perplexed me. My friend, on the basis of this philosophy,
demonstrated the absurdity of believing in an absolute right
and wrong ; and Herbert Spencer, in the fourth great volume
{Justice) of the fifth great section (Principles of Ethics) of his
great scheme of Synthetic Philosophy, on this same basis seeks
to demonstrate that the existing system of landholding (by
which the people who till the land of England do not possess
it but live under the control of those who do) is one which
practically accords with the principles of justice !

I could not help suspecting that when it deals with such
questions the synthetic philosophy oversteps the limits within
which it is competent. 1

I next came to perceive that the synthetic philosophy
neglects the 'subjective' view of life. This view regards
'the spirit in man/ actuating his reason and his conscience,
as being the most real of all things. This spirit is the divine
in man : a something durable, permanent, and reliable. By
means of it we are constituted judges — having knowledge of
good and evil. It is the ' true life,' the ' life eternal ' (in
Christ's language) for the sake of which the physical life may
well be sacrificed. Compared to this, all that reaches us
through our five senses is external, foreign, unsatisfactory,
changeable, temporary. This subjective view has been held,
and dwelt on, by all the great religious teachers who have
ever moved the hearts of men : by Socrates, Lao-Tsze,
Buddha, Christ, Paul, Wesley, Woolman, Tolstoy, and by a
host of others whose influence spreads from age to age and
from continent to continent.

Now, the question before us is this : Is there any real
Right — absolute, firm, immovable, durable — belonging to a
real, eternal order of things ? And this raises the further

1 The reader who wishes to know the weak places of Herbert
Spencer's position on the external side of things, should consult
Vol. I. of James Ward's Naturalism and Agnosticism,

RIGHT AND WRONG 135

questions : Is there something in each of us which is linked
indissolubly to that real eternal order ? Are we, therefore,
brethi-en ? Moved by the same spirit ? Owing allegiance to
the same truth and the same duty ?

Will the synthetic philosophy suffice to enable us to answer
these questions ? It professes to answer all questions to
which mankind possesses any answer. It regards primarily
what is external : what can be perceived and investigated
through the five senses. It calls these things realities and
facts : it holds out hopes that by means of these it will
explain also your innermost perceptions, and warns you that
every other method is mere self-deception.

Indeed, to many of us, at first, this outer world does seem
more solid and real than the inner world of our conscious-
ness. We are, at first, inclined to disbelieve the teachers
who tell us that the external is deceptive, unreliable and
temporary ; that the inner life alone is reliable and permanent.
We are ready to call them mystics, and to put their teaching
aside as unsatisfactory. Only after much thought do we begin
to perceive to what an extent the external world deceives,
baffles, and perplexes us. The mere number of facts relating
to this external world is literally infinite, and we can know
only a very few of them. Even a Newton may well admit
that he is like a little child picking up pebbles by the shore
of the ocean of the unknown.

Even in the things we thought we knew, how often we
are deceived ! To borrow an example : you enter a room, a
looking-glass fills one end of it and you advance to speak to a
lady you see there — till you touch the glass and your hand
tells you that your eye has deceived you. When this hap-
pens we call it an ' optical illusion.' But there are cases in
which we find our different senses combining to deceive us,
and we then call the result a ' fact.' And as most men have
senses similar to ours, when one man's senses deceive him he
will easily find plenty of other people to confirm him in his
error, and when the people who have made a special study

136 TOLSTOY AND HIS PROBLEMS

of the matter are deceived, it becomes a ' scientific fact.'
For thousands of years the earth was flat, and the sun rose
in the east and sank in the west each day. And how sure
people usually are of their ' scientific facts ' — until a fresh
generation sweeps them into the rubbish heap. Have we
not (particularly those of us who had not themselves in-
vestigated it) felt sure that the ' Law of Gravity ' was some-
thing quite certainly and absolutely true ? — and does not
Edward Carpenter now show us that it is " a projection into
a monstrous universality and abstraction, of partially under-
stood phenomena in a particular region of observation ? " 1
We are beginning to understand that the ' laws ' of science
are not absolutely, but at best only relatively, true.

Again, how sure most people are that the trees are green.
Some one with an eye rather differently shaped, sees red trees
where I see green ones. But being in a majority I say that
he has a defect of the eye called Daltonism. Really, so far
as science has guessed at present, the tree is neither green
nor red. Certain waves of light pass from it to our eyes.
These waves impinge on the retina, the nerves pass on a
sensation to our brain, and we say we see green trees. If the
other shape of eye were more common, trees would be red.

Under the materialistic philosophy ' matter and force ' are
the ultimate. Our investigation of them has to decide what
importance we should attach to man's spirit : reason, con-
science, and judging-faculty.

The contrary philosophy (call it Socratic, or Christian, as
you please) discerns the essential difference between that
which perceives and that which is perceived, and while it recog-
nises and includes what can be known of the external
universe, admits the validity of the inductive method of
investigating nature, and recognises that we learn and are
developed by what we perceive, yet instead of looking to the

1 Modern Science — a Criticism, published in the volume of essays
entitled Civilisation, its Cause and Cure.

RIGHT AND WRONG 137

external to decide for us what we are to regard as good
or bad, it holds that all we perceive has to be judged by
the spirit in man.

Pascal, in a passage Tolstoy has taken as an epigraph to his
book On Life, has put the essential position thus : —

" Man is but a reed, the feeblest of things — but he is a
thinking reed. The whole universe need not rise in order
to crush him. A vapour, or a drop of water, is sufficient to
kill him. But when the universe crushes him, man still
remains nobler than that which kills him, for he knows
that he is dying, while of the advantage the universe has
over him it knows nothing. Thus, all our dignity consists
in thought. It is by that, and not by time or space, that
we should raise ourselves. Let us therefore labour to think
rightly : that is the principle of morality."

From the synthetic philosophy we get no clear guid-
ance : only a piling up of so-called facts and a process of
genei'alising on these ' facts ' : different authorities coming
to different conclusions, perplexing the intellect but not
stirring the heart. The subjective view says there is a
divine life present in each of us, and that we must realise
that it is our true self. In it and not in our physical
existence resides true, real, permanent life. Trust it, use
it, perceive that it is the ultimate from which there is no
appeal, realise that the same spirit lives in you as lives in
all your brother-men — and you have grasped the master-key
to all the problems of morality, ethics, and religion.

This is the crux of the whole matter : each man must look
within himself, and say whether he is conscious of a power
approving and disapproving — seeking for what is good. If a
man be not conscious of it, if the idea seem to him mystical,
unreal, fantastic — then morality, as I understand it, can have
no meaning for him. But if he recognise this life, or light, or
spirit, or soul, or divine spark (call it what you will) in him-
self, he possesses the essential basis of morality and religion.

138 TOLSTOY AND HIS PROBLEMS

Is there, or is there not, a right and wrong discernible
to you and to me and incumbent upon us both ? If we use
our minds freely (not swayed by prejudices, nor overmastered
by our physical nature) can we, or can we not, understand
each other, sympathise with each other, aid each other
spiritually, and advance hand in hand together ?

If not, we can never more approve or disapprove of any
man's conduct : never be moved by admh'ation of any self-
sacrifice, nor be touched by righteous indignation at any
wrong. If I have no judging- faculty, capable of discerning
right and wrong, I must remain neutral, and divide my appro-
bation and sympathy equally between the Judas who betrays,
the High Priest who prosecutes, the Pilate who condemns,
and the Jesus who sacrifices himself for the right. If there
be no right and no wrong, or if they be not such as a plain
man may find, or if they be different for different men —
then not only the teaching of Christ but every attempt
that ever has been made to supply direction or guidance
to mankind must be futile.

The problem is a tremendous one : On the one hand,
admit the existence of an absolute right incumbent on each
of us, and it follows that there exists a real, secure, and per-
manent spiritual order of things to which we are linked by
the spirit in us which recognises right and wrong. On
the other hand, deny the existence of an absolute right and
wrong, and it inevitably follows that all our discussions and
efforts to influence each other are senseless.

But, important as the problem is, the solution is simple.
We only need to consider the facts of our own nature, facts
of which we cannot but be conscious, and we shall plainly
see that we do distinguish right from wrong. Which of us
when he reads the story of Socrates does not admire him for
speaking the truth boldly before his judges. Which of us is
unable to perceive that Jabez Balfour did wrong when he
devoured widows' houses and for a pretence made long
prayers ? Do not the great and good who are gone reach

RIGHT AND WRONG 139

their hands to us across the ages, making us feel that (how-
ever dormant it may be) in our innermost selves there dwells
some spark of that divine nature which made them heroes,
saints, and martyrs, and that we, too (however unworthily),
are sons of the same spirit.

It still remains to meet my friend's arguments, which, after
this preparation, will perhaps not prove a difficult task.

1. Conscience and love, we are told, are mere results of the
physical activities and chemical mobilities of matter operating
through the ages.

One recalls the procedure of a conjurer making a ball
vanish. First he lets you examine a solid ball, then he
manages to substitute a collapsible trick ball for the real one,
and rolling it between his hands it gradually becomes smaller
and smaller till at last you cannot see what has become
of it.

That is very much like what the materialist does with con-
science. Conscience is something real and actual, which
influences me and of which I am subjectively conscious.
The philosopher comes along and undertakes to make this
conscience disappear. This he does by substituting for the
thing itself — of which we have knowledge at first hand and
not through our senses — the external phenomena which
accompany the existence of a conscience. Passing then
from the phenomena which indicate that I and the people I
know have consciences, to similar external phenomena which
indicate that other people, further removed from me, had
consciences, he gradually leads us further and fm-ther from
what is familiar and sure to what is distant and unknown, till
at last we reach the primitive tribe, the apes, the bees, and
the ants, and, past them, the colloid or jelly-like substances
in which physical life is supposed to have commenced. Here
we have quite lost sight of conscience. Instead of speaking
about the thing itself (the power which influences our con-
duct) he has discussed its derivation, and asked where it came
from. Starting with the fundamental confusion of supposing

140 TOLSTOY AND HIS PROBLEMS

that something subjective (like conscience) can be explained
by the objective methods of biology, physics, or chemistry,
he ends up by informing you of the important fact that your
conscience proceeds from chemical activities and physical
mobilities — the question how we ought to use our conscience
remaining unanswered.

2. Next we are told that Nature (of which we are parts) is
non-moral and inscrutable.

Well, I am prepared to admit that Nature, as I know it
externally, appears to me to be non-moral. I may devise
plausible guesses to explain the earthquake or the flood, but
if in order to know how to act, I had to observe all nature
objectively, to accumulate myriads of facts, to generalise from
them, and by searching find out the purpose of creation, I
should despair of ever accomplishing the task and should be
ready to admit that we cannot know right from wrong. We
do not know the whole design of the universe, and we should
beware of involving ourselves in logical perplexities by assert-
ing (as Moses did) that God created the earth, or by saying
(as the nature-worshippers do) that all the ways of nature
commend themselves to our moral sense. We should content
ourselves with making sure of what is necessary and sufficient,
and should not assert what is questionable and cannot be
verified.

But putting aside the ambitious design of fathoming the
mind of the All, — admitting that we, being finite, cannot
grasp or span the infinite — let us turn from what we cannot
know to what we do know. Commune with the spirit within
you, and you will find that as the bird knows how to live in
the air and is not perplexed how to act, and as the fish is
able to live in the water and knows what to do there, so
man too can live his life, guided by the spirit within him.
That spirit links us, not only to our fellow-men but also to
the faithful horse or trusty dog, and sometimes makes us
desire more comprehension of, and union with, the flowers,
the grass, and all that exists.

RIGHT AND WRONG 141

This does not mean that if man voluntarily indulges in
ethical conundrums which have no real application to his
own life, he will always be able to solve them. I remember
being asked what an Eskimo should do who saw the force
of the vegetarian's objection to taking life, but who found
that he would die if he ceased to eat whale's blubber. I
had to give it up ; because I am not an Eskimo, and do not
find it necessary to live on whale's blubber. His course
would depend on the strength of his conviction, and on his
readiness to sacrifice physical existence for spiritual well-
being.

3. Again, as to the temporary, and consequently unsatis-
factory, nature of human existence.

This is, I think, a very important point in my friend's
position, for it links the question of the reality of right and
wrong to the question whether the spirit of which we are
conscious in ourselves is finite or infinite. There are people
who wish to admit the existence of right and wrong, but
who incline to the belief that we perish utterly at the death
of our body, leaving behind only our dust and our influence,
which in its turn will perish when the world is used up and
the sun cools down. They think Christ must have been
romancing if he ever said he could show us life eternal, that
being a matter we can know nothing about.

They say that life is to the body what the flame is to the
candle. But the analogy is misleading. The flame has no
choice as to what it will do with the candle : it really de-
pends on chemical activities and physical mobilities. But
man's spirit (which is his real life) can and does enable him
to decide that he will drown himself out of jealousy, risk his
life for patriotism, or go to the stake for truth's sake. For
the analogy to be complete, the flame of the candle would
have to approve or disapprove of the fat of which the candle
is made and the shape in which it has been cast.

A truer analogy, I believe, would be to compare life to an
electrical installation. When a good lamp is well attached

142 TOLSTOY AND HIS PROBLEMS

a bright and steady light is shown, if the lamp be badly
attached the flame is irregular, and when the lamp is broken
the light goes out. But the electric current (man's life or
spirit) continues to flow with equal power whether the lamp
(man's body) be sound, or injured, or destroyed.

For those, however, who accept the materialist point of
view, my friend's argument should, I think, be conclusive.
It is unreasonable to believe in any absolute right and wrong
if our existence be only temporary. Logically it does not
matter whether the arrangement lasts, say, for twenty years,
till the death of the individual ; or for millions of years, till
the extinction of the race. If our spirit be the product of
our brain, and our brain be admittedly perishable, what have
we to do with the eternal ? Right and wrong belong to the
domain of the infinite. Morality depends upon that stream
of tendency which makes for righteousness yesterday, to-day,
and for ever.

It needs, however, to be pointed out, that to say, as Christ
did, that man has eternal life, is not the same as to assert as
a fact, as the Buddhists do, that men will be re-incarnated,
or as the European churches do, that men will rise from the
dead and have a personal and corporeal immortality. These
(however plausible the one or the other may be) are hypo-
theses which cannot be verified ; and, dogmatically asserted,
they have produced a natural reaction and inclined men
towards mere negation. The influence of this reaction is
perceptible around us to-day. The basis, however, on which
Christ, or Socrates, built in this matter still stands firm, and
this much at least we have, many of us, found in our own
experience of life : that while we are chiefly occupied with
the physical and material side of life we need constant occu-
pation and stimulant to keep us from perceiving the approach
of death ; but when we are occupied with the spirit and are
following after that which is good, the fear of death finds no
place, and we need no such pre-occupation or hypnotic in-
fluence to blind us to it.

RIGHT AND WRONG 143

4. Next as to what my friend said about the instability of
the moral code.

It is true that no code of external rules exists which would
fit all men in all ages. But observe the working of your
own mind, and it is easy to see why this is so. What we
desire and seek is perfection. No sooner is one step gained
than it becomes necessary to take another. Morality (by
which I mean right conduct) does not consist in reaching an
attainable spot and stagnating there, but, on the contrary,
it consists in movement forward. Through the ages men
have been travelling along converging lines towards one
ultimate aim — the City of God.

If we are Avalking from York to London, would it not be
unreasonable to tell us that we must be going wrong because
yesterday we were anxious to reach and rest at Grantham,
while to-day we are entering Peterboro' ? The immutability
lies in the ultimate aim — when we approached Grantham
we were making for London, and so we are when we have
pushed on to Peterboro'.

The owner who begins to have some compassion for his
slaves ; the owner who lets his slaves go free ; the woman
who makes a friend of her servant ; the rich man who chooses
a life of poverty for conscience' sake ; the Father Damien
who gives his life for the lepers : all are alike moving
towards the establishment of the Kingdom of Heaven on
earth.

The direction we should move in is no insoluble enigma.
When any one tells us that morality is mutable, that we are
left without guidance and cannot know right from wrong, the
reply is one which was given thousands of years ago : " It is
not too hard for thee, neither is it too far off. It is not in
heaven, that thou shouldest say, who shall go up for us to
heaven and bring it unto us, and make us to hear it, that we
may do it ? Neither is it beyond the sea, that thou shouldest
say, who shall go over the sea for us, and bring it unto us,
and make us to hear it that we may do it ? But the word is

144 TOLSTOY AND HIS PROBLEMS

very nigh unto thee, in thy mouth, and in thy heart, that
thou mayest do it."

5. But, we are told, conscience veers round, as in the case
of my friend with his Sunday novel.

Is not the case this ? He had been accustomed to be
guided by the authority of his elders, and to use his own
judging faculty merely within prescribed limits. Then he
became conscious of a conflict between his own reason and
the dictates of authority. He should have faced the prob-
lem squarely and cleared his own mind. Finding (as all
may find who will think about it) that a man can and must
think with his own head, he would have been free to choose
his path, and have felt no further compunctions about doing
what seemed to him right. His conscience troubled him, I
take it, rather because he shirked the problem than because
he read the novel. Ultimately he did think for himself, and
then his conscience was at rest.

We are all too apt to be intellectually lazy, shirking the
problems of life and saying we do not know the solutions.
We are all too apt to be intellectually dishonest, not thinking
freely about the questions life puts before us, but allowing
a secret bias for some friend, or book, or creed, or church,
or occupation, or amusement, to swerve us from following
straight after truth. We are too apt to be intellectually
cowardly, not believing that our minds were given us to be
used, and that they are worth using and trusting.

6. Lastly, my friend contended that our thoughts, feelings,
and actions are pre-determined and inevitable results of what
went before.

