Page:Tolstoy - Essays and Letters.djvu/182

 166 ESSAYS AND LETTERS

tlie man lie was before. Tlio only result of the torture inflicted uj»on him was to make him scorn the authority which decrees such punishments. But to many youno; people_, not only the punishment itself but often even the knovledj2:e that it is possible, acts debasinirly on their moral feelings, brutalizing some and making others des|)erate. Yet even that is not the chief evil. Tlie greatest evil is in the mental condition of those who arrange, sanction, and decree these abominations, of those wlio employ them as threats, and of all who live in the conviction that such violations of ju>tice and humanity are needful conditions of a good and orderly life. > hat terrible moral perversion must exist in tlie minds and hearts of those— often young men — who, with an air of j)rofound practical wisdom, say (as 1 have myself heard said) that it won't do not to flog peasants, and that it is better for the peasants themsehes to bo flogged.

These are the people most to be pitied for the debase ment into which they have sunk, and in which they are stagnating.

Therefore, the emancipation of the Russian people from the degrading influence of a legalized crime is, from every a>j)cct, a matter of enormous importance. And this emancij>ation will be accomplished, not when exemption from cor}>oral punishment is obtained by those who have a school diploma, or by any other set of i)easants, nor even when all the peasants but one are exempted, but it will only be accomplished when the governing classes confess their siu and humbly repent.

[December 14, o.s., 1895.]