Page:Tolstoy - Essays and Letters.djvu/202

 186 ESSAYS AND LErfERS

are totally ignorant of what mil result from our actions.

Christian teaching indicates what a man should do to perform the will of Him who sent him into life ; but discussion as to what results we anticipate from such or such human actions have nothing to do with Christianity, but are just an example of the error Christianity eliminates.

None of us has ever yet met the imaginary robber with the imaginary child, but all the horrors which fill the annals of history and of our own times came and come from this one thing — that people will believe that they can foresee the results of hypothetical future actions.

The case is this : People once lived an animal life, and violated or killed whom they thought well to violate or to kill. They even ate each other ; and public opinion approved of it. Thousands of years ago, as far back as the times of Moses, a day came when people realized that to violate or kill each other is bad. But there were people for whom the reign of force was advantageous, and these did not approve of the change, but assured themselves and others that to do deeds of violence and to kill people is not always bad, but that tliere are circumstances when it is necessary and even moral. And violence and even slaughter, though not so frequent or so cruel as before, continued — only with this diiference, that those who committed or commended such acts excused themselves by pleading that they did it for the benefit of humanity.

It was just this sophistical justification of violence that Christ denounced. AVlien two enemies fight, each may think his own conduct justified by the circum- stances. Excuses can be made for every use of violence ; and no infallible standard has ever been discovered by which to measure the worth of these excuses. There- fore Christ taught us to believe in no excuse for violence, and (contrary to what had been taught by them of old time) never to use violence.

One would have thought that those who professed