This is just where the man whose view of life includes
the subjective perception of his own inner consciousness,
finds himself at issue with all the philosophic systems
which try to confine themselves to a knowledge of what can
be studied through the five senses of seeing, hearing, touch-
ing, smelling, and feeling. The root of the whole matter is,
that if we know ourselves we perceive an inward spirit

RIGHT AND WRONG 145

preferring good to evil. As Tolstoy puts it : " Goodness is
really the fundamental metaphysical conception which forms
the essence of our consciousness ; it is a conception not
defined by reason, it is that which can be defined by nothing
else but which defines everything else : it is the highest, the
eternal, aim of our life."

Examining my own inner perceptions, I believe I possess
a will. We do not know why or how the spirit operates upon
the physical brain, which, but for that incoming life, would
be merely automatic. Neither science nor inspiration has
shown us how to produce life, or explained its secret to us.
The dilemma is that we must assume either (1) that we are
automata, or (2) that we possess some measure of will ; and
with the facts of life before me I am driven to assume that
I possess some measure of will. We may reject religion as
a superstition, morality as a delusion, and duty as a fallacy ;
yet we shall continue to desire and strive for something, if
for nothing better than for the gratification of some personal
caprice, or the satisfaction of some physical want.

We are not free from the limitations of time and space,
nor are we free from the influences of heredity, environment,
soil, and climate : my body is largely a result of what occurred
before I was born. And this is what should save us from
harshly judging one another. " Judge not that ye be not
judged " would be sound and sensible advice even if it were
shown that no Christ ever gave it. For all judging of the
kind we ourselves might reasonably try to escape from —
i.e. all judging in which the judge seeks to inflict injury on
the sinner, is, it seems to me, an evil. On the other hand,
"Judge righteous judgments" is not less necessary advice;
for by seeking to perceive the truth regarding ourselves and
others, and about our mutual relations to one another, we can
best learn the lessons of life : learn to understand and escape
from our own faults, and learn to help others.

Very much has been pre-determined for us. It seems im-
possible that we should relapse into cannibalism, and equally

146 TOLSTOY AND HIS PROBLEMS

impossible that we should in daily life live up to the level
of the highest truths we have seen.

We are like travellers who have passed through many miles
of forest, and who can neither leap, at a bound, back to the
entrance, nor overleap the many miles which still lie before
them. They are not free to do the impossible, but they are
free to select the direction in which they will move. They
can continue to advance, or can swerve to the right or left,
or can even turn back in despair.

The above are my perceptions as to the existence of right
and wrong. If they be erroneous I hope some one will explain
to me my mistakes ; if they be true I hope these thoughts
may prove useful to some who still are, as I till recently was,
wandering in the wilderness. Assuming them to be in the
main correct, I feel drawn to make an application of them
with reference to the ' advanced ' people with whom I have
come in contact since I settled in England.

If there is such a thing as right, there must also be such a
thing as morality : conduct tending towards the right, con-
duct that makes for the establishment of perfect relations
among men, and the establishment of the Kingdom of
Righteousness. This being so, it is surely of supreme im-
portance to discern the right, if any exist, as clearly as
possible. Progress is only desirable if it be progress in the
right direction. History shows that all past civilisations
progressed towards destruction. We, therefore, must realise
that to progress is not sufficient — we must know what we are
'progressing towards : that is to say, we must seek for a clear
perception of the truth as to what is right and what is
wrong in human conduct. It is not enough to rid ourselves
of conventional ideas, prejudices, authorities, and legalities ;
we must look well to it that these are replaced by a clear,
well-verified perception of what we are aiming at. For the
house swept and garnished and left empty was soon occupied
by seven devils worse than the first.

RIGHT AND WRONG 147

Before we are fit to destroy the old, or can do even that
efficiently, we must first know what we seek — what we hold
to be right — towards what ideal we are striving. This is
true equally of the economic and the sexual sides of life.

If you have perceived that, despite the struggle for exist-
ence which is said to be a ' law of Nature/ mankind is slowly,
through the ages, climbing — through cannibalism, slavery,
feudal tenure, serfdom, wagedom — towards the brotherhood
of man, and if your spirit approves that advance and longs
to aid it, the time has come when you can profitably use
your perception of the absurdity of human law and the
iniquities of competitive business. There is then no danger
that you will encourage others to forge bank-notes because
you see the wrong involved in banking.

If you have perceived that, despite that struggle for
sexual union which we are told is a 'law of Nature,' man-
kind has slowly, through the ages, climbed — through un-
natural vice, promiscuity, varietism, polygamy, polyandry,
monogamy, — towards greater and ever greater chastity and
purity, and if your spirit approves that advance (so that the
love affairs of a Christ are inconceivable to you), the time
has come when you can profitably use your perceptions
that the conventions of society are stumbling-blocks, legal
damages are anomalous, and that even monogamy is far from
affording a final solution of the problem. There is then no
danger that those whom you influence will, by your mis-
direction, be led backwards to any of the customs from
which the mass of humanity have partially escaped — after
the experience, the relapses, and the painful efforts of many
thousand years.

If you aim at freedom as an end in itself, careless as to
how freedom should be used when it is gained, then the
more strenuous your efforts are, the more surely will they
evoke a reaction in those who feel that life has an aim, and
that in the conduct of our lives we all need guidance, and
are all (whether we know it or not) influencing and guiding

148 TOLSTOY AND HIS PROBLEMS

others. If you desire freedom, remember that truth alone
can really set us free.

Even to our present perceptions, the 'struggle for exist-
ence ' in war and commerce is no inscrutable evil, neither
is sexual desire, — great as are the evils that have resulted
from each of these things. Through war and patriotism,
men, from mere isolated individuals or families, have been
welded into groups capable of some heroism and some self-
sacrifice for a common cause. Through business competition
men have obtained some mastery over the laziness and
self-indulgence of their natures. Through this training (and
thanks to the misery it has involved) man is being driven
forward (often by "a recoil from his own vices") to seek
for wider union, and for a fairer field in which to use his
powers in the service of others : and men have at last come
to a point at which they can begin to discard, as hindrances,
the means by which they have advanced so far.

So it seems to be with the sex-passion. Who that has
watched it awaken in a selfish breast an interest in at least
one other existence besides his (or her) own; and has seen
how, through that one other, it has opened a heart to
sympathy with a whole class (or sometimes to a perception
of the iniquity of a social system), can fail to see that this
force, also, serves as a means to a good end ? But again,
watching it carefully, and seeing how this passion excites,
torments, and pre-occupies men and women, narrowing their
interest to what concerns one other or a few others, how
can we but desire escape from it for ourselves and for all
to whom we wish well ?

We should try neither to underrate nor to exaggerate the
service these things have rendered, and are rendering, to
the development of man's nature. Patriotism is better than
selfish isolation, but worse than a recognition of the brother-
hood of man. Industrious effort to secure one's own living
is an advance on laziness, but is worse than zeal in the
service of all. Sexual-attraction and the family bond, while

RIGHT AND WRONG 149

they may draw men from isolation and egotism, may also
hamper man when more developed, and confine his interests
and activity to a narrower circle and to a lower plane than
they would reach were he free.

From this point of view, war, commerce, and sexual-
attraction — useful instruments in the progress of the race
— tried by the standard of the ideal fall short, and stand
condemned as things we have to outgrow and leave behind
on our upward path towards a fuller spiritual life.

It may be said that what I have briefly indicated as my
perception of the inevitable and desirable line of human
progress, is not the right line at all : that the application
of Christ's law of love in economics does not make towards
the brotherhood of man, or that, in sex matters, it does not
make towards chastity and purity. Some may hold that
Christ's law itself is erroneous ; others that Christ was wrong
in attempting to apply it practically to the different phases
of human life : that he should not have expressed any
definite opinions on such difficult questions as those of
property, law, government, or sex, that, in fact, the
application of the ' law of love ' — to such a problem, say,
as landowning — should not be considered in advance, but
should be left, by each individual, until the stress of events
forces him to take some immediate personal action.

But my argument is that those who believe in progress at
all should understand that progress must have a direction —
the stream must flow somewhere. What we need is to
discern which way it is flowing, and to know whether we
approve or disapprove of that direction. This can only be
done by unbiassed free-thinking.

My views may be all wrong, but then — those who care
about the matter should show me where the error lies, and
co-operate with me in seeking to discern the true line of
human advance. If Christ's law of love be wrong, — what is
right ? If it be right, let us study its practical application
both in economics and in sex matters.

150 TOLSTOY AND HIS PROBLEMS

Some, again, say that the true line, on one or both these
sides of life, is undiscoverable ; we must wait and drift a
bit. For the present at least, they think, the problems of
morality are inscrutable. We may knock, but it will not be
opened unto us ; we may search, but shall not find. We are
on the river of life, but must not know whether to row
upstream or to drift with the current.

But surely this attitude is a foolish one ; the plain man,
facing the facts of life honestly, feels and knows it to be
false. Life is indivisible, and life is always in the present.
There can be no solution of the economic problem without a
solution of the sex-problem. The two are inseparably linked
together in the life of man. And how can a man help to
guide his fellows unless he know in which direction to point
them on both these issues ?

All who wish to leave the world better than they found it,
all who think they have perceived some truth, and who hope
to do some service, cannot escape from the responsibility of
serving in the same army with the saints, the prophets, and
the martyrs : i.e. with those to whom truth was precious and
duty imperative, who saw clearly that there is a morality
embracing all our actions, discernible to man in the present,
now and for ever.

Like them we must perceive that truth and right exist,
and our earnest effort must be that " righteousness shall flow
down like a river and truth like a mighty stream."

First published in the New Order, September 1898.

WAR AND PATRIOTISM

Many who disapprove of war in general consider it right
to abstain from attempting to do anything to check the war
in South Africa, or to discourage the patriotic spirit it has en-
gendered at home. This has occurred even among Socialists,
Secularists, Peace Societies, Christian Churches, Scientists,
Non-ltesistants, and members of the Society of Friends.

It is always more difficult to meet confused thought than
to reply to a positive mistake. And when many people
share in one confusion, yet each states his case somewhat
differently, an elucidation becomes almost impossible.

It therefore seemed to me difficult to apply non-resistant
principles to this war in a way that would be intelligible to
more than a small section of those I wished to reach, but,
while I pondered these things in my mind, John Bellows of
Gloucester, a member of the Society of Friends, was moved
to break from the general trend of Quaker thought and
feeling, and to come forward as spokesman for those who,
while theoretically disapproving of war and refusing to share
in it themselves, desire to support a war Government. He
issued a pamphlet in which he condemned all war, but
sought to defend and justify our Government for its part
in the South African War.

Those whom he represented in this matter could hardly
have found any one whose character and ability gave him
a better right to be heard in their defence ; and it seemed
to me that by replying to his pamphlet I could focus the
arguments which cause me to disapprove of the war better
than if I shot them into the air. Part of John Bellows'
purpose in writing was to instruct those foreigners who

161

152 TOLSTOY AND HIS PROBLEMS

through ignorance believed us to have acted badly towards
the Republics ; and, utilising this circumstance, I tried, by
pointing out what a well informed foreigner might fairly
charge us with, to put the matter as impartially and im-
personally as in me lay. In the second half of my reply
I was helped by the theoretical admissions John Bellows
made that, in principle, war (when there are no wicked
Boers to be chastised) is not a desirable way of spending
the powers of mind and body intrusted to us.

The main purpose of my article is to expose the kind of
fallacies by which not only this war but all wars are excused.

A Letter to John Bellows on the War.

Dear John Bellows, — I have read the copy you kindly
sent me of your pamphlet, The Truth about the Transvaal
War and the Truth about War, written to supply a brief and
simple answer to the condemnation of our Government
expressed by foreign critics, and at the same time to explain
your own belief that all war is wrong.

The high esteem I feel for your character and your many
useful activities, the importance of the subject you touch
upon, and the detestation I feel for the wholesale, pre-
meditated, and systematic slaughter of my fellow-men (es-
pecially when continued after one party to the conflict has
asked for peace) move me to reply.

I, too, have talked with foreigners, and if we consider
what their indictment against our Government is, and what
reply you are able to make to it, it should help to clear the
issue as looked at from a point of morality no higher than
that usually accepted among educated men to-day.

But I agree with you that we must not rest finally content
with the code already generally accepted ; and in the latter
part of this reply I shall be most happy to follow you in
considering what our conduct ought to be, judged by the
highest standard our reason and our conscience supply.

WAR AND PATRIOTISM 153

What, then, are the main charges brought against us by
well-informed foreign critics ?

Their first and main contention is that in 1884 the Pre-
toria Convention of 1881 was replaced by the London Con-
vention. This made the Transvaal independent ; deprived
Britain of all right to interfere in its internal affairs ; and —
except that the British Government retained a right to veto
their foreign treaties — made the Transvaal a sovereign in-
dependent State. The first thing an apologist for the British
Government must do is to meet this statement, on which the
rest of the quarrel depends.

Among other proofs our critics adduce the facts that : —

1. The Transvaal Government expressed the above view
in their despatch of April 16, 1898, and maintained it
throughout the late negotiations.

2. That it is the unanimous opinion of all the lawyers in
Europe and South Africa to whom the case has been sub-
mitted, that (except in the one particular mentioned) no
"suzerainty" has in fact existed since 1884. 1

3. That even British politicians, including members of

1 In relation to the South African Republic the term Suzerainty has
been used in two different ways.

In the Convention of 1881 it was used to define England's position
in connection with the rights of interference she retained under that
treat}'. There was to be a British resident, who would "report to
the High Commissioner as representative of the Suzerain." In case
of apprehension of war in South Africa, English troops might move
through the Transvaal, and there were a number of enactments
relating to the natives and to other questions, which gave the English
Government ample scope to interfere in the internal affairs of the
Transvaal should they wish to do so. The desire of the Boers to
manage their own internal affairs was expressed in their dislike of
the word "suzerainty."

In the Convention of 1884 we abandoned the use of the word, and
the Boer delegates who signed that Convention stated the matter to
their Volksraad thus: "It" (the 1884 Convention) "makes . . .
an end of the British Suzerainty and . . . also restores her full
self-government to the South African Republic, excepting a single
limitation regarding the conclusion of treaties with foreign powers.

154 TOLSTOY AND HIS PROBLEMS

Lord Salisbury's Government, have admitted that after 1884
they possessed no right to interfere by force in the internal
affairs of the Transvaal. For instance : —

Lord Derby, who negotiated the 1884 Convention, reported
that the Convention granted " the same complete internal
independence in the Transvaal as in the Free State."

W. H. Smith, when leader of the House of Commons,
said : " It is a cardinal principle of that settlement that the
internal government and legislation of the South African
Republic shall not be interfered with."

Mr. Balfour (January 15, 1896) said: "The Transvaal is a
free and independent Government as regards its internal
affairs." «

Lord Salisbury (January 31, I896) said: "The Boers have
absolute control over their own affairs."

Mr. Chamberlain in his despatch of December 31, 1895,
defined the Transvaal as " a foreign State which is in friendly
treaty relations with Great Britain." On May 8, 1896,
speaking in the House of Commons, he said : " We do not
claim, and never have claimed, the right to interfere in the

With the suzerainty, the various provisions and limitations of the
Pretoria Convention . . . have also, of course, lapsed."

This statement was transmitted to the English Government, was
reprinted in our Blue Books, and no objection was raised to it.

It is true that, in a restricted sense of the word, " suzerainty " still
existed, owing to the fact that foreign treaties concluded by the
Transvaal had to be submitted to England. There is, pbilologically,
no objection to such a use of the word ; but the word was dropped
at the request of the Boers, who made " considerable territorial and
other sacrifices " to be rid of it and of the restrictions which, to them,
it represented. And to use it subsequently, without in some way
differentiating between the suzerainty of 1881 and that of 1884, was
to court confusion.

The simplest way is to follow the Conventions, and to speak of the
suzerainty as implying rights of interference similar to those existing
in 1881 but abolished in 1884.

Evidence in Lord Derby's own handwriting exists of the abolition,
in 1884, of the "preamble" to the 1881 Convention, on the retention
of which Chamberlain based his case.

WAR AND PATRIOTISM 155

internal affairs of the Transvaal. The rights of our action
under the Convention are limited to the offering of friendly
counsel, in the rejection of which, if it is not accepted,
we must be quite willing to acquiesce. . . . To go to war
with President Kruger in order to force upon him reforms in
the internal affairs of his State, with which successive Secretaries
of State standing in this place have repudiated all right of
interference, that would have been a course of action as
immoral as it would have been unwise."

On August 12, 1896, he said: "Not only this Government
but successive Secretaries of State have pledged themselves re-
peatedly that they would have nothing to do with its internal affairs."

From 1884 till 1897, say our critics, Boers, Britons of all
parties, and foreigners, were agreed that on questions of
franchise, taxation, treatment of natives, corruption of
officials, etc., Britain had no more right to interfere in the
Transvaal than in the United States of North America.

In 1897, say our critics, the British Government revived
its claim to " suzerainty " and its claim to interfere in the
internal affairs of the Transvaal. It refused to submit this
pretence to arbitration ; it repeatedly increased its de-
mands ; on September 8, 1899, it refused to give effect to
a pacific proposal of its own, presented to the Transvaal
Government during the preceding month ; and, finally, it
informed the Transvaal Government that further demands
not specified would be formulated, and proceeded to call out
the reserves as if for war.

Our critics hold that this course of proceedings justified
the Transvaal Government in issuing their ultimatum which
demanded that all differences should be settled by arbitration,
and that Great Britain should meanwhile cease to land troops
and should withdraw those that had been pushed forward to
the borders of the Transvaal. The rejection of this ulti-
matum meant war ; and again the Boers are held to have
been justified in commencing the fight before the English
were in a numerical superiority.

