Page:The Complete Works of Lyof N. Tolstoi - 11 (Crowell, 1899).djvu/106

82 mutual murdering and plundering should be to expose the deception under which the masses are laboring; to point out to them how the deceit is perpetrated, by what means it is being upheld, and how to get rid of it.

The enlightened people of Europe, however, do nothing of the kind, but, under the pretext of furthering the establishment of peace, they assemble now in one, now in another city of Europe, and, seated at tables, with most serious faces, they discuss the question how best to persuade those brigands who live by their plunder to give up robbing, and become peaceful citizens; and then they put the profound questions: first, whether war is still desirable from the standpoint of history, law, and progress (as if such fictions, invented by us, could demand from us deviation from the fundamental moral law of our life); secondly, as to what are the consequences of war (as if there could be any doubt that the consequences of war are always general distress and corruption); and finally, as to how to solve the problem of war (as if it were a difficult problem how to free deluded people from a delusion which we clearly see).

This is terrible! We see, for instance, how healthy, calm, and frequently happy people year after year arrive at some gambling-den like Monte Carlo, and, benefiting no one but the keepers of those dens, leave there their health, peace, honor, and often their lives. We pity these people; we see clearly that the deceit to which they are subjected consists in those temptations whereby gamblers are allured, in the inequality of the chances, and in the infatuation of gamblers who, though fully aware that in general they are sure to be losers, nevertheless hope for once at least to be more fortunate than the rest. All this is perfectly clear.

And then, in order to free people from these miseries, we—instead of pointing out to them the temptations to which they are subjected, the fact that they are sure to lose, and the immorality of gambling, which is based on the expectation of other people's misfortunes—assemble with grave faces at meetings, and discuss how to arrange that the keepers of gambling-houses