Page:Tolstoy - Christianity and Patriotism.djvu/102

 the stronger will be the expression of it. The Governments and the ruling classes do their very utmost to keep up the old public opinion of patriotism on which their power is established, and restrain the manifestations of the new public opinion which will destroy it. But to keep up what is old and to hold back what is new can only be done up to certain limits, just as it is only within certain limits that a dam can hold back flowing water.

In spite of the endeavours of the Governments to excite in the peoples the public opinion of the past in regard to the worth and glory of patriotism, a feeling no longer natural to them, the men of our day are already ceasing to believe in patriotism, and are beginning more and more to believe in the solidarity and brotherhood of nations. Patriotism no longer offers to men anything but a fearful future; while the brotherhood of the nations is the ideal which is becoming more and more intelligible and desirable for humanity. And so the transition from the outlived public opinion of the past to the new public opinion must inevitably come to pass. This transition is as inevitable as the fall in spring of the last dead leaves and the opening of the young ones from the swollen buds.

And the longer this transition is dragged out, the more persistent it becomes and the more obvious its necessity.