156 TOLSTOY AND HIS PROBLEMS

That is their case. But to understand the sentiment which
puts England's treatment of the two republics on a level with
Russia's treatment of Poland or Finland, we must listen to
what our critics have to say of events that preceded the war :
events that belong to a region of lies, suspicion, and under-
hand intrigue in which it is easy to be misled, for, owing to
the non-production of the Hawkesley cablegrams (of which
the Colonial Office received copies), and to the suppression
of other important evidence which should have been sub-
mitted to the South African Committee appointed to inquire
into the matter, the whole truth about them is not yet known.

About 1887 rich gold fields began to be rapidly developed
in the Transvaal, and later on a plan was formed to upset
the Government which represented the Dutch agricultural
population, and to establish one more favourable to the in-
terests of the owners of the gold mines. A Committee of the
English Parliament, after inquiry, reported that Cecil Rhodes
— while Prime Minister of the Cape Colony, managing director
of the Chartered Company, and Privy Councillor (besides being
Chairman of De Beers diamond mines, and a leading capitalist
of the Rand gold mines) — was guilty of " subsidising, organis-
ing, and stimulating an armed insurrection," and of involving
himself in "gross breaches of duty." "He deceived the
High Commissioner, . . . concealed his views from his col-
leagues, and led his subordinates to believe that his pla?is were
approved by his superiors."

But a liar does not always lie, and our foreign critics
suggest that perhaps his plans were approved by his superiors.

They allege that the Times newspaper, which supported
the Government's policy in South Africa, was in intimate
connection with Cecil Rhodes, as is shown by cablegrams
produced in evidence before the South African Committee.
(They were sent in a code, and that is why they read
awkwardly in translation. The punctuation is partly con-
jectural) :—

WAR AND PATRIOTISM 157

From Miss Flora Shaw (who had an important position on the
"Times") to Cecil Rhodes, \Oth December 1895.

" Can you advise when you will commence the plans, we
wish to send at earliest opportunity sealed instructions repre-
sentatives of the London Times European capitals ; it is most
important using their influence in your favour."

From Dr.. Rutherfoord Harris to Cecil Rhodes,
November 4, 1895.

"... You have not chosen best man to arrange with J.
Chamberlain. I have already sent Flora to convince Cham-
berlain ; support Times newspaper and, if you can, telegraph
course you wish Times to adopt now with regard to Trans-
vaal ; Flora will act."

From Dr. Harris to Cecil Rhodes, November 5, ] 895, con-
cerning certain permanent officials of the Colonial Office.

" These and Flora we have these solid."

From Miss Flora Shaw to Cecil Rhodes, December 17, 1895.

" Chamberlain sound in case of interference European
Powers ; but have special reason to believe wishes you must
do it immediately."

From Cecil Rhodes to Miss Flora Shaw, December 30, 1895.

" Inform Chamberlain that I shall get through all right if
he supports me, but he must not send cable like he sent to
High Commissioner in South Africa. To-day the crux is, I
will win, and South Africa will belong to England." (Signa-
ture of sender, F. R. Harris, for C. J. Rhodes, Premier.)

Our critics point out how promptly, when Jameson started
on his buccaneering expedition, the Times published the

158 TOLSTOY AND HIS PROBLEMS

famous, and infamous, appeal to protect the women and
children in Johannesburg from Boer violence ; which was a
pre-arranged attempt to excuse murder by mendacity, and
had been drawn up weeks in advance, with Mr. Rhodes'
approval.

The Times followed this up with a poem by the Poet-
Laureate in praise of Jameson's achievement.

When the matter was investigated, the Colonial Office did
not produce the documents which might have served to
disarm suspicion ; and no sooner was the investigation ended
than Mr. Chamberlain said in Parliament that " there existed
nothing which affected Mr. Rhodes' personal character as a
man of honour." Some of our foreign critics, however, differ
from Mr. Chamberlain, and consider systematic lying and
deception to be dishonourable.

Mr. Rhodes remained a Privy Councillor ; the English
officers who took part in the Raid were re-appointed to their
positions in the army. No compensation was paid either to
the families of those who were killed by Jameson's men or
to the Transvaal Government.

This attempt to obtain control of the gold fields by
violence having failed, Mr. Rhodes said he would adopt
" constitutional means " to obtain reform.

In conjunction with other capitalists (who, our critics
admit, were by no means all Englishmen) he obtained
control, by purchase, of most of the newspapers published in
South Africa. Men on the staffs of these papers acted as
correspondents for the leading English newspapers and, by
a vast machinery of mendacity, the newspaper readers of
England were systematically deceived.

Outrages and grievances were manufactured faster than
the lies could be exposed ; whatever was really bad in the
Transvaal was made the most of, till in a few months the
majority of readers in England and British South Africa
came to believe that the Boers (who had figured in history
as being no worse than their neighbours) were a race so

WAR AND PATRIOTISM 159

exceptionally cowardly, ignoble, corrupt, oppressive and
ambitious, that the sooner Englishmen of honour (such as
Mr. Rhodes or Mr. Chamberlain) ruled over them the better
it would be.

The re-assertion of England's " suzerainty " (" a breach of
national faith " according to Sir Edward Clarke) fitted in with
Mr. Rhodes' plans, and at last the capture of Johannesburg,
which Jameson failed to effect in 1895, was accomplished by
Lord Roberts in 1900, and welcomed all over England with
great rejoicings. But the moral aspect of the case is as bad
as before, and our critics recall a remark of Gladstone's
that a course which is morally wrong cannot be politically
right.

Briefly, then, the charges may be summed up thus : —

1. That the English Government made an unfounded
claim to " suzerainty," and interfered unfairly in the internal
affairs of the Transvaal.

2. That it used this unjust claim to " suzerainty " as a
pretext to avoid arbitration, repeatedly and urgently pleaded
for by the Boers, but evaded (and on the vital issue of
" suzerainty " absolutely refused) by the British, who, on
the main points, were resolved to be sole judges in their
own cause.

3. That when presumptive proof was found, apparently
connecting the Colonial Office with the plans formed by
Jameson and Rhodes which culminated in the Raid, the
Parliamentary Committee (which contained Liberal as well
as Conservative members) avoided and evaded their duty
of probing the matter to the bottom, and the bulk of the
English press and public appeared well satisfied that this
should be so.

• ••••••

I took up your pamphlet expecting that, if nothing more
is possible, you would at least succeed in showing cause for
mitigation of the sentence to be pronounced on us by
posterity. But I only found a fresh instance of the fact that

160 TOLSTOY AND HIS PROBLEMS

the war-fever deprives men of all sense of proportion, makes
them credulous of blame attaching to others, and so un-
willing to consider the evidence against themselves that
they fail even to understand the charges they should meet.

You, for instance, devote a quarter of your space to a
historical sketch of the Boers, differing gravely from the
statements of Professor A. Kuyper and other writers on the
same subject ; but you do not explain in what way your
statements, if true, justify our Government. Are we killing
Boers to revenge cruelties practised by their fathers and
grandfathers ? Did we go to war to protect the natives ?
Or are no wrongs being perpetrated in Kimberley and in
London (where 800,000 people are living in illegally over-
crowded dwellings) which should be rectified before we
violently attempt to remove the mote from our brother's
eye.

Like other apologists, you tell us the Boers are worse than
the English, and that " average Boer opinion and the Boer
Executive " are worse than " British law and public opinion."
But I fear the testimonials we give ourselves do not convince
our foreign critics. All nations are willing to certify to their
own moral superiority, and we are accused of having, not too
little but too much, of the spirit of the Pharisee who thanked
God he was not as other men are.

Next you proceed — and your pamphlet is quite a fair
specimen of much other patriotic literature on the subject —
to treat of the Africander Bond, and the " scheme for
driving the English out of South Africa." You are vexed
with " party writers " for saying there is no evidence of
such a design, and you offer the evidence of Presidents Reitz,
Steyn, Kruger, and others, "all distinctly admitting it."
" Here, then, is the evidence of every President of the
Transvaal and of the Free State for the last quarter century,
showing the determination of the Bond to drive the British
by the sword out of South Africa."

We have heard so much of the great Boer conspiracy,

WAR AND PATRIOTISM l6l

which foreign critics say that we ourselves invented, that one
is glad to meet a writer like yourself not afraid to produce
the evidence which leads him to believe in it.

Leaving the dead to answer for themselves, let us see the
evidence against the living — "the evidence of every Presi-
dent," "all distinctly admitting it."

"Of President Reitz (since Secretary of State in the
Transvaal) a Dutch Burgher, T. Schreiner, writes in the ' Weekly
Times,' December 1, 1899: 'I met Mr. Reitz . . . between
seventeen and eighteen years ago . . . whereupon the following
colloquy in substance took place between us.' '

But is this the kind of evidence that can justify a war ?
Would we, among our own people, condemn a single man
to any punishment on such hearsay evidence of things said
long ago ?

After this, one is hardly surprised to find that President
Steyn's distinct admission amounts to the fact that the
Daily News reports : " Of President Steyn, an Attorney
General [unnamed] of the Free State made the following
statement to the Rev. W. Tees, Presbyterian Minister in
Durban ! "

If we are going to support wars justified by evidence like
that, before long, I fear,

"There'll be one shindy, from here to Indy."

President Kruger's distinct admission turns out to be a
report in the Times (24th May 1900) of "two secret con-
ferences" held in 1887 "between Kruger and the Orange
Free State."

' People will ask whether Kruger admits the correctness of
the conversations he is reported to have had thirteen years
ago in secret with " The Orange Free State " (sic !), especially
as many regard the Times as being more patriotic than
veracious.

The reason people doubt whether the conspiracy ever
existed, except as an excuse for the seizure of the Transvaal,

162 TOLSTOY AND HIS PROBLEMS

is not merely the absence of any serious evidence of its
existence, but also the fact that the number of people of
Dutch descent in South Africa is estimated to be less than
450,000, of whom more than half are resident in British
Colonies. Half of the Dutch population in South Africa
took no part in the war, even though they regard it as one
of unjust aggression on our part. The populations we have
fought against numbered, it seems, about 200,000 souls (less
than half the population of Birmingham), and the Empire
they are supposed to have conspired against has about
50,000,000 white subjects, and has sent to South Africa
more than one soldier for each man, woman, child, and baby
of its opponents ! Under these circumstances it is difficult
to believe in the conspiracy, especially when one reads the
ridiculous " evidence " produced to prove its existence. The
vagueness of the charge is shown once more in your own
pamphlet by the way in which you jumble the Africander
Bond in Cape Colony (a political organisation which sup-
ported Mr. Rhodes when he was Prime Minister) with the
interests of the burghers of the Dutch Republics, who some-
times were, and sometimes were not, on good terms with
the Africander Bond of Cape Colony.

The stubborn resistance of the Boers when fighting for
their homes and their independence, in or near their own
country, is no indication that they would ever have consented
to risk their lives for a wild dream utterly unlike any project
recorded in the past history of their race. But the history
of the New York State shows how well Dutch and British
can co-operate on terms of equality, and how false is the
pretence that they are condemned by some law of nature
to be enemies.

If the British Empire is to be frightened into oppressing
her smaller neighbours by such cowardly fears of such in-
tangible conspiracies, the verdict of impartial observers will be
that the sooner our Empire crumbles into dust like Babylon
or Rome the better for humanity, freedom, and justice.

WAR AND PATRIOTISM 163

The fact that the Boers armed themselves, seems to you,
and to others, a proof of evil intentions. And I do not deny
that when men arm themselves, and drill, they also mean,
under certain circumstances, to kill. But what of the fact
that we spent on armaments, a hundred times as much as
they did, and did what the Boers did not, viz. kept many
thousands of men doing nothing else but learning to kill
in the most appi'oved way — devoting their whole energy
to it?

The truth is, that until the quarrel between the Cape
Colony and the Transvaal about the " Drifts," and until
the Transvaal Government began to be alarmed at the
preparations that preceded the Jameson Raid, in which they
were attacked by patriotic Englishmen, their military ex-
penditure and equipment is known to have been small.

For admittedly military purposes the expenditure of the
Transvaal was : —

1894, before the Raid . . ... . . £28,158

1895, the year of the Raid 87,708

189G, the year after the Raid . . . 495,618

If we add all expenses (Public Works, Special Expenditure,
and Sundry Services) part of which may have had a military
aim, we get : —

1894 £528,526

1895, the Raid year 1,485,244

1896 . 2,007,372

that being the maximum reached before the present war.

Our own war expenditure had risen since 1894 from about
£33,000,000 to over £48,000,000 before this war began, and
will be likely to increase so long as we think it right for
us to do what it is wicked of other people to do.

Another accusation is that the Boers drew their revenue
from the gold mines instead of taxing the farming population.
But why should not gold mines, forming the chief wealth

164 TOLSTOY AND HIS PROBLEMS

of the country, pay, as was the case in the Transvaal, the
greater part of the taxes ?

Granting that their method of collecting the taxes was
bad, should we (who for the sake of revenue force an opium
trade on China) quarrel with them on that account ? And
if with them, why not with the United States, and Russia,
and all countries in which British residents pay taxes of
which we disapprove ?

Scant allowance is made for the fact that the develop-
ment of the gold-fields placed the Transvaal Government
in a position of great difficulty and temptation, and entirely
altered the conditions existing when the conventions were
negotiated. Had the Boers treated their promises as lightly
as we treated ours to evacuate Egypt, it would even then
have been no more binding upon our Government to take
action than it is binding on France to quarrel with us.

The eagerness with which even professed friends of peace,
like yourself, snatch at any and every excuse for strife, and
write as though these excuses necessitate and justify the
continuance of a war (in which some 10,000 of our own men
have already perished) until we utterly destroy two free
nations, is one of the saddest features of this bad business.

To allow miners, most of whom came to the country to
get money and did not intend to settle there permanently,
to vote in the election of the highest rulers of the State,
including the President, would have been a questionable
course, and it is not certain that under English rule they
will soon obtain the rights we wished to extort for them
from the Boers. Englishmen have not hitherto shown
themselves eager either to enfranchise the people of India
(millions of whom are at least as moral and enlightened as
the average Uitlander), or to obtain real freedom of public
meeting in this island for those who disapprove of popular wars.

But the main points to which foreign readers of your
pamphlet will be* apt to look are those concerning the claim
of " suzerainty " and the refusal of arbitration.

WAR AND PATRIOTISM 165

We are accused not merely of having refused arbitration
on the vital question of the interpretation of the Convention,
but of having manufactured a fraudulent claim to "suzer-
ainty" in order to avoid arbitration.

Among the evidence adduced is this passage from Mr.
Chamberlain's despatch (Bluebook C. 8721, No. 7, October
1897): "Finally, the Government of the South African Republic
proposes that all points in dispute between Her Majesty s Govern-
ment and themselves relating to the Convention should be referred
to arbitration, the arbitrator to be nominated by the President
of the Swiss Republic." And the reply to this proposal, given
in the despatch above quoted, was that " Her Majesty holds
toward the South African Republic the relation of a suzerain
. . . and it would be incompatible with that position to submit
to arbitration the construction of the conditions on which she
accorded self-government to the Republic."

This is the crucial matter. Why did our Government
object to allowing the interpretation of the 1884 Convention
to be settled by arbitration ? Why did it try to resuscitate
the "suzerainty" of 1881 ? Why, that is, did it prefer the
path towards war to the path towards peace ?

It is precisely at this point that all the apologists for our
Government seem to break down most utterly ; nothing
could be more pitiable than your own collapse.

You take the impossible line of evading the issue. You
treat Reitz's communication of 9th June 1899 (when the
Transvaal Government had abandoned hope of inducing our
Government to consent to arbitration on the fundamental
questions), as though the limitations insisted on by our
Government, and there acquiesced in, were limitations
cunningly slipped in by the wicked Boers !

When men argue in that spirit, war is a natural outcome.
Explanations are of no use :

" Folks never understand the folks they hate ;
But fin' some other grievance jest as good,
'Fore the month's out, to get misunderstood."

166 TOLSTOY AND HIS PROBLEMS

Finally, you pretend (and it shows how desperate your
case is) that the English proposal to appoint commissioners
to inquire into the working of the seven year franchise law
" was arbitration, and Kruger recognised it as such and refused
it " (which happens to be untrue), and after proceeding to
recount Kruger' s objections to our interference in the in-
ternal affairs of the Transvaal on this particular point, and
distorting them grotesquely, you finish up by asking: "If
this is not shuffling and deceit ^carried to its farthest limits,
what is ? "

I fear people reading your pamphlet, who do not know
how much better are your actions than your arguments, will
be likely to quote those words with an application you hardly
contemplated when you penned them.

"We are bound to judge justly of those who do not hold
the same views" as we do, say you; and thereupon comes
a denunciation of Kruger's "cant" ("If his offence be rank,
should yours be rancour?"); of the cruelty of the Boers;
of the " poor silly Free-Staters " ; of the Gladstone Govern-
ment, with " its lack of manliness and honour " ; a con-
demnation of " those in England who advocate peace . . .
from enmity " to their own Government ; and a laudation
of our noble selves, "because England has governed justly,
and her Crown has everywhere reflected the sunlight of free-
dom." In the despatches of our Colonial Office you "cannot
find a single sentence that is not courteous and forbeai-in<r
and straightforward as ever was penned," and in proof thei'eof
you quote the despatch which precipitated the war by its
reference to our rights of interference "which are derived
from the Convention*" (in the plural).

