Page:The Complete Works of Lyof N. Tolstoi - 11 (Crowell, 1899).djvu/326

302, that, nevertheless, would not in the least change the position. If to-day the Dukhobors in the Caucasus should yield, being unable any longer to bear the sufferings which overcome their old men and women, their wives and children, still, to-morrow, there would arise other contenders, ready on all hands, more and more boldly proclaiming their principles, and less and less liable to yield. Does truth cease to be truth because the men who professed it become weak under the pressure of torture? That which is of God must conquer that which is of man.

"But what will happen if government is brought to an end?" I hear the question which is always put by those who think that if we lose that which we now have, then there will remain nothing, everything will be lost.

There is always the one answer to this question. There will be the thing which ought to be, that which is well-pleasing to God, which is according to the law He has put in our hearts and revealed to our minds. If government should be abolished by us in the way of revolution, certainly the question as to what will be after government is done away with would require an answer from the abolitionists. But the abolition which is now in process is taking place, not because some one, or some body of men, have resolved upon it, but government is being swept away because it is not according to the will of God which He has revealed to our minds and put into our hearts.

A man who refuses to kill and imprison his brother man does not purpose to destroy government; he merely wishes not to do that which is contrary to the will of God; he is merely avoiding that which not only he, but every one who is above the brute, undoubtedly considers evil. If through this, government be destroyed, it only shows that the demands of government are contrary to God's will—that is, they are evil; and thus government, being in itself an evil, comes to be destroyed. The change which is now taking place in the social life of the nations, although we cannot exactly tell what form it will take in the future, cannot be bad, because it proceeds, and will