Page:Tolstoy - Essays and Letters.djvu/201

Rh actions long since condemned by his reasonable conscience.

I see a robber killing a child and I can save the child by killing the robber—therefore in certain cases violence must be used to resist evil. A man's life is in danger, and can be saved only by my telling a lie — therefore in certain cases one must lie. A man is starving, and one can save him only by stealing—therefore in certain cases one must steal.

I lately read a story by Coppée, in which an orderly kills his officer, whose life was insured, and thereby saves the honour and the family of the officer, Therefore in certain cases one must kill.

Such inventions, and the deductions from them, only prove that there are men who know that it is not well to steal, to lie, or to kill, but who are still so unwilling that people should cease to do these things, that they use all their mental powers to invent excuses for such conduct. There is no moral law concerning which we may not devise a case in which it is difficult to decide what is more moral: to disobey the law or to obey it? But all such inventions fail to prove that the laws, 'thou shalt not lie, steal, or kill,' are invalid.

It is the same with reference to the law of Non-Resistance. People know it is wrong to use violence, but they are so anxious to continue to live a life secured by the 'strong arm of the law,' that—instead of devoting their intellects to the elucidation of the evils which have flowed and are still flowing from admitting that man has a right to use violence to his fellow-men — they prefer to exert their mental powers in defence of that error.

Fais ce que dois, advienne que pourra ('Do what's right, come what may') is an expression of profound wisdom. We each can know indubitably what we ought to do, but what results will follow from our actions none of us either knows or can know. Therefore it follows that, besides feeling the call of duty, we are further driven to act as' duty bids us, by the consideration that we have no other guidance, but