You give us the Uitlander " stung to madness " by taxes
on dynamite and on imported bacon (and the fact that most
of them objected to the war and some of them fought for
the Boers, shows to what a pitch of madness they had been
driven) ; but we never come to the real question of our right
to interfere, except in your bald assertion that " England was

WAR AND PATRIOTISM 167

bound to insist on the fair observance of the '81 and '84
Conventions," and "justly refused to re-establish the inde-
pendence of the Boers." But this is merely a second-hand
version of Chamberlain's trick of coupling the two Conven-
tions together as though they were both valid.

So one reluctantly comes to the conclusion that you really
have no case, but come into court with so bad a cause that
the best you can do is to ' abuse the plaintiff's attorney.'

So far, I have tried to regard the matter from the point
of view of an impartial outsider holding only such moral
views as are already, to-day, generally professed among
educated men. Let me now speak for myself on the matter,
and explain wherein I agree and wherein I disagree with
the general principles expressed by you in the last pages
of your pamphlet.

And first for the points of agreement. You rightly say :

" The force which is already operating to diminish the
frequency and the horrors of war is the same that will finally
lead to its extinction. This force is sympathy, beginning in
the individual, and gradually spreading its influence, . . .
and for some share ... in this evolution, every human
being is responsible."

" Every human being is called to that spirit of peace
in his own soul (for the Kingdom of God is within) which
spreads the influence of peace on those around him."

" All war is wrong. It is wrong because it deadens
the sympathy placed in every human heart. . . . Wrong
because it sins against the law, inwrought into our very
being, that we should do unto others as we would they
should do unto us."

"Even in an absolutely just cause ... it cannot be
carried on without itself creating new and immeasurable
wrongs."

" It is of no moment that all men should hold the opinion
that war is unlawful, while they remain in the spirit of which
war is one of the natural outcomes." " To insist on the letter

168 TOLSTOY AND HIS PROBLEMS

of Christ's commands, instead of thus coming to the real
meaning of them, is to destroy even the letter itself."

I am in agreement with you that it is useless to try " to
distinguish between force used in civil government, such as
that of the police, and the power of the sword ; for the
power of the policeman rests on that of the soldier, who
is called out in the last resort to support it, as in cases of
riot, etc." The difference is one of degree and not of kind.

Again I fear you are right in saying : " The Peace Society
. . . takes no account of changing the tree, but aims at
preventing some of its fruit from ripening." And I am glad
to hear you say of the Society of Friends that : —

" Its members keep as one man faithful to the practice of
refusing to bear arms ; and if it came to the test I believe
numbers of them would suffer death rather than inflict
death."

Agreeing on these important matters, how is it that I
feel shocked and dismayed by your pamphlet as a whole ?

Let us put the case this way. Two men, John and Paul,
have long been quarrelling about certain rights of way that
John claims over Paul's ground. Chiefly they are concerned
about some yellow sand on Paul's land that John wishes to
dig without paying toll to get at it. The quarrel is one of
long standing, and the case is too intricate for a plain man
easily to understand. Each says the other is a liar ; and
Paul says it is a case of Naboth's vineyard. Paul offers to
let an umpire settle the quarrel ; but John says that he
cannot agree to that, because he has rights over Paul's
ground that Paul has not got over his. He says, besides,
that Paul's offer to settle peacefully is all lies and cant ;
what Paul really wants is to turn him (John) out of some
of his own fields. As John is much bigger than Paul, the
neighbours laugh at this ; but John says that is only because
they are jealous of him for being so much better and richer
than they are.

Well, one fine day the quarrel gets hotter than usual, and

WAR AND PATRIOTISM 169

John and Paul begin to fight. Paul struck the first blow, and
excused himself by saying that John was cutting a big stick
to kill him with, and that he had to strike in self-defence.

So they fought and fought till it became evident that John
was really killing Paul. Paul cried out for mercy, and said
he would agree to anything John liked, only not to giving up
his land altogether.

Sam (a neighbour who lived across the stream) offered to
settle the quarrel, but John said No, it was his patriotic and
loyal duty to kill Paul now that he had once started to do it.
He did not want the sand-pit, but Paul was such a liar that
there was nothing for it but just to take the pit and the
field too, so that things should be comfortable all round, and
that people should know what sort of a man he was and feel
a proper respect for him in future.

Now one of John's sons, who was called Conciliation, said
that it would be better not to kill Paul if he would agree
to give all that, before the fight, John had asked for. But
another son, called Patriot, hit Conciliation on the mouth
and would not let him speak, and called Paul so many
names, and accused him of so many crimes, and was so
angry with Paul for having struck the first blow, that the
matter went on to extremities.

But now a strange thing happened. A Friend came upon
the scene who thought it quite wrong of people to fight
and kill each other. All strife is wrong, he said : we should
do to others as we would be done by, and we should forgive
our enemies always. But when Conciliation said : "Father's
very angry and will surely kill Paul, and it will be a great
disgrace to our family for many years to come," the Friend
got quite exeited. " Nonsense," said he, " all strife is wrong
— only this strife is right. Don't you see that John thinks
he ought to kill Paul, and, as he thinks so, it's right for him
to do it." And the Friend set to work and wrote a pam-
phlet to prove that as Paul struck the first blow Paul was in
the wrong ; and as John said he thought he ought to kill

170 TOLSTOY AND HIS PROBLEMS

Paul, he did right to kill him ! And the Friend implied
that those who tried to persuade John that it was better
not to kill, were very bad or stupid people, who, if only
they had read all the lawyers' papers about the quarrel for
the last twenty years would agree that killing is no murder.
He added that it was hatred that made some people try to
make peace ; just as it was pure love of truth and goodness
that made him try to justify fighting.

There is, however, one fault in this, and in all such
parables : they present nations as though they were solid
blocks of homogeneous humanity, as though Judas and
Jesus, being of one nationality, must have been of one
character. In real life it is of course not so, as you
show by remarking that many of " the Boers have had no
more voice in passing many of the Transvaal laws than if
they lived at the North Pole. There are numbers of good
people among them, but they have not led." (The same is
true in other countries, and perhaps in our own.) Joubert,
representing the Boer reform party, was only some 500 votes
behind Kruger at the last election before the Jameson Raid.
This being so, is it not terrible to think that (even if killing
men could be a useful occupation) we have gone on, month
after month, killing the wrong people ?

Kruger, Leyds, and the rest of the folk our patriots delight
in reviling, are not being killed any more than Mr. Joseph
Chamberlain, or his brother who gets the cordite contracts.
The men we are paying to have killed, and who to obtain
peace must submit to our rule, include many of those "good
people" who had no voice in the Government. And when
we burn their homes the women and children suffer.

This is terrible. The shame of this crime has indelibly
stamped itself upon the memories of men. As the massacre
of St. Bartholomew tainted the cause of Catholicism in
France, so the long-drawn-out-butchery of a numerically
contemptible race of farmers who do not wish to be ruled
by us, has tainted the cause of British Imperialism.

WAR AND PATRIOTISM 171

In the sixteenth century men were more openly treacher-
ous, but in our age of Bible Societies, Peace Societies, and
Societies for the Propagation of the Gospel, our patriots
inflict violence on those who wish to stop the war, and con-
tinue to write long letters exaggerating the wickedness of the
Boers, while the destruction of those brave men fighting for
freedom continues month after month.

I consider your pamphlet useful, inasmuch as it contains
certain confusions of thought in current use among us to-
day which go far beyond the question of this wai*, and help
to perplex men's minds and hamper* progress in many direc-
tions. These sophistries need to be exposed ; but as those
who use them are often insincere men, using them with
intentional vagueness, it is difficult to bring them to book.
You, however (and this, I think, is a real service), use these
sophistries honestly and plainly, so that one is enabled to
take hold of them and examine them, and detect the fallacies
they contain.

You try to justify conduct (the systematic and long pro-
tracted slaughter of men who are pleading for peace) which
you know to be wrong, by the curious yet common plea that
those who are responsible for the wrong conduct think it
right. As though no moral responsibility attached to thinking
rightly ! Why, our actions are continually swayed by our
thoughts, and by feelings which grow up in connection with
our thoughts. Pascal has most rightly said, " Let us then
labour to think rightly: that is the principle of morality.'
Were men responsible merely for doing what they see to
be right, and not responsible for making good use of their
reason and conscience in discovering what is right, those
who most neglected to use their highest faculties would be
those least open to reproach.

On the grounds on which you try to justify our Govern-
ment for this war — viz. that they consider it right — we
may with equal ease justify those who practised cannibal-
ism, sodomy, slavery, and every evil that ever has been

172 TOLSTOY AND HIS PROBLEMS

defended by those guilty of it. Am I to be bound to support
evert/ Government that says it approves of its own actions ?
Or does the rule that wrong thoughts justify evil actions
apply only when the Government concerned is our own ?

You speak as if mankind were divided into two sections :
(1) those who disapprove of war, and (2) those who approve
of it. Yet you have yourself admitted that " all men regard war
as an evil," and it is clearly a question of degree. There is
not a man who might not yield to the temptation to use
some violence to his fellow-men under some extreme provo-
cation ; on the other hand, there is, probably, no member
of Lord Salisbury's present Government, or of any modern
Government, who has not at times had some glimmer of the
truth that love is better than hatred, and that the greatest
benefactors of humanity have relied not on physical but on
moral forces.

But supposing it were not so. Supposing every member
of the Cabinet were proved to have wiped out of his mind
absolutely every vestige of Christian or of humane feeling.
Suppose the slaughter of thousands of our own people, the
destruction of the homes of Boer peasants, the legacy of
hatred and bitterness that is being stored up for future
generations, counts with them absolutely as nothing — even
then what motive can you or I have for condoning their
conduct ?

If they have any vestige or spark of those principles, or
sentiments, which cause you and me to recognise that gentle-
ness is better than violence, should we not try to rouse that
side of their nature instead of condoning their present con-
duct ? But if (which I refuse to believe) they have sunk so
low that no plea for humane action, however urgently made,
can be profitably addressed to them, should we not at least
cease to defend those who, on matters of such primary im-
portance, are dead to all that we hold sacred, and have
signed a bond with death and a covenant with hell ?

I was utterly unable to account for your wish to defend

WAR AND PATRIOTISM 173

this Government and this war till I came to your remarks
on Patriotism :

"So far, however, from love of one's own country being
a dangerous sentiment, it is our absolute duty. There is
nothing whatever to hinder our loving some men more than
others ... it is natural and right for me to love my own
country better than any other, as it is that I should care for
my own family before all other families."

" I have certainly felt bitterly . . . every reverse . . . and
have felt as lively a relief ... at the ending, by Cronje's
capture, of his power for mischief."

Here I think we come to the root of the matter. If
patriotism be a virtue, and if it be not merely natural for me
to give an involuntary preference to my own country, but
also right to give a deliberate preference to it, the matter
needs to be very clearly and exactly stated, because the
religion we profess fails to enforce this particular virtue.

What were the teachings of Jesus on Patriotism ? He
taught men to love their neighbours as themselves, and in
the example given the neighbour was not a Jew but a
foreigner — a Samaritan.

When the great patriotic dispute as to the rival merits of
Mount Gerizim or Jerusalem was put to him his reply was :
" Neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem shall men
worship."

When the clash of Jewish and Roman patriotisms was
presented to him in the question whether it was lawful
to pay tribute to Caesar, he neither adopted the patriotic
Jewish attitude of rejecting Caesar's claim, nor did he (as
I read it) adopt the patriotic Roman attitude of extolling
Caesar. He said : " Render unto Caesar the things that are
Caesar's " (he could hardly say less after teaching " If any
man would take thy coat, let him have thy cloak also ") — but
allotting to God our hearts and souls and minds and strength,
he left little enough for Caesar, except the stamped coins.

The ideal distinctly held up by Jesus was : Love all

174 TOLSTOY AND HIS PROBLEMS

men as yourself. Too high an ideal for us to attain unto,
no doubt; but too true an ideal for us to tamper with by
talking about the duty of caring for the people in our Empire
more than for people outside it.

Perhaps you may say that the absence of patriotism in
Christ's teaching was accidental. He was a Jew at the time
when Palestine was held by the Romans. But has it ever
struck you that the great religion of the East is as free from
patriotism as the teaching of Jesus ? Jesus is represented as
declining to be made a king ; Buddha, to serve and save the
world, is represented as leaving his throne and his country.

The moment one begins to examine the matter carefully,
one finds that most people do not know what they mean by
' patriotism.' A dictionary definition of the word is : " The
love and service of one's country." But why limit love and
service to one's own country ? How will such a limit act ?
Should I love other countries in the same way as my own,
only a little less ? Or should my feeling towards them be
different in kind ?

For instance, there has, for years past, been much talk
about the desirability of " painting the map of Africa red,"
and it has culminated in our painting the soil of Africa very
red with human blood. Did the patriots who wished to
have Africa painted red, wish rather less strongly to have it
painted blue, or yellow, or striped ? Or was it to be red in
opposition to the other colours ?

Or, again, when you felt the English reverses bitterly, did
you feel the Boer reverses only a little less bitterly ? Or did
patriotism in your own case imply towards others a desire
that God should —

" Confound their politics,
Frustrate their knavish tricks " ?

Is it not significant, by the way, that in our National Anthem
we should keep a bit of blasphemy like that, ready for loyal

WAR AND PATRIOTISM 175

and patriotic use even before we know who our next
' enemy ' is to be ? Not being our noble selves they are
sure to be a bad lot, and a little defamation in advance
perhaps prepares the public mind to take that view of
things ; but is not the appeal to God somewhat out of
place ? Is it not characteristically patriotic ?

But let us see how the word ' patriotism' is used in com-
mon speech. Is not a patriotic paper one which can be
relied on to side with ' my country right or wrong ' ? Is not a
patriotic crowd one which to drunkenness and violence adds
a fierce dislike to freedom of speech ? Is not a patriotic
statesman one who, instead of clearing himself from charges
gravely affecting his honour, talks grandiloquently of the
greatness and power of the Empire ? Is not a patriotic
Empire one which is a source of danger to the small free
States within its reach ? Is not a patriotic financier one
who regards his country's flag as a " commercial asset " ?
And is not a patriotic priest one who confuses the issues
he proposes to clear, and inflames the angry passions Christ
sought to calm ?

How did patriotism arise ? And why was it honoured in

the past ?

Long ago men (and animals before men) lived in continual
danger of being exterminated. And when individuals,
instead of being purely selfish, advanced to the stage of
being ready to sacrifice themselves for the good of the
family, clan, race, or nation to which they belonged, it was a
great advance. Horatius, " who kept the bridge of old " to
save the city from destruction, the women from outrage, and
his comrades from slaughter, deserved to be admired.

Patriotism was brotherhood limited. It was natural and
inevitable, and a great advance on what went before. The
patriot fought for the little group he knew and lived among,
and it never occurred to him but that his duty towards
foreigners and Gentiles was to hew them in pieces when
they threatened his nation.

176 TOLSTOY AND HIS PROBLEMS

Loyalty was a similar growth. It was a means of holding
men together to resist a common enemy.

Take the case of Russia. It was split up into small States
which the Tartar hordes ravaged with impunity. It was
necessary, at whatever loss of freedom, that these small
States should all be knit together in implicit obedience to
one Tsar, if they were to survive. It was better to be loyal
and shut one's eyes to his faults, however great they might
be, than to expose the nation — men, women, and children
— to wholesale destruction.

But the problem of to-day is different. Each age is tried
by its own tests. Empires have expanded, circumstances
have altered, and now it is not patriotism and loyalty that
save us from destruction. No one wants to massacre the
populations of London, Paris, Berlin or Petersburg. On the
contrary, it is patriotism that now causes loss of life. It has
lately sent thousands of our countrymen to perish 6000 miles
away in South Africa. Patriotism is like a suit of armour
which a young man put on when his life was in danger. It
saved him from assassination ; but, getting accustomed to it,
he persisted in wearing it when the danger was past, and as
he grew broader and stouter the armour became more and
more irksome and injurious to him.

Patriotism in our day is already a gigantic superstition,
and it is fast becoming an hypocrisy under cover of which
unscrupulous men snatch at wealth or power. Previous
civilisations have made the same mistake, and have trodden
the same path to destruction.

I do not mean to deny that there are honest patriots (I
have no doubt you are one) just as there are honest Jesuits.
The error is the same in both cases. It is a confusion of
the means with the end. A man begins by hoping that his
Church, or his Order, or his Country, will serve the cause of
goodness, and he ends by sacrificing the plainest demands
of goodness to the supposed advantage of his Church or
Country.

WAR AND PATRIOTISM 177

It was this spirit which caused the crucifixion of Jesus.
" If we let him alone . . . the Romans will come and take
away both our place and our nation," said his enemies (with
more plausibility than we have for saying that the Boers
would have turned us out of South Africa), so it seemed to
them " expedient that one man should die for the people."
It was a similar spirit which made Inquisitors, who saw their
Church in danger, sentence heretics to be burnt ; as though
safety for a Church or a nation lay in wrong-doing !

Looking at the matter practically, we may see what a hoax
is patriotism and all the talk about trade following the flag,
and the common excuse for war on the ground that it will
open up a fresh field for Britons. As a plain matter of fact,
the lack of a flag and a fatherland does not prevent the inter-
national Jew from gaining a livelihood. Mr. Beit is said to have
made ten times as much money in South Africa as any Briton.
And since he seems to have shared with Cecil Rhodes the
expense of financing the Johannesburg agitation l which led
up to the Jameson Raid, and also to have had a part in the
tuning of the newspapers in South Africa and in England
which preceded the present war, it would appear that it is
possible to exploit a patriotism one does not share.

