Page:Tolstoy - Demands of Love and Reason.djvu/16

Rh of the slavery which results from force, can a service of man become possible which will not necessarily lead to the sacrifice of life itself.

But how is force to be destroyed? Where is it? It is in the soldiers, in the police, in officials, and in the lock which fastens my door. How can I strive against it? Where, and in what? It is here that we find people, revolutionists, who, whilst maintaining their own lives altogether under the system of force, strive against this force, opposing violence to violence. But for a sincere man this is impossible. To fight force by force means merely to replace the old violence by a new one. To help by "culture," founded on force, is to do the same. To collect money, obtained by violence, and use it to aid people impoverished by force, means to heal by violence wounds inflicted by violence. Even in the case I have imagined; not to admit a sick man to my hut and my bed, and to refuse the six shillings because I can, by force, retain them, is also to make use of compulsion. Therefore, in our society the struggle against force does not, for him who would live in brotherhood, eliminate the necessity of yielding up his life, of being eaten by lice, and of dying, whilst at the same time, always striving against violence, preaching non-resistance, exposing violence, and above all giving an example