Page:Leo Tolstoy - The Russian Revolution (1907).djvu/63

 46 which others now fly from the four quarters of the globe, like larks toward a mirror. They have, as it were, formed one collective soul, so that men in future may realise together, consciously and irresistibly, the approaching union and steady progress of nations that were but recently hostile one to another. This new soul I find and recognise in events seemingly most calculated to deny it.

"These armaments of all nations, these threats their representatives address to one another, this recrudescence of race persecutions, these hostilities among compatriots, are all things of evil aspect, but not of evil augury. They are the last convulsions of that which is about to disappear. The social body is like the human body. Disease, in this case, is but a violent effort of the organism to throw off a morbid and harmful element.

"Those who have profited, and expect for long or or ever to continue to profit by the mistakes of the past, are uniting to prevent any modification of existing conditions. Hence these armaments and threats and persecutions; but look carefully and you will see that all this is quite superficial. It is colossal, but hollow. There is no longer any soul in it—the soul has gone elsewhere; these millions of armed men who are daily drilled to prepare for a general war of extermination, no longer hate the men they are expected to fight, and none of their leaders dares to proclaim this war. As for the appeals, and even the threatening claims, that rise from the suffering and the oppressed—a great and sincere pity, recognising their justice, begins at last to respond from above.

"Agreement is inevitable, and will come at an appointed time, nearer than is expected.

"I know not if it be because I shall soon leave this earth, and the rays that are already reaching me from below the horizon have disturbed my sight, but I believe our world is about to begin to realise the words, 'Love one another' without, however, being concerned whether a man or a God uttered them.

"The spiritual movement one recognises on all sides, and which so many naïve and ambitious men expect to be able to direct, will be absolutely humanitarian. Mankind, which does nothing moderately, is about to be seized with a frenzy, a madness, of love. This will not, of course, happen smoothly or all at once 5 it will involve misunderstandings—even sanguinary ones perchance—so trained and so accustomed have we been to hatred, even by those, sometimes, whose mission it was to teach us to love one another. But it is evident that this great law of brotherhood must be accomplished some day, and I am convinced that the time is commencing when our desire for its accomplishment will become irresistible."

I believe that this thought, however strange the expression "seized with a frenzy of love" may seem, is perfectly true, and is felt more or less dimly by all men of our day. A time must come when love, which forms the fundamental essence of the soul, will