The more one thinks about this patriotism of great Empires,
the more perplexing and intangible the whole thing becomes.
With a continually growing Empire, I must refer to an atlas
to know who does, and who does not, come within the sphere
of my patriotic affection. In matters of science, am I to give
the preference to theories of British origin ? When I hear a
tune, must I withhold approval till I am sure it is by a British
composer ? In commerce one quickly sees how empty is this
patriotism, which is ready to shed any amount of other people's
blood but will not pay more for British goods than for the

1 The figures given in the Report of the Select Committee on British
South Africa are that Beit spent about £200,000 and Cecil Rhodes
£(51,000 on that affair.

178 TOLSTOY AND HIS PROBLEMS

same thing from abroad. How many British manufacturers
are there who would refuse to put up works abroad to com-
pete with home manufacturers if they saw a good opportunity
to do so with profit ?

There is no real danger to-day of a foreign foe coming to
slaughter women and children, and lay waste a country not
defended by an army. But our women and children are
being slaughtered in a different way.

The land of England is being used, not to support the
population but for the profit or pleasure of a small section of
its inhabitants.

Half of England is owned by less than 8000 people. Even
land which during the Middle Ages was given expressly for
the support and education of the poor (for whom the monas-
teries and priories were supposed to act as trustees) was
seized by Henry VIII., and from it great estates were carved
for such families as the Cavendishes and the Russells ; and
the people have been robbed from generation to generation
ever since. " Something like a fifth of the actual land in the
kingdom was in this way transferred from the holding of the
Church to that of nobles and gentry/' says J. R. Green in
his Short History of the English People. One effect of the fact
that most of the people who cultivate the land do not own the
land, and receive less than half the value of what they pro-
duce, is that our people are moi*e and more crowding together
into towns, and are living in a more and more artificial
fashion on food brought from the ends of the earth, much
as was the case in Rome when its healthy growth was at
an end, and it drew its supplies of grain from Egypt and
elsewhere.

In consequence of the crowding together of so many
people in one place, the owners of the soil in that place
obtain a great profit ; but at what a cost to the nation ! In
patriotic London alone 800,000 people are living in illegally
over-crowded dwellings.

WAR AND PATRIOTISM 179

If England were a patriotic country, and if patriotism
were not an excuse for seeking material advantages for our
people at the expense of others, but really meant the love
and service of our fellow-countrymen, such a state of things
would be impossible.

Is it not time that we ceased to prize the armour where-
with the brave and strong defended the weak in days of old,
and learned, rather, to esteem such means as may help us now
to escape destruction ?

Patriotism distorts our vision ; it burdens the people ; it
causes blood to flow in torrents ; it is a perennial spring of
hatred, malice, and evil-speaking ; and its influence is still so
strong because some people will not think about it, and some,
having thought, are still unable or unwilling to speak out.
There can be no hope of right action till we have cleared our
minds and know at least which way we ought to face. We are
not called upon to struggle for the Reformation, or to resist
the Divine right of kings, or to abolish slavery ; but we are
called on to realise that to kill men is as bad as to enslave
them.

Let the British Empire perish rather than become a hind-
rance to the spread of brotherhood among all who share
our common humanity. Welfare lies in the unification and
brotherhood of man, and the superstitions which divide men
must be destroyed. Among those superstitions none is
worse than patriotism : a fetich to which more lives are sac-
rificed than ever were offered to Moloch or to Baal. For it
our children will be called on to pass through the fire ; and
for it the peoples are being crushed with an ever-increasing
burden of preparations for ' national defence ' — which lead
onward towards international destruction.

It is true that many good people use the word patriotism
vaguely, meaning it to cover a blend of the instinctive pre-
ference we feel for our own country and the humanitarian
sympathies we consciously extend to all nations. But such a

180 TOLSTOY AND HIS PROBLEMS

use of the word is confusing, and makes it difficult to differen-
tiate between one tendency which is usually too strong, and
another which is always too weak.

You complain that people speak harshly of those who com-
mand or commit this wholesale and premeditated murder.
I am willing to assert that all who, though endowed with
reason and conscience, omit to denounce the abominations of
war, share in the guilt of those whom by their silence they
encourage. Some words of William Lloyd Garrison's suit
the situation : " I am aware that many object to the severity
of my language ; but is there not cause for severity ? I will
be as harsh as truth and as uncompromising as justice. ... I
am in earnest. I will not equivocate ; I will not excuse. I will
not retreat a single inch, and I will be heard. The apathy
of the people is enough to make every statue leap from its
pedestal and to hasten the resurrection of the dead."

There is indeed a remarkably close parallel between the
position in the Lbiited States, during the second quarter of
the nineteenth century, of the Abolitionists, who disapproved
of slavery, and the position in England, to-day, of those who
disapprove of war. Just as it was, and is, impossible to pre-
vent men from exploiting one another's labour, so it was,
and is, impossible to prevent men from killing one another,
and from using violence to one another. Then men openly
bought other men to be their chattel-slaves. Now men
openly and unblushingly go to war without offering arbitra-
tion, and continue it after a defeated foe has asked for peace.
Then, as now, a small number of scattered individuals, of
little weight with the political parties or the religious sects,
began to draw together to make what stand they could
against a great evil. Then, as now, they were opposed,
ignored, abused, or at best half-heartedly supported, by the
newspapers and the pulpits. To the politicians they were a
nuisance, and to the religious bodies a stumbling-block. The
Bible (" slaves obey your masters ") was quoted against them ;

WAR AND PATRIOTISM 181

patriotism and loyalty to the Constitution employed to thwart
them. Their meetings were broken up, and their speakers
suffered from mob violence. They had nothing but the good-
ness of their cause to rely upon, and their battle, like ours,
had to be fought with clearness of thought, fearlessness of
utterance, and firm reliance that there is a Power, not our-
selves, "which lasting through the ages makes for righte-
ousness."

Not the least remarkable part of the resemblance is, that
just as we have among us members of u Peace Societies " and
" Friends " opposed to all war in the abstract, who will not
say a word against war in the concrete, so they had their
philanthropic " Colonisation Society " to transport the negro
population of America, and to evangelise and civilise Africa.
It formed, in reality, a bulwark of slavery. By absorbing a
number of respectable people who without some such safety-
valve would have felt uncomfortable, it rendered to the cause
of slavery the same sort of service that is rendered to the
cause of war by such advocates of peace as yourself. Their
motto seemed to be : —

" I'm willin' a man should go tollable strong
Agin wrong in the abstract, fer that kind o' wrong
Is oilers unpop'lar an' never gets pitied,
Because it's a crime no one never committed ;
But he mustn't be hard on partikler sins,
Coz then he'll be kickin' the people's own shins."

There was nothing in the abominations of slavery that evoked
their wrath so much as it was evoked by the strenuous utter-
ances of Garrison and the Emancipationists, just as there
seems to be no horror in this war to move you to such warmth
of condemnation as you express concerning those who wish
to stop this war.

It is sad to see a worthy man like you led by the patriotic
folly of the hour to forget that a love of truth and a desire to

182 TOLSTOY AND HIS PROBLEMS

be fair and impartial are qualities natural to man : that " the
human soul is naturally Christian/' as Origen expressed it.
You write as though there could be no motive for noting the
errors committed by our side except infatuated devotion to
the Boers. The cry of " Pro-Boer " (which our political
roughs have used, intelligently enough, as a bullying clack
to frighten men milder than themselves from expressing an
opinion in favour of peace) has imposed on you. so that you
really seem to believe that every one must be, like yourself,
a blind partisan of one or other side.

When I first wrote this article I had no intention of making
other than an indirect use of Tolstoy's teaching, but now,
when revising it, I cannot refrain from quoting two letters
which, in different ways, both point the moral that if we
really wish to reform any one we must begin by reforming
ourselves. In the first of the two letters, written when it
had become customary abroad to abuse Chamberlain and
denounce the English, Tolstoy (who does not hesitate to point
out defects in the Russian Government, and to speak plainly
of Tsars and Ministers) wrote to a Russian correspondent on
4th December 1899 (O.S.) :—

" If two men after drinking in an inn have a fight over
their cards, I cannot agree to put the whole blame on one
of them, however strong may be the arguments of the other.
The cause of the ill-conduct of either lies, not in the justice
of the other, but in the fact that instead of quietly working
or resting, they both must needs drink and play cards at
an inn. In the same way, when I am told that in any war
that breaks out the whole blame lies on one side, I am quite
unable to accept the statement. One may admit that one
side has acted worse than the other, but an examination
showing which side acted worse will not explain even the
immediate causes of such a terrible, cruel, and inhuman
phenomenon as war.

"Those causes, both in this Transvaal war and in all

WAR AND PATRIOTISM 183

recent wars, are quite apparent to every man who does not
shut his eyes. The causes are three : First, the unequal
distribution of property, i.e. the robbing of some men by
others ; secondly, the existence of a military class, i.e.
of people educated and fore-appointed to murder ; and
thirdly, the false, and for the most part consciously mis-
leading religious teaching in which the young are com-
pulsorily educated.

" Therefore I think it not only useless, but even harmful,
to regard Chamberlains, Wilhelms, or such people as being
the cause of wars, for by so doing we hide from ourselves the
real causes, which are much nearer, and in which we are our-
selves concerned. Chamberlains and Wilhelms we can only
rage against and scold ; but our anger and abuse merely pro-
duce bile without altering the course of events : Chamberlains
and Wilhelms are but the blind tools of forces lying far
beyond them. They act as they must act, and they cannot
do otherwise. All history is a series of deeds quite similar
to the Transvaal war, committed by politicians ; and so to be
angry with them and condemn them is quite useless and even
impossible when you see the real causes of their actions, and
feel that, according to your attitude towards the three funda-
mental causes to which I have alluded, you yourself produce
this or that activity of theirs.

" As long as we make use of privileged wealth while the
mass of the people are crushed by toil, there will always be
wars for markets and for gold-mines, etc., which we need to
maintain privileged wealth. Yet more will wars be inevi-
table as long as we take part in the military profession — toler-
ating its existence — and do not, with our whole strength,
strive against it. We ourselves either serve in the army or
acknowledge it as not merely necessary but praiseworthy,
and then, when a war breaks out, we put the blame on some
Chamberlain or other. But, above all, war will exist as long
as we profess, or even tolerate without indignation and re-

184 TOLSTOY AND HIS PROBLEMS

volt, a perversion of Christianity, called Church-Christianity,
which is compatible with a ' Christ-loving army,' the conse-
cration of cannons, and the recognition of war as a Christian
and righteous activity. We teach such a religion to our chil-
dren, profess it ourselves, and then when people begin to kill
one another we attribute it, some of us to Chamberlain and
others to Kruger.

" That is why I do not agree with you and cannot blame
the blind tools of ignorance and evil, but see the cause in
things in which I may myself help to diminish or increase
the evil. To co-operate in the brotherly equalisation of pro-
perty, and to take as little advantage as possible of those
privileges which have fallen to my- lot ; to take no part what-
ever in military affairs, to destroy that hypnotism which
causes people, when becoming hired murderers, to think
that they are doing something good by serving in the army ;
and, above all, to profess a reasonable Christian teaching,
trying with all one's might to destroy that cruelly decep-
tive false Christianity in which the young are compulsorily
educated ; — in this triple activity consists, I think, the
duty of every man who wishes to serve goodness, and who
is justly revolted at this terrible war which has revolted
you also."

That was written, you may be sure, with no desire to
excuse men of the type of Chamberlain ; but it was written
to remind us all that the work of reform must begin at home.
If we are talking about countries, let each man look most
sharply to the faults of his own, but deeper even than that
let him trace the evil home and see how much of it rises
from a spring in his own business, his own family, his own
conduct, and his own heart.

See how far Tolstoy has taken us from those surface sophis-
tries with which I had to deal when I began to examine your
plea in justification of the English Government.

The other letter I will quote was written in reply to one in

WAR AND PATRIOTISiM 185

which I mentioned to Tolstoy that a newspaper correspondent
had attributed anti-English sentiments to him. In a reply
dated 27th January 1900 (O.S.) he wrote :—

" Of course I could not have said, and did not say, what
is attributed to me. What really took place was this : A
newspaper correspondent came to me as an author wishing
to present me with a copy of his book. In answering a
question of his as to my attitude toward the war, I men-
tioned that I had been shocked to catch myself, during my
illness, wishing to find news of Boer successes, and that I
was therefore glad to have an opportunity, in a letter to
V., to express my real relation to the matter, which is that
I cannot sympathise with any military achievements, not
even with a David oppposed to ten Goliaths, but that I
sympathise only with those who destroy the cause of war :
the prestige of gold, of wealth, of military glory, and, above
all (the cause of all the evil), the prestige of patriotism,
with its pseudo-justification of the murder of our brother
men."

How totally different is Tolstoy's state of mind to that of
the furious patriot who shouts " Pro- Boer " at every one who
blames him for engaging in or for continuing the war.

There is yet much in your pamphlet that calls for reply ; but
I will only comment briefly on two points.

The first is with reference to your characterisation of the
Boer population. It is natural enough that in ordinary speech
we should try to characterise a whole nation collectively,
and should say that the French are gay, the Dutch phleg-
matic, the Germans pedantic, the Turks fatalistic, etc., etc. ;
but surely every reasonable man should know that there is
nothing definite or tangible in such generalisations. To
speak of " a strong dislike on account of the antagonism
between the two people in respect of their treatment of the
blacks," is surely absurd. Not all Englishmen are kind,
and not all Boers are cruel. If strife and slaughter could be

186 TOLSTOY AND HIS PROBLEMS

justified by loose phrases of this kind, it would not be the
slaughter of one race by another, but the slaughter of the
cruel people of both races by the kind ones. Then perhaps
some people, kinder still, shocked at such barbarity, would
step in and slaughter them in turn !

Lastly, I would join issue with you as to the necessity for
each man to master the intricacies of a diplomatic dispute
before he may disapprove of the action of his Government.
Children when scolded for quarrelling and fighting try to
shift the question from the broad plain issue on which they
are both obviously in the wrong, and to involve it by dis-
cussing which began : who took the marble, who first
threatened, who first pushed, and who first struck.

But with children and with nations it should never be a
question of comparative, but always one of positive guilt. The
older the child, and the more Christian and civilised the
nation, the greater the shame if it is always drifting into
quarrels and strife. I and a few hundred, or a very few
thousand, other people have taken the trouble to examine
the excuses and the special pleadings by which patriots like
yourself have tried to justify or excuse this war. But the
case has been so gratuitously and so mendaciously entangled,
that I earnestly protest against your assumption that those
who have no time to spend on such subtleties must accept
the immoral conclusions arrived at by those who are concerned
to condone a course of policy which naturally led on to
human slaughter.

A plain man has a perfect right to say : K I refuse to
support the Government because they are again fighting —
fighting in two or three places at once. They have not made
it clear to me and to everybody else, either what they are
fighting about, or that they exhausted every possible effort
to settle the matter peacefully : by arbitration, or by liberal
concessions to the other party. Furthermore, they seem to
cherish the childish absurdity that two blacks make one

WAR AND PATRIOTISM 187

white, and they are as anxious to prove their enemy in the
wrong, as if that would put them in the right. They have
not shown me that they were eager to avoid war, and people
who cause men to be killed and women to be left homeless,
must not expect that, because I am too busy to read all
about their quarrels, I shall, therefore, support them in con-
duct that my very soul abhors."

First published in the New Age during August 1900.

More than a year and a half has passed since this article was first
written, but the changes that have occurred are not detrimental to its
arguments. The number of deaths caused by the war has much more
than doubled. Unpleasant facts — such as the wholesale farm-burning,
the death-rate of women and children in the Concentration Camps,
and the shooting of officers for murdering prisoners — have occurred,
which we would gladly wipe from history's page were it possible to do
so without suppressing the truth. As far as the meagre news passed
by the censor enables one to guess, it is probably now no longer
correct to say that "half of the Dutch population in South Africa
took no part in the war." But nothing has occurred to make the
policy, or state of mind, which led to, or condoned, the war, appear
either more wise or more right than before.

While this edition is passing through the press, the news reaches
me of John Bellow's death. It fell to my lot to oppose his views on
more than one question of principle, but I never felt that I was
opposing the man — I was opposing only his mistakes. The man him-
self, eager and active in good works, had my hearty esteem. Even
when we differed most strongly, he always showed himself con-
siderate and friendly, and has left on me, as on many who knew him
more intimately than I did, an impression of earnestness, high char-
acter, and genuine goodness of heart.

TALKS WITH TOLSTOY

Some twelve years ago (I think it was in 1888) my brother-
in-law, Dr. Alexeef, offered to take me to call on Tolstoy,
who had written a preface (now published as the essay:
Why do people stupefy themselves ?) to a book the Doctor had
written on the drink question. At the tea-table I found
myself just opposite Tolstoy, of whose works I had then
read but little, and I ventured the remark that I under-
stood that he disapproved of money-making, and that this
interested me because I was in Russia with just the object
of trying to make some money.

This led to a conversation which did not alter my views.
I felt that I had the authority of the science of political
economy behind me, and that I only needed fully to com-
prehend Tolstoy's position in order to be able to point out
its fundamental fallacies.

Our conversation was soon interrupted, but, when we left,
Tolstoy said a few kind words and asked me to call again.
This I did not do at that time, partly out of shyness, and
partly from a feeling that it would not do to teach Tolstoy
political economy and that he had nothing of importance to
teach me about it.

Years passed, during which the talk with Tolstoy clung to
my mind, and during which also, though the business I was
engaged in was a prosperous one, the strain and worry of
competitive commercial life told on my nerves and health.
I began to see that political economy needed hitching on
to the rest of life, and I read Tolstoy's later works with
attention.

