Page:Leo Tolstoy - The Russian Revolution (1907).djvu/59

 42 tinually move towards the unknown; changing not because certain men have formed brain-spun plans as to what these changes should be, but in consequence of a tendency inherent in all men to strive towards moral perfection, attainable by the infinitely varied activity of millions and millions of human lives, Therefore the relation in which men will stand towards one another, and the forms into which they shape society depend entirely on the inner characters of men, and not at all on forecasting this or that form of life which they desire to adopt. Yet those who do not believe in God's law, always imagine that they can know what the future state of society should be, and not only define this future state, but do all sorts of things they themselves admit to be evil, in order to mould human society to the shape they think it ought to take.

That others do not agree with them, and think that social life should be quite differently arranged, does not disturb them; and having assured themselves that they can know what the future of society ought to be, they not only decide this theoretically, but act: fight, seize property, imprison and kill men, to establish the form in which, according to their ideas, mankind will be happy.

The old argument of Caiaphas, "It is expedient that one man should die, and that the whole nation perish not," seems irrefutable to such people. Of course they must kill, not one man only, but hundreds and thousands of men, if they are fully assured that the death of these thousands will give welfare to millions. People who do not believe in God and His law, cannot but argue thus. Such people live in obedience only to their passions, to their reasonings, and to social hypnotism, and have never considered their destiny of life, nor wherein the real happiness of humanity consists or, if they have thought about it, they have decided that this cannot be known. And these people, who do not know wherein the welfare of a single man lies, imagine that they know, and know beyond all doubt, what is needed for the welfare of society as a whole: know it so certainly, that to attain that welfare, as they understand it, they commit deeds of violence, murders and executions, which they themselves admit to be evil.