Page:Leo Tolstoy - The Russian Revolution (1907).djvu/105

 88 And therefore, Eastern nations seeing all the calamity of the Western peoples, should naturally endeavour to free themselves from the error of human authority, not by that artificial and delusive method consisting in the imaginary limitation of power, and in representation by which Western nations have endeavoured to free themselves, but should solve the problem of Power by another more radical and simple plan. And this plan of itself appeals to those who have not yet lost faith in the supreme, binding law of Heaven or God, the law of Tao, It consists merely in the following of this law which excludes the possibility of obeying human authority.

If the Chinese people were only to continue to live, as they have formerly lived, a peaceful industrious agricultural life, following in their conduct the principles of their three religions: Confucianism, Taoism, Buddhism, all three in their basis coinciding: Confucianism in the liberation from all human authority, Taoism in not doing to others what one does not wish done to oneself, and Buddhism in love towards all men and all living beings, then of themselves would disappear all those calamities from which they now suffer, and no Powers could overcome them.

The task which, according to my opinion, is now pending not only for China but for all the Eastern nations, does not merely a consist in freeing themselves from the evils they suffer from their own Governments and foreign nations, but in pointing out to all nations the issue out of the transitory position in which they all are.

And there is and can be no other issue than the liberation of oneself from human authority, and submission to the divine authority.