At last I found myself again at the same tea-table, but

188

TALKS WITH TOLSTOY 189

this time approaching Tolstoy with a different feeling. I
was sure that his message was important and contained much
timth, but — why was he living in a comfortable house ? Why
did he not put into action the whole of his teaching ? I am
ashamed to say that, disregarding the presence of visitors,
I put the point bluntly to him. I was in earnest, and — as
sometimes happens when people are in earnest — not merely
the conventions, but regard for other people's feelings, were
forgotten. Tolstoy did not then reply to my questions, but
at parting — though he was not yet sure of my sincerity — he
again asked me to come to see him. This time I did not
delay doing so. In private, in his own study, he explained
to me some things I have alluded to in my article Leo
Tolstoy, and from that time till the day I left Russia I never
missed an opportunity of obtaining guidance and instruction
from him.

I was more developed mentally than spiritually, and, at
first, more inclined to discuss external matters than questions
of the inner life ; but the one led on to the other.

Tolstoy, I remember, speaking one day of the fact that
some people seem led towards goodness by the heart, and
others by the head, said that the latter was in some respects
the safer process. " You may be weary and wish to turn
back, but when you have unravelled the tangle of life you
see clearly that there is nowhere to turn back to : you must
go on."

The purpose of the present paper is to record some obita
dicta worth preserving for their own sake or as characteristic
of Tolstoy.

His opinions did not result from casual likes and dislikes,
but were knit together by his perception of the meaning and
purpose of life. One could seldom predict what he would
say (even on subjects with which I was familiar his views
often came as a surprise), but when he had spoken it was
generally easy to see why his conclusion was what it was.

When among sympathetic friends, the connection between

190 TOLSTOY AND HIS PROBLEMS

his general views and his particular opinion on whatever
subject was under discussion was specially evident, and the
talk would turn easily to the great problems of life. He
would suit his conversation to the company, but to whomever
he was speaking, and whatever the particular subject might
be, any one in touch with him could readily recognise the
co-ordination of opinions to which I have referred. Litera-
ture, art, science, politics, economics, social problems, sex-
relations, and local news, were not subjects detached from
each other, as they are in the minds of many men, but were
all viewed as parts of an ordered whole.

In a good game of chess, played by an expert, there is a
logical sequence between the moves, so that the purpose of
even the most unexpected coups can be puzzled out ; in this
it differs from a game of ordinary drawing-room chess, the
moves in which are a series of accidents mitigated by
occasional ideas. And there is a similar difference between
the talk of a man who has a clear idea of the purpose of
human life, and the talk of men who are at sea on that
matter.

I do not know how far this characteristic of Tolstoy's talk
will be observable in the following gathering together of
scraps of conversations on books and authors. On many the
first impression a talk with Tolstoy makes is that he is not
saying what other people say, and is therefore eccentric ;
and I fear that in an attempt to reproduce scraps of his talk
it will be easier to convey the unorthodoxy than the validity
of some of his opinions.

Novel -writing, Tolstoy says, stands, both in England and
France, on a much lower level to-day than it did when he
was a young man. Dickens and Victor Hugo were then in
their prime — and who is there to-day to match them ? They
willingly dealt with subject-matter of vital importance, and
treated it so that their readers caught their feeling. They
dealt with the emotions of pity and affection and sympathy,

TALKS WITH TOLSTOY 191

were concerned for the poor and oppressed, and showed in-
dignation at established wrongs in a manner that went home
to men's hearts.

Now, Tolstoy says, writers are dealing with all sorts of
social problems, psychological studies, exact copyings of
nature, ethical conundrums, and pseudo-scientific puzzles —
but, for the most part, they fail to deal with essential matters
in such a way as to reach the hearts of the people. Among
contemporary English novelists whose works he has read,
he does not know of any whom he esteems more than
Mrs. Humphrey Ward. She usually knows what she means,
and does not approve and disapprove of things haphazard.

Of Olive Schreiner's Dreams his opinion was not high.
The main objection, I think, was that Olive Schreiner deals
with some problems of immense importance, without so clear
and firm a perception of their bearings as would enable her
to give right guidance to those who are attracted by her
poetic treatment, and by her sympathetic leanings towards
what is good. Dreams are likely to please those most, whose
own ideas are somewhat vague and unsettled.

He had not, at that time, read Trooper Peter Hal/cet, but
I have an impression, which I am unable just now to verify,
that he read it subsequently and was favourably impressed
by it.

Of Zola, Tolstoy speaks in commendation in one respect.
Here are we, all talking about the ' people,' about their
rights, and about the ways of raising them, etc., etc. ; and
here is Zola, who has really depicted common people and
shown us — there, these are the folk you are talking about !

On the other hand, Zola's realism, in so far as it consists in
photographic depiction of a mass of details, is not art, trans-
mitting feeling from man to man. Man must discriminate
between what is essential and what is trivial in life, not pile
up mountains of undigested facts — and this is true of the
artist as well as of the man.

Sienkiewicz, Tolstoy says, is always readable ; but what he

192 TOLSTOY AND HIS PROBLEMS

writes is tinged with his Catholicism. In Quo vadis the
Christians and Pagans are too white and too black ; they
should shade off into each other and overlap, as they must
have done in real life, and as the persecuted Russian Stun-
dists to-day shade off into, and mix with, the Russian
Orthodox.

Frankness and clearness have a great charm for Tolstoy.
The mistakes and errors of a man who is clear are more likely
to be of use than the half-truths of those who are content to
be indefinite. On any matter, to express yourself so that vou
cannot be understood is bad. The chief defect of Walt
Whitman is, that with all his enthusiasm, he yet lacks a clear
philosophy of life. On some vital issues he speaks as if with
authority, yet stands at the parting of two ways and does not
show us which way to go.

A great literature arises when there is a great moral
awakening. Take, for instance, the emancipation period,
when the struggle for the abolition of serfdom was going on
in Russia, and the anti-slavery movement was alive in the
United States. See what writers appeared : Harriet Beecher
Stowe, Thoreau, Emerson, Lowell, Whittier, Longfellow,
William Lloyd Garrison, Theodore Parker, and others in
America ; Dostoyevsky, Tourgenef, Herzen (whose influence
on educated Russians Tolstoy estimates as having been very
great), and others in Russia. The period that followed, when
men were not bracing themselves to sacrifice material con-
siderations for moral ones, would have been a barren time had
not some writers, nurtured and formed in the heroic period,
been left to carry on its tradition.

Tolstoy speaks very highly of Matthew Arnold's works on
religion. He says that the usual estimate puts Arnold's
poems first, his critical writings second, and his religious
works third ; but that this is just the reverse of a true
estimate. The religious writings are his best and most im-

TALKS WITH TOLSTOY 193

portant work. That Tolstoy has rightly gauged the " usual
estimate " finds confirmation in the book on Matthew Arnold
since published by Professor Saintsbury, in which Literature
and Dogma, God and the Bible, A Comment on Christmas, etc.,
are classed as "these unfortunate books," and we are told
that " nobody wants religion of that sort."

Tolstoy considered that Arnold's essay on his own (Tolstoy's)
writings contained sound and just criticism. Indeed, it was
Tolstoy's fortune to be introduced to the general reader in
England and America by the best sponsors he could have
had. Not the least among the services rendered by Matthew
Arnold and William Dean Howells, is the cordial welcome
with which, many years ago, each of them on his own side of
the Atlantic greeted an author whose views are, even to-day,
singularly little understood by some who profess to admire
them.

Wishing to induce Tolstoy to admit the merits of some of
Matthew Arnold's poems, I marked a few, such as Rugby
Chapel, To a Republican Friend, The Divinity, Progress, Revolu-
tion, Self-dependence, and Morality, and sent them to hiin. He
returned the book in a few days with the remark that they
were very good, " but what a pity they were not written in
prose ! "

In poetry Tolstoy is, indeed, hard to please. Why, he
asks, need men hamper the clear expression of their thoughts
by selecting a style which obliges them to choose, not the
words which best express their meaning but those that best
enable them to get the lines to scan ? If we can say what
we have to say in three words, why use five ? Or if a word
or two more will avoid the risk of being misunderstood, why
not add them ? People have written valuable things in
verse ; but they could, in most cases, have said them better in
prose. And how much worthless stuff has been circulated
merely for the sake of the skill with which it was expressed !

Similarly of eloquence: a visitor one day was speaking of
the charm of eloquence. "Yes," said Tolstoy, "but what a

194 TOLSTOY AND HIS PROBLEMS

dangerous thing it is," and he went on to tell how he heard a
celebrated advocate pleading a cause, and had found it diffi-
cult not to allow his own judgment to be warped by the
mercenary eloquence of the lawyer.

• • • • • • •

Tolstoy is too truthful not to tell those who consult him his
real opinion of their work ; but he is too considerate to like
hurting their feelings, and as the standard he sets for himself
and for othei's is very high he often finds himself in a difficult
position.

I remember one afternoon, at Yasnaya Poly ana, how he
came to the tea-table, set out in the open air, and told us
that an old man, retired from Government service, had just
been with him in his study showing him a long poem.
Tolstoy had asked him to read some verses of it, and, though
he feared the old gentleman would be angry, was obliged to
tell him that it was terrible rubbish. Indeed, judging by
some scraps that Tolstoy laughingly repeated, the poem must
have been unusually bad. Fortunately, however, the visitor
turned out to be one of the most even-tempered of mortals,
and merely said : " You don't mean to say so ; why here have
I been ten years composing it, and thought it was so good ! "
and then took his departure, apparently in no way disturbed
by the verdict pronounced on his production.

• ••••••

I once asked Tolstoy how he accounted for the supreme
rank among authors accorded, in Russia and elsewhere, to
Shakespear. He said he explained it to himself by the fact
that the "cultured crowd " have no clear idea of the purpose
and aim of life, and can most readily and heartily admire
an author who is like themselves in this respect — i.e. one
with no central standpoint from which to measure his
relation to all else. Shakespear owes his great reputation
to the fact that he is an artist of great and varied abilities ;
but he owes it yet more to the fact that he shares with his

TALKS WITH TOLSTOY 195

admirers this great weakness : that he had no answer to the
question, What is the meaning of life ?

From Shakespear to the Review of Reviews is a far cry, but
the same perception of man's need of guidance, — and of the
possibility of good guidance being supplied if men are willing
to concentrate their attention primarily on what is really
important, — underlies the view he expressed of that maga-
zine in 1897, not comparing it with other existing periodicals,
but rather contrasting it with what we should desire from
the literature we read. A visitor I met at the house
remarked that the Review of Reviews (a copy of which
happened to be lying about) always gave him a headache,
and Tolstoy replied that that was just the effect it had on
him, though he had hardly realised it till he heard the
remark made. The jumble of facts and opinions of all
sorts, not co-ordinated by any consistent central perception,
is what causes the mental strain. Even in the original parts
of the magazine, what is one to make of the mixture of
patriotism and Christianity, pulling different ways but both
considered good ? love of liberty and laudation of autocrats ?
love of peace, and desire to have the map of Africa painted
red ? etc.

Stead wants to have two patriotisms : a bad patriotism,
which he calls Jingoism, and a good patriotism. But he
does not define the one or the other, so as to enable us to
know when the line of right is being overstepped. Every
patriotism (i.e. deliberate preference for our own country),
by tending to make us jealous and suspicious of the men of
other nations, or willing to injure them, does harm.

Of course the criticism applies to most journalism, and
Tolstoy is emphatic as to the advisability of giving a pre-
ference to books rather than to ephemeral literature. I
hear that Tolstoy, showing a copy of Stead's War against
War in South Africa to a friend in 1899, spoke of it with
approval, saying that he had not time to read it careful I v.
but that at any rate it was an effort in a right direction.

196 TOLSTOY AND HIS PROBLEMS

Indeed, any effort made to stem the tide of national arrogance
and to protest against the wickedness and waste of war,
commends itself to Tolstoy.

Speaking of Stead's Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon
crusade, I happened to mention that many people blamed
Stead for giving publicity to such a subject, but that, so far
as one can estimate such things, the good effected seemed
to outweigh the harm done : wrongs which some women
have to endure, all may bear at least to hear of, if exposure
is a means towards destroying the evil. Tolstoy listened till
I had finished, looked at me, and merely said : " And do you
also approve of the deception practised when collecting the
evidence and in obtaining the girls ? " Short of pleading
that "the end justifies the means" — which I could not do
— there was no way to meet this simple question without
abandoning my justification of at least part of the crusade.

Tolstoy has indeed a remarkable knack of making quite
obvious remarks which stick in the hearer's mind and make
it impossible for him to think as he thought before.

In quoting Tolstoy's remarks about Stead, I do not wish
to give an impression of wholesale condemnation ; on the
contrary, the fact that Tolstoy was acquainted with, and
interested in, much that Stead has written, is rather a
tribute to the latter than a disparagement. Tolstoy's high
standard often leads him to indicate defects in efforts which,
comparatively speaking and judged by a lower standard, de-
serve praise rather than blame.

. . . . • . •

A compilation which particularly pleases Tolstoy, is the
Labour Annual, edited by Joseph Edwards, and giving
information about various e advanced ' movements. I suspect
that some of the movements look more important on paper
than they do in real life, and that some of the ' advanced '
groups would, on closer acquaintance, strike Tolstoy as being
two thousand years behind the times. But, be that as it
may, the indication such a work gives of the fact that our

TALKS WITH TOLSTOY 197

system of land-owning and manufacturing is no more final
than slavery or feudalism were, is encouraging to a reformer
surrounded by appearances that, since the Emancipation,
have seemed, till quite recently, to indicate stagnation.

For a similar reason, he was very pleased to hear of the
immense sale of Robert Blatchford's little book, Merrie
England, though he would not endorse all that it contains.

For the socialism of Karl Marx, and the theory that fate
has decreed that the control of the implements of production
must pass into fewer and fewer hands before the condition
of the masses can improve, Tolstoy has as little respect as
he has for Malthus' law of the superfecundity of the human
race. Such attempts to ascertain, and declare as final and
immutable, certain 'laws of human nature' discovered, not
by knowing man's heart but by mere external observations,
do not commend themselves to him. He especially objects
to the demand that we should adjust our actions to such
imaginary laws, and subordinate to them those moral scruples
which form part of our inner consciousness. People who
see that our social conditions are bad, and who yet wish
neither to alter their own manner of life nor to admit that
they are doing wrong, are very apt to accept such ' scientific '
laws as a shield for themselves. They say : " Things are
wrong; but it is all God's fault, and is inevitable. Were
we to act as our consciences demand, no good would come
of it. The only sensible thing to do is to go on acting in
the way which has produced these wrong social conditions,
until the Social Democrats re-organise society by means
of a parliamentary majority." Many church people say
something of the same kind ; only they want us to wait,
not for a Social Democratic majority but for the Millennium.
In opposition to such views, Tolstoy holds that if we would
know the will of God and be willing co-workers with Him,
there is only one way, and that is to be as good as we can.
If we all did that, property and the means of production

198 TOLSTOY AND HIS PROBLEMS

would not accumulate in fewer and fewer hands, nor should
we breed like rabbits up to the limits of the food supply, nor
should we need to wait for the external coming of a Kingdom
that must be within us before it can be externally manifest.

Of P. Krop6tkin, though he does not know him personally,
Tolstoy holds a high opinion ; regarding him as an honour-
able and earnest worker in the cause of brotherhood, and
a man of conspicuous ability. But he does not hesitate
to mention the weak spots he discerns even in those who
have suffered in the cause of freedom, and he much regrets
that Kropotkin does not explicitly and decidedly express
disapproval of all violence — whether directed against Govern-
ments or used by Governments. He thinks it must be a
mistaken sense of loyalty to the companions and traditions
of his youth that keeps Kropotkin among the justifiers or
condoners of physical force methods. " He must see that
by excusing violence he cuts the ground from under his
own feet." If the struggle in Russia to-day were clearly
one between men in power trying to enforce their will by
violence, and reformers saying and doing what they believe
to be right and repudiating all violence, the sympathy of
every good man would be against the Government. But by
employing force and justifying its use, the anarchist confuses
the issue, and obliges people to choose between two sets of
men, each abusing the other, and each saying it is right to
kill some men and to use violence sometimes. That is why
so many hesitate to sympathise with either party.

Of Kropotkin' s La Conqucte du Pain, Tolstoy says that the
part treating of the present basis of production and distri-
bution is good, and the explanation of the advantages of a
more brotherly order of society is good. But Kropotkin does
not explain how he expects the transition from the old to the
new order to come about. It is not to come gradually, as a
consequence of a change in our perceptions, characters, and
aims, but is to be introduced by a revolution to which a

TALKS WITH TOLSTOY 199

section of society objects. How is this to be done ? By
using force ! But the use of force causes dislike and hatred,
and the wish to retaliate. So that the Anarchist-Communist,
having overthrown the existing order of society by force, will
have to guard against attempts to restore it by force ; and
there will again be some people governing others not by
convincing them but by coercing them.

Among authors who have had a great influence on Tolstoy,
or to whose works he attaches importance, may be mentioned
J. J. Rousseau, Stendal, Proudhon, Auerbach {Schwarzwcilder
Dorfgeschichten), and Schopenhauer.

Tolstoy keeps a keen look out for works in other languages
(especially short, clearly expressed, and original works) that
it would be useful to have translated into Russian. Very
often the works he selects are not allowed to be printed in
Russia ; but in such cases, when he has got some one to
translate it, copies are made on a type-writer, and the work
gets a limited circulation and is more or less secured against
the risk of being entirely eradicated by the police (who fre-
quently search the lodgings of people suspected of Tolstoyan
propaganda), and it is thus ready to be printed should the
day dawn when the press-censorship in Russia will be less
irksome than it now is. In spite of the activity of the secret
police in watching his friends, seizing their papers, and
banishing them, the works Tolstoy recommends usually get
translated. This has been the case with the two works next
mentioned.

