Page:Tolstoy - Essays and Letters.djvu/38

 or a well-to-do Chinaman's moderate dose of opium; and the smoking of tobacco with them—is done only for pleasure, and has no effect whatever on these people's consciences.

It is supposed that if after this customary stupefaction no crime is committed: nor theft, nor murder, but only customary bad and stupid actions—then these actions have occurred of themselves and are not evoked by the stupefaction. It is supposed that if these people have not committed offences against the criminal law, they have no need to stifle the voice of conscience, and that the life led by people who habitually stupefy themselves is quite a good life, and would be precisely the same if they did not stupefy themselves. It is supposed that the constant use of stupefiers does not in the least darken their consciences.

Though everybody knows by experience that one's frame of mind is altered by the use of wine or tobacco, that one is not ashamed of things which but for the stimulant one would be ashamed of, that after each twinge of conscience, however slight, one is inclined to have recourse to some stupefier, and that under the influence of stupefiers it is difficult to reflect on one's life and position, and that the constant and regular use of stupefiers produces the same physiological effect as its occasional immoderate use does—yet, in spite of all this, it seems to men who drink and smoke moderately, that they use stupefiers not at all to stifle conscience, but only for the flavour or for pleasure.

But one need only think of the matter seriously and impartially—not trying to excuse one's self—to understand, first, that if the use of stupefiers in large occasional doses stifles man's conscience, their regular use must have a like effect (always first intensifying and then dulling the activity of the brain) whether they are taken in large or small doses. Secondly, that all stupefiers have the quality of stifling conscience, and have this always—both when under their influence murders, robberies, and violations are committed, and when under their influence words are spoken which