Page:Leo Tolstoy - The Russian Revolution (1907).djvu/65

 48 laws of religious ritual for every nation and every sect; or the so-called scientific laws of matter and the imaginary laws of sociology (which do not bind men to anything) or, finally, civil laws, which men themselves can institute and change? Such an error is possible for a time, but why should we suppose that people to whom one and the same divine law written in their hearts has been revealed in the teaching of the Brahmins, Buddha, Lao-Tsze, Confucius and Christ, will not at last follow this one basis of all laws, affording as it does moral satisfaction and a joyful social life—but that they will always follow that wicked and pitiful tangle of Church, scientific, and Governmental teaching, which diverts their attention from the one thing needful, and directs it towards what can be of no use to them, as it does not show them how each separate man should live?

Why should we think that men will continue unceasingly and deliberately to torment themselves, some trying to rule over others, others with hatred and envy submitting to the rulers and seeking means themselves to become rulers? Why should we think that the progress men pride themselves on will always lie in the increase of population and the preservation of life, and never in the moral elevation of life? Will lie in miserable mechanical inventions by which men will produce ever more and more harmful, injurious and demoralising objects, and not lie in greater and greater unity one with another, and in that subjugation of their lusts which is necessary to make such unity possible? Why should we not suppose that men will rejoice and vie with one another, not in riches and luxuries, but in simplicity and frugality and in kindness one towards another? Why should we not suppose that men will see progress, not in seizing more and more for themselves, but in taking less and less from others, and in giving more and more to others; not in increasing their power, not in fighting more and more successfully, but in growing more and more humble, and in coming into closer and closer union, man with man and nation with nation?

Instead of imagining men unrestrainedly yielding to their