Thoreau's essay on Civil Disobedience Tolstoy selects as
being the best of all Thoreau's writings. Its great merit lies
in its clear statement of man's right to repudiate, and refuse
in any way to support, a Government which acts immorally.
The State of Massachusetts connived at the maintenance of
slavery. Thoreau was disinclined to devote himself to poli-
tics, but was also disinclined to support a Government of
which he disapproved. So he refused to pay the poll-tax,

200 TOLSTOY AND HIS PROBLEMS

allowed himself to be imprisoned, and wrote Civil Dis-
obedience, which may yet prove to be the source from
which a telling protest against war, or other evils enforced
by Government, will spring.

The Anatomy of Misery, by J. C. Kenworthy, is a small
book on economics which greatly pleased Tolstoy by its
brevity, its clearness, and its thoroughness in going to the
roots of the question. He thought that the subsequent
work of this author, though much of it is good, did not
come up to the high standard set by the book mentioned.

Among books not translated at Tolstoy's suggestion but
commended by him, I recollect the philosophical writings of
Shankaracarya, translated into Russian by Vera Johnston,
and the work, On Compromise, by John Morley. He thinks
highly of Merimee for the quality of his literary art.

Among books translated into Russian by Tolstoy's advice
are : from the French, Vie de S. Francois d' Assise by Sabatier,
some short stories by Guy de Maupassant, Les sens de la Vie
by Ed. Rod, and extracts from Amiel's Journal Intime (the
latter translated by Tolstoy's daughter, the Countess Mary
Tolstoy, now Princess Obolensky, with a preface by himself ) ;
from the German, a novel by Polenz, Der Biitnerbauer ; and
from English, Emerson's Essays, Karma and Nirvana by Paul
Cams, The Effects of the Factory System by Allen Clarke, Dr.
Alice Stockham's Tokology (to which he wrote a short intro-
duction), and, in 1902, The Soul of a People by Fielding.
To Howard Williams' The Ethics of Diet, Tolstoy contributed
an important preface, forming the essay entitled The First
Step l in his collected works.

I remember his telling me of a young Englishman
visiting at Yasnaya Polyana, who said he was the only

1 The First Step is published as a booklet by the Vegetarian Society,
Manchester. The selection of The Ethics of Diet for translation into
Eussian was due, not to Tolstoy, as I mistakenly stated in the first
edition of this book, but to Vladimir Tchertkdff. The same remark
applies to Humanitarianism and Flesh and Fruit by H. S. Salt, and to
The Scientific Basis of Vegetarianism by Dr. Anna Kingsfcrd.

TALKS WITH TOLSTOY 201

vegetarian in his family. " Do you not have squalls with
your people ? " asked Tolstoy. " Squalls ? " replied the
visitor, " we have hurricanes ! " " And that is how it
must be," remarked Tolstoy, who does not believe that
we should hide our light under a bushel, or allow the
weight of social prejudice to crush the outward manifesta-
tions of the faith that is in us. As he grows older, however,
though his fiery ardour for reform does not cool, he increases
in gentleness, and learns, what to him has been a hard
lesson, that " the meek shall inherit the earth," and that,
to get the best results with the limited strength allotted to
us, we must seek, as much as may be, to avoid creating friction.

Tolstoy's eldest son, Count Serge Tolstoy, translated
Modern Science, one of the essays in Edward Carpenter's
Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure, Tolstoy himself contributing
a preface. The issue raised in that essay is : Are scientists,
when they are investigating Nature, dealing with absolute
truths, ' facts,' and reaching the bottom of things ? Or are
they merely studying the relation of phenomena to our per-
ceptions ? Tolstoy agrees with Carpenter that we must not
hope to " explain man by mechanics " ; what we can know
of nature being only its relation to ourselves. Tolstoy agrees
also with what Carpenter says of existing social conditions,
and with his remark that " the progress of civilisation " has
always (as in Egypt, Greece, or Rome) led on, step by step, to
ultimate dissolution, and that there is no sufficient reason to
suppose that our present f progress ' in Europe or America is
leading anywhere else. " Why did I not think of that for
myself — it is so obvious," said Tolstoy.

But on the Sex-Question, Tolstoy and Carpenter represent
almost opposite poles of thought.

Both would agree that serious discussion of this question has
been burked, especially in England and America ; that on no
subject do conventional misconceptions flourish more luxuri-
antly ; and that the results of such falsehood and conceal-
ment are evil. But here agreement would end.

202 TOLSTOY AND HIS PROBLEMS

Tolstoy would say that the direction in which true pro-
gress lies is clearly perceptible, not only " in thy mouth and
in thy heart," hut in the teaching of the greatest prophets
and religious leaders of mankind. The course you will
follow if you discern the ideal of perfection, will be the result-
ant of two different forces. One part of your nature (since
you are an animal) will draw you one way. Another part of
your nature (since you are divine and have perceived the
ideal) will draw you another way.

The virtue to aim at is chastity. If you cannot be per-
fectly chaste, be as chaste as you can. The founders of all
great religions have recognised this tacitly and partially, if
not expressly and fully. Those of them who have given fixed
rules of conduct have drawn the line of what was admissible,
not further from chastity, but rather nearer to chastity than
was customary in their time and place. Polygamy was no
doubt an advance, in most cases, on what went before it, but
even a strict monogamy does not solve all difficulties, nor
reach the highest approach to purity conceivable by man.

In Carpenter's view chastity is not a virtue. It would
seem from what he has written on the subject, that guidance,
either by pointing out an ideal to aim at, or by indicating
fixed rules of conduct, cannot be given. People must make
their own experiments. How far men and women may go,
" in default of more certain physiological knowledge than we
have, is a matter which can only be left to the good sense
and feeling of those concerned." Poor humanity, according
to Edward Carpenter, must wander in the wilderness of
perplexity till the teachers of physiology can point a path
which the teachers of morality have failed to discover. This
is the very opposite of Tolstoy's view of the matter.

Of Grant Allen's The Woman who Did, he remarked that if
the author wished to show us how his theory would work out
in real life, he should not have killed off the hero so soon.
Trouble arises when, of two people, one wishes to be unfaith-
ful while the other is still faithful — but if you kill off one of

TALKS WITH TOLSTOY 203

the two you evade the problem. As to the theory that a
woman should be free to choose the father of her next child,
so as to produce the " best " child she can, Tolstoy replied :
" If you are talking about breeding horses, well and good.
Then we can have a definite idea of what sort of horse we
want : clean cut hoofs, thin legs, wide chest, shape of back
and flanks, head, etc., but about a child you can have no
such definite idea of what you want to produce — is it to be
a Shakespear, a Pascal, a Plato, or a martyr ? "

A writer with whom Tolstoy is very much in sympathy is
Henry George. Both the matter and the manner of Social
Problems and Progress and Poverty please him greatly. In the
middle of this century the great question was, in Russia the
abolition of serfdom, and in America the abolition of slavery.
To free the land is the next great question. Henry George
has directed attention to it ; he has not only expressed him-
self with clearness, individuality, and persuasive force, but his
practical scheme for dealing with the problem in a political
society such as now exists, appears to Tolstoy to be workable
and the best that has been proposed.

We here come upon what, at first sight, looks like a strange
contradiction. Tolstoy disapproves of the use of violence
between man and man. Not even an Emperor, or a Govern-
ment elected by a majority, has a right to execute anybody
or to imprison anybody. He is a peaceful anarchist. Yet he
is delighted with Henry George, whose system pre-supposes
the existence of a government enforcing the decisions of a
majority on a possibly reluctant minority — and he would be
glad to see the single-tax introduced in Russia.

But the contradiction admits of explanation. It is as
though a man in Quebec made up his mind to go as quickly
as possible to Vancouver's Island and live there in the
country. He meets another man who knows how best and
most cheaply to get to Montreal. The first man joins the
second man, and having convinced himself that Montreal is

204 TOLSTOY AND HIS PROBLEMS

the next point he must make for on his way to Vancouver's
Island, he feels a keen interest in his companion's prepara-
tions for the journey and heartily admires his skill in pack-
ing and arranging ; though all the time his own aspirations
are set on a country home on the Pacific coast, and he cares
little for cities or railways.

" The great majority of people still believe in governments
and legality — then let them, at least, see that they get good
laws," says Tolstoy. It appears to him utterly wrong that we
should maintain laws which will make those who work the
land in the next generation, dependent on a small number
who will be born possessed of the land. That a few of the
strongest, cleverest, or most grasping of the labourers may
meanwhile succeed in becoming landlords does not mend
matters.

He asked me once, when I had been to England for a few
weeks, how the single-tax movement was getting on.

I said that I thought it was a small movement not making
much way.

" How is that, when the question is one of such enormous
importance ? "

I said I thought that the great majority of Englishmen
were too conservative to attend to it, and the Socialists and
other advanced parties had gone past Henry George and
recognised interest, and private property in the means of
production, as being also wrong.

" That is a pity," said Tolstoy. " If the Conservatives are
too conservative to attend to it, and the advanced parties have
gone past it, who is to do this work that so urgently needs
doing ? "

Speaking of the same subject, Tolstoy remarked that some
men are born with the qualities and the limitations that enable
them to concentrate their powers on some one subject that
needs attention, and to see all that relates to it without
seeing anything that would turn their energies in other direc-
tions. So we get a Cobden to abolish corn-laws, and a>

TALKS WITH TOLSTOY 205

Henry George to elucidate the land question. God needs
such labourers as much as he does men of a wider sweep of
perception.

A work of Henry George's that Tolstoy is fond of recom-
mending, besides his more important and better known
works, is that careful investigation of Herbert Spencer's
change of front on the land question, A Perplexed Philosopher.
Herbert Spencer is not a favourite of Tolstoy's. Asked
one day whether he had made a careful study of Her-
bert Spencer's many volumes, he replied : " I have set to
work several times; but it is like chewing chaff!" The
fundamental difference between the views of the two men
lies in a matter to which I have already alluded, — one which
frequently comes to the front in Tolstoy's thoughts. To
Herbert Spencer and his school (though he objects to being
called a materialist) the real things are the external pheno-
mena observed through our senses. These are called upon
to explain everything, even to explain our subjective con-
sciousness of a moral law. To Tolstoy the latter conscious-
ness is the surest and most fundamental perception we possess.
That we discern a difference between good and evil is the
starting-point of all thought and activity. " Goodness is really
the fundamental metaphysical conception which forms the
essence of our consciousness ; it is a conception not defined
by reason, it is that which can be defined by nothing else
but which defines everything else : it is the highest, the
eternal, aim of life. Whatever our perception of the good
may be, our life is nothing but an effort towards the good —
i.e. towards God. The good is that which we call God."

Yet Tolstoy readily admits that the philosophy he criticises
has its very strong side. Our senses make us aware of ex-
ternal phenomena, and our perceptions of phenomena are
subject to fixed laws which can be investigated. And as long
as we do not forget that it is merely the relation of our per-
ceptions to phenomena that we are dealing with, such investi-

206 TOLSTOY AND HIS PROBLEMS

gation is in its place, and materialistic philosophy may be
admirable and valid.

In What is Art ? Tolstoy summarises the physiological
evolutionary definition of art thus : " Art is an activity
arising even in the animal kingdom and springing from
sexual desire and the propensity to play." (Schiller, Darwin,
Spencer.) But he says this is far from being exact, because —
" Instead of speaking about the artistic activity itself, which
is the real matter in hand, it treats of the derivation of art."
Similarly on other subjects Tolstoy seeks to deal with prob-
lems as they affect us, while the evolutionary philosophy
(whatever truth it possesses) is still striving " to set up an
explanation of phenomena which shall be valid in itself, and
without reference to the mental condition of those who set
it up," as Edward Carpenter points out.

Having mentioned Tolstoy's objection to the physiological
evolutionary school of esthetics, which is sometimes called
the English school, let it also be mentioned that I have
heard him speak with commendation of " the characteristi-
cally practical and definite work " done by English writers
on esthetics.

Home (Lord Karnes), in the eighteenth century, made a
real contribution in his definition of beauty ; and Darwin,
Herbert Spencer, Grant Allen, and James Sully, in the nine-
teenth century, if they have treated of but one side of the
matter, have at least avoided losing their way in the
metaphysical obscurities of the German school, and have
also made definite contributions.

Darwin's remarks on the origin of music : as being dis-
cernible in the call of birds to their mates, struck Tolstoy
as being particularly good.

Among Chinese philosophers, Lao-Tsze is the one Tolstoy
prefers, and he once planned, and himself commenced, a
Russian translation of the Tdo-Teh-King, based on the
existing European vei'sions.

TALKS WITH TOLSTOY 207

Of J. S. Mill's works, Tolstoy remarked that what he
liked best was the Autobiography. "■ It is amazing," said
Tolstoy, " that a man should have gone so far in his ex-
perience of life, and should have put the vital question
so clearly and so well, and yet should have stopped short
without finding the answer." Mill asked himself whether
the realisation of all the projects for the well-being of
humanity on which he was engaged would make him
happy, — and he frankly admitted that they would not. He
was thus left face to face with the question : What then
is the real purpose of my existence ?

Tolstoy's reply would be to this effect : The purpose of
my life is to understand, and as far as possible to do, the will
of that Power which has sent me here and which actuates
my reason and conscience.

Mill found no answer, and lived on with a sense that the
brightness had faded from life.

Tolstoy has projected many works that he has not found
time to produce. He would much like to write a short and
simple work on philosophy. In philosophy, Kant's work is
indispensable for us who live after him. There is no getting
away from the fundamental difference between subjective and
objective perceptions. But Kant's style is abominable, and
Kant did not do all that is needed. A. Spir, a Russian who
wrote in German and in French, carried Kant's work forward.
Tolstoy recommends a little book of less than 200 pages,
Esquisses de Philosophic Critique, as containing a concise state-
ment of Spir's conclusions. The work does not entirely
satisfy Tolstoy, but he is in fundamental agreement with it
as far as it goes.

Spir's work not being well known in England, it may be
well to quote the following characteristic passages approved
of by Tolstoy : —

" The perception that God is neither the cause nor, in any
sense, a sufficient reason of the existence of the world, and

208 TOLSTOY AND HIS PROBLEMS

cannot be used to explain it, establishes the independence of
physical science vis-a-vis of morality and religion. The per-
ception that the physical world is abnormal, founded on a
delusion, and that physical science has only a relative truth,
establishes the independence and the primacy of morality and
of religion vis-a-vis of physical science."

" To sacrifice the moral to the physical, as is done at pre-
sent, is to sacrifice the reality to a shadow ; it is to commit a
mistake which has to be expiated at a great price, for it is to
sacrifice all that can give value to life."

And elsewhere : " One obligation that we owe to truth has
never been recognised explicitly enough. The obligation
not to lie, not to say what you do not believe to be true, is
recognised ; but the obligation to accept as true only what is
satisfactorily proved to be so, is not recognised."

To the trend of thought represented by Nietzsche, Tolstoy
attaches great and sinister importance. A movement of
animalism showed itself in Europe at the Renaissance, but
that revolt of man's lower nature soon broke its force against
the seriousness that then still lived in Church Christianity.
A similar tendency is now reviving, expressing itself in the
philosophy of Nietzsche and in the art of the decadents, but
it now meets no such formidable breakwater : the Churches
are too rotten to offer serious i-esistance to it.

Feeling that the only power capable of resisting the attacks
of materialism and animalism is the inward light operating
through man's reason and conscience, Tolstoy is ready to
welcome all that shows how untenable are the positions
which Churchmen still try to defend, and how inadequate
the proofs they rely on. The following incident illustrates
this. He had one day been reading a book by a German
professor tending to show that as an historical personage
Jesus Christ probably never existed. (It was after I had left
Russia, but the story was told me by the lady who, at Tol-
stoy's request, translated into Russian part of the book in
question.) This delighted Tolstoy. "They are attacking

TALKS WITH TOLSTOY 209

the last of the outworks," said he, " and if they cany it, and
demonstrate that Christ never was born, it will be all the
more evident that the fortress of religion is impregnable.
Take away the Church, the traditions, the Bible, and even
Christ himself : the ultimate fact of man's knowledge of
goodness, i.e. of God, directly through reason and conscience,
will be as clear and certain as ever, and it will be seen that
we are dealing with truths that can never perish — truths that
humanity can never afford to part with." l

This may seem to some readers like an abandonment of the
position Tolstoy held when he was writing The Four Gospels
and the Gospel in Brief ; but really it is only the same position
viewed from the other side. He then maintained that what
is essential in the Gospels derives authority, not from some
supernatural revelation but from its correspondence with
man's reason and conscience ; and what he now means is that
even though the case against the historic existence of Jesus
should grow stronger and stronger, and it should become
more and more evident that we do not know where the
Gospels were composed, or when, or who wrote them — all
this will in no way infringe the validity of that teaching and
that understanding of life which Tolstoy and many others
have found in the Gospels, and which once perceived can
never be ignored.

1 I leave the above as it stood in the first edition, but I have to
thank my friend Paul Birnkoff for drawing my attention to the follow-
ing communication sent by Tolstoy to him, when he was editing a
monthly review in Geneva, concerning the book in question, by Verus :
Vergleichende Uebersicht tier vier Evangelien. Leipzig. Vaudik. 1897.

" In this book it is very well argued (the probability is as strong
against as for) that Christ never existed. Read the book and make an
abstract of it. That, however, has been done in the Schlusswort and
good Anhang : Buddha and Jesus. This supposition or probability is
like the destruction of the last outskirts exposed to the enemies' attack,
in order that the fortress (the moral teaching of goodness, which flows,
not from any one source in time or space but from the whole spiritual
life of humanity in its entirety) may remain impregnable."

210 TOLSTOY AND HIS PROBLEMS

At an early stage of my intimacy with Tolstoy I took him
one of Professor Herron's hooks, thinking that he would be
delighted with it. But he gave it me back with the remark
that Herron was not clear, and was still using such terms as
"redemption" in a semi-orthodox and confusing manner.
Soon after this he received a letter from Professor Herron,
who sent him one of his books. Tolstoy answered frankly,
though he feared that his letter might hurt Herron ; but
a reply came which charmed Tolstoy by its gentle and
courteous acceptance of his straightforward criticism.

Between Herron and Tolstoy there is the obvious simi-
larity that both insist emphatically that the economics of
Jesus must be taken seriously. But there is a great dif-
ference between Tolstoy's uncompromising call to poverty
and simplicity of life, and Herron's eloquent involutions on
the " social sacrifice of conscience."

Mention is so frequently made of 'Tolstoy Colonies' in
connection with groups of people trying to get ' back to the
land ' and to simplify their lives, that it is often assumed that
Tolstoy recommends people to make such experiments. The
following words, from a letter written in March 1896 to
John C. Kenworthy, concerning a small group called the
"Brotherhood Church" in Croydon, and who were pre-
paring to start a ' Colony ' at Purleigh, in Essex, may help
to correct this mistake : —

"Last night I dreamed that I was in Croydon with you
and made acquaintance with all our friends, with Mr. Baker
and some ladies, and we had a great discussion with them
on the theme which is to me always the nearest at heart
— i.e. that we must all of us direct our whole strength, not
to our outer surroundings (in my dream I saw that yours was
a Community in a big house) but to the inner life!"

Four months later he wrote again : " I think that a great
part of the evil of the world is due to our wishing to see
the realisation of what we are striving at but are not yet

TALKS WITH TOLSTOY 211

ready for, and our being therefore satisfied with the sem-
blance of that which should be. . . . We are so created that
we cannot become perfect either one by one or in groups,
but (from the very nature of the case) only all together."

Speaking on education, he said that if a child lack appetite
we do not force food down his throat with a spoon, but we
give him fresh air and exercise. So, if a child lack desire
for knowledge do not cram his head with lessons which
may make him permanently hate learning, but rather seek
for him those healthy conditions in which the child's natural
desire for knowledge will revive.

We must not hope to bring up our children well so long
as we ourselves live in artificial and abnormal surroundings.
We cannot go on living wrongly and yet educate them well.
If the children see the parents living simply, and doing work
the need for which is obvious, they will soon wish to share
in the activities of the grown-up people and will take
pains to learn to do so. And if the parents are keenly
alive to questions of general interest this will excite the
curiosity of the children also, and the latter will begin to
think, and to pick up knowledge almost instinctively.
Sending children away to school, and letting them become
estranged from us just when their minds are forming, is a
very bad way of shirking our duties.

Education and instruction are two different things. When
it is a question of imparting instruction it is quite right that
classes should be formed and that children should learn
together. There is a natural competition among children
the stimulus of which should not be lost by isolating them
from their fellows.

• • • • • •

On another occasion : —

" I divide men," said Tolstoy, " into two lots. They are
freethinkers, or they are not -freethinkers. I am not
speaking of the Freethinkers who form a political party in

212 TOLSTOY AND HIS PROBLEMS

Germany, nor of the agnostic English Freethinkers, but I
am using the word in its simplest meaning." Freethinkers
are those who are willing to use their minds without pre-
judice, and without fearing to understand things that clash
with their own customs, privileges, or beliefs. This state
of mind is not common, but it is essential for right thinking ;
where it is absent, discussion is apt to become worse than
useless. A man may be a Catholic, a Frenchman, or a
capitalist, and yet be a freethinker ; but if he put his
Catholicism, his patriotism, or his interest, above his reason,
and will not give the latter free play where those subjects
are touched, he is not a freethinker. His mind is in
bondage.

On another occasion, when we were speaking of religion,
Tolstoy made the startling statement that — " There are two
Gods." He went on, however, to explain himself : " There
is the God that people generally believe in — a God who has
to serve them (sometimes in very refined ways, say by merely
giving them peace of mind). This God does not exist.
But the God whom people forget — the God whom we all
have to serve — exists and is the prime cause of our existence
and of all that we perceive."

In these matters we should be very careful not to state
as a fact anything that we are not sure about. To do so
will lead us into logical perplexities. We should be careful
to base ourselves on what is ' necessary and sufficient.'
To assert that there is a cause from which we receive reason
and conscience, and to call this God, whose voice speaks
within us, is to recognise and express a fact of which each
conscientious man has had experience. But to go on (as
the books of Moses do) and say that God created the
heavens and the earth, is to go beyond what I can really
know, and exposes me to all sorts of difficulties. As all
that I can know about the heavens, the earth, my own
brain, and all else that is external to my inner self (which
perceives, and approves or disapproves) — is merely the

TALKS WITH TOLSTOY 213

effect these external things have on me and on other creatures
like me, it would, in a sense, be truer to say, not that God
made the world but that we made it. So that the old pro-
blem : Why did a good God create pain, and sin, and failure ?
may not be so insoluble after all.

INDEX

Abolitionists, 104, 180, 181
Adaptation to Environment, 128
Afterword to the " Kreutzer Sonata,"

21,32
Africa painted red, 174
Africa, South, 103, 1 f>2 et seq.
Allen, Grant, 202, 206
Amiel, Henri, 200
Anarchist-Communists, 199
Anatomy of Misery, The, 200
Anna Karinina, 7, 25, CO, 91
Arbitration, 11, 164, 166
Armaments, 163
Army, 2, 91

Arnold, Matthew, 65, 192, 193
Art criticism, 39
Art, Destiny of, 57
Art, Definition of, 46, 50, 70
' Art for art's sake,' 38
Art infectiousness, 46, 50, 53, 72,

74
Art of the future, 57, 75, 76
Art, Physiological - evolutionary

definition of, 71, 206
Art, Subject-matter of, 52, 72
Art unites men, 53, 74
Art? What is, 21, 37 et seq., 83,

206
Auerbach, Berthold, 199
Autobiography (Mill's), 207

Bkadtt, 42, 57, 68, 79
Beit, Alfred, 103, 177

Bellows, John, 151, 152, 187
Bible, The, 26, 48, 180
Blatchford, Robert, 197
Boers, The, 18, 158, 165
Boer War, The, 152 et seq.
Brotherhood, Church (Croydon), 210
British Imperialism, 170, 179
Brunhes, H. J., 41
Buddha and Jesus, 209
Biitnerbauer, Der, 200
Burns, Robert, 48

Cesar, Tribute to, 173

Carpenter, Edward, 201, 206

Carus, Paul, 200

Censorship, 64, 89, 90

Chastity, 202

Christ (.see also Jesus), 50

Christian Teaching, The, 21, 27, 85

Christmas Carol, The, 53

Church, The, 26, 209

City life, 117

Civil Disobedience, 104, 105, 199,

200
Civilisation, Our, 117
Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure,

201
Civil War, American, 110
Clarke, Allen, 200
Coercion V. persuasion, 30
Colonies (Tolstoyan), 210
Commandments, Five, 15, 27
Comment on Christmas, A, 193

216

INDEX

Committee, South African, 159
Conscience, 128, 139, 144
Consistency, 23
Conventions of 1881 and 1884, The,

153, 165, 167
Copyright, 89

Coronation, The Tsar's, 109 et seq.
Creation, The, 8, 212
Cosmopolitan, The, 93
Crimean War, 2, 3
Criticism of Dogmatic Theology, A,

21, 26

Daltonism, 136

Darwin, C, 71, 122, 206

David, 63

Dickens, Charles, 53, 190

' Division of products,' 39, 118

DostoyeVsky, 192

Doukhobdrs, The, 23, 87, 120

Drawing-Room, A Queen's, 113

Dress, 20, 113

Breams, 191

Echo de Paris, 91

Economics, 30

Education, 1, 2, 5, 85, 211

Edwards, Joseph, 196

Effects of the Factory System, The,

200
Eloquence, 193
Emancipation movement, 5, 180,

181
Emerson, 192, 200
England, The land of, 178
Environment, Adaptation to, 128
Epicureans, 11
Esquisses de Philosophic Critique,

207
Esthetics, Science of, 69
Ethics of Diet, The, 200
Evolution, 8, 127
Excommunication, 22

Faith and Credulity, 29

Famine (Russian), 23, 88

Farrar, Dean, 117

Fielding, H., 200

First Step, The, 200

Five Commandments, 15, 27

Flesh and Fruit, 200

Folk songs and legends, 73

Four Gospels Harmonised, The, 21,

27, 209
Francis, St. (of Assisi), 102, 200
Free thought, 144, 212
Friends (Quakers), 168, 181
Future life, 32

Garrison, William Lloyd, 180,

192
Geneva editions, 65
Genesis, 48, 78
George, Henry, 50, 203-205
Gladstone, W. E., 121, 159
God, 1, 12, 27, 63, 207, 212
God and the Bible, 193
Goodness, 145, 189, 205
Gospels, The, 12 et seq., 21, 26, 28,

50, 209
Gospel in Brief, The, 21, 27, 209
Gospel parables, The, 48, 73
Government, 31, 99, 102, 119,

204
Greeks, The ancient, 75
Guyau, J., 68
Guizot, F., 102

Head and heart, 189

Health, 6

Herron, G. D., 210

Herzen, A., 192

Hilk6f, Prince D. A., 120, 121

Hodinskoe Field, The, 111, 112

Holy Synod, The, 22

Homer, 35, 48

Howells, Wm. Dean, 65, 193

INDEX

217

How to read the Gospels, 27
Hugo, Victor, 190
Humnnitarianism, 200
Huxley, T. H, 132
Hypnotism, 11, 109

Iliad, 73

Imperialism, British, 170, 179

India, Conquest of, 111

Inquisition, 177

Insurance company, An, 115

Intoxicants, 20, 84

'Inward light,' The, 145, 208

Isaiah, 114

Jameson Raid, The, 103, 111, 158,

177
Japanese decorative art, 73
Jesus, 13, 18, 138, 173, 177
Jingoism, 195
Johnston, Vera, 200
Joseph, 53, 73, 78
Joubert, General, 170
Journal Intime (Amiel's), 200
Judging, 145

Kames, Lord (Home), 206

Karma, 200

Kant, Immanuel, 207

Kazan, 2

Kenworthy, John 0., 63, 200, 210

Kingdom of God is Within You,

The, 21, 29, 34
Kingsford, Dr. Anna, 200
Kipling, Rudyard, 43
Kralik, R., 68

Krcutzer Sonata, The, 21, 32, 65
Kropdtkin, Prince P., 198

Labour Annual, The, 196
La Conquite du Pain, ] 98
Land Question, The, bt!, 178, 203
Laws, 99, 204

Lao Tsze, 206

Legality, 101

Les Sens de la Vie, 200

Letters from Tolstoy quoted, 41,

94, 95, 96, 182-185
Literature, 63, 66
Literature and Dogma, 193
Life, 14, 137, 141
Life, Eternal, 142
Life, True, 134
Longfellow, H. W., 192
Love at first sight, 59
Lowell, J. R., 192
Loyalty, 109, 176
Lust, Do not, 16

Macaulay, Lord, 102, 119
Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon,

The, 196,
" Making a pipe of oneself," 23,

87, 88
Malthus, T. R., 197
Marriage, 6
Marx, Karl, 197
Materialism, 136
Maupassant, Guy de, 200
Meaning of our life, The, 14
Merime'e, 200
Merrie England, 196
Mill, John S., 118, 207
Miracles, 13, 114
Modern Science, 201
Money, 95

Morality, 5, 58, 122, 127, 142, 143
Morals, Instability of, 143
Morley, John, 200
Morris, William, 42
Moses, 8, 212
Music, 37, 76

My Confession, 4, 21, 25, 26
My Religion, 21, 27
Mysticism, 54

218

INDEX

National Anthem, 174

Nature, 140

Necessaries of life, 13

Newspapers, 158

Nietzsche, Friedrich, 208

Nihilists, 103

Nirvana, 200

Non-resistance, 14, 17, 34, 44, 98

Novels, 190

Oaths, 16

Obole"nsky, Princess, 200

Odyssey, 73

On Compromise, 200

Origen, 181

On Life, 21, 62, 137

Orthodox Russian Church, 120

Paley, William, 103

Palmerston, Lord, 111

Parker, Theodore, 192

Pascal, Blaise, 137, 171

Patriotism, 12, 18, 109, 148, 151,
173-179, 195

Paul, St. (Epistles of), 26

Peace Societies, 168, 181

Peasants, The, 3, 12, 47, 50

Penal Code, 100

Perception, Religious, 56, 74, 75

Perceptions, Objective and Subjec-
tive, 207

Perplexed Philosopher, A, 205

Persecution, 10

Philosophy, 131, 136

Physiological - evolutionary defini-
tion of Art, 71, 206

Plato, 203

Pobedonostsef, K. P., 90

Poetry, 193

Polenz, W. von, 200

Predetermination, 131, 144

Priests, The, 9

Progress man's normal state, 24

Progress and Poverty, 203
Proof-correcting, 92
Property, 19
Proudhon, 199
Psalms, The, 73
Purleigh Colony, The, 210

Quakers, 168, 181
Quarterly Review, 67, 77-82
Quo Vadis, 192

Raid, The Jameson, 103, 111, 158,

177
Ralston, W., 65
Re-incarnation, 142
Religion, 1

Religious perception, 56, 74, 75
Renaissance, 208
" Resist not him that is evil," 14,

17, 44
Resurrection, 22, 23, 35, 61, 65, 83

et seq.
Review of Reviews, 195
Rhodes, Cecil, 157-159, 177
Right and Wrong, 126 et seq
Right? Is there a, 123, 134
' Rights,' 118
Rod, Edouard, 200
Romeo and Juliet, 58-60
Rousseau, J. J., 199
Ruskin et la Bible, 41
Ruskin, John, 40, 41

Sabatier, Paul, 200

St. Francis of Assisi, 102, 200

St. Paul (Epistles of), 26

Salcya Muni, 73

Salt, Henry, 200

Schrie"ner, Olive, 191

Schools, 1, 5

Schopenhauer, A., 199

Science, 22, 50, 70, 80, 81, 129

Science, Modern, 201

INDEX

219

Scientific 'facts,' 136

Scientific 'laws,' 197

Scientists, The, 8

Science of esthetics, 69

Scientific Basis of Vegetarianism,

200
Sermon on the Mount, 14 et seq.
Sex-attraction, 16, 149
Sex-question, 33, 61, 86, 91, 201, 202
Sex-passion, 148
Sexual union, 147
Shaw, Miss Flora, 54, 157
Shaw, G. Bernard, 66
Shakespear, Wm., 39, 58, 60, 194
Shankaracarya, 200
Sienkiewicz, Henryk, 192
Simplicity of life, 84
Sincerity in art, 48
Single-Tax, 203-204
Slavery, 184
Slavery of Our Times, The, 30, 98

et seq.
Smith, Adam, 122
Smith, W. H., 154
Social-Democrats, 197
Socialism, 66, 103, 197
Social Problems, 50, 203
Society of Friends. (See Quakers)
Socrates, 85, 136
Soul of a People, The, 200
South African Committee, 159
South African War, 151 et seq.,

182 et seq.
Spencer, Herbert, 71, 134, 205,

206
Spir, A., 207

Stead, W. T., 86, 195, 196
Stendhal, 199
Stimulants, 20
Stockham, Dr. Alice, 200
'Struggle for Existence,' 147
Suicide, 8, 12
Sully, James, 206

"Suzerainty," 153-155, 159, 164-

165
Synthetic Philosophy, 205

Tao-Teh-King, 206

Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay, 49

Taxation, 164

Temperance, 84

Thoreau, Henry, 104, 105. 192,

199
Thought, 137. 144, 171, 212
Times, The, 157, 158
Tokology, 200

Tolstoy, Countess S. A., 6
Tolstoy, Countess Mary L., 200
Tolstoy, Count Leo, 54, 64, 78, 84,

91, 94
Tolstoy, Count Serge, 201
Tolstoy : Bis Life and WorTcs, 63
Tourgenef, 65, 192
Transvaal military expenditure, 163
Tribute to Cassar, 107, 173
Trinity, The, 120
Trooper Peter Halkett, 191
True life, la4
Truth, 24, 126, 208
Truth ? What is, 122
Truth and falsehood, 30
Tsar's Coronation, 109 et seq.

TJlTLANDERS, 1(54, 166

Ultimatum, Boer, 155
University, 1
Unto this Last, 41

Vedas, The, 73

Vegetarianism, 20, 84, 14], 201
Vergleichrnde Ucbersicht der vier

Evangelien, 209
Veron, E., 68
Verus, 209

Vie de S. Francois d' Assise, 200
Violence, 99, 100, 102, 103

220

INDEX

Walkley, A. B., 66

Ward, Mrs. Humphrey, 191

War, 2, 9, 17, 151, 167

War, American Civil, 110

War against War in South Africa

195
War and Peace, 7, 60
War, Crimean, 2, 3
War expenditure, 163
War, South African, 151 et seq.,

182 et scq.
Wealth, 7
What is Art? 21, 34, 37 et seq., 83,

206
What is the meaning of life ? 7
What I believe, 21, 27

What then must we do? 21, 30, 98
Why do people stupefy themselves?

188
Whitman, Walt, 192
Whittier, J. G., 192
Wilhelm II., 17
Williams, Howard, 200
Woman Who Did, The, 202
Woolman, John, 104
Work, 26

Wyclif, John, 102, 121
Wysewa, T. de, 90

YAsnaya Poly ana, 2, 194, 200

Zola, Emile, 191

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