fact that on the supposition that the perfection which Christ
points to, can be fully attained, they ask themselves (just as
they ask the same question on the supposition that state laws will
be carried out) what will be the result of all this being carried
out? This supposition cannot be made, because the perfection held
up to Christians is infinite and can never be attained; and Christ
lays down his principle, having in view the fact that absolute
perfection can never be attained, but that striving toward
absolute, infinite perfection will continually increase the
blessedness of men, and that this blessedness may be increased to
infinity thereby.
Christ is teaching not angels, but men, living and moving in the
animal life. And so to this animal force of movement Christ, as it
were, applies the new force-the recognition of Divide perfection-
and thereby directs the movement by the resultant of these two
forces..
To suppose that human life is going in the direction to which
Christ pointed it, is just like supposing that a little boat
afloat on a rabid river, and directing its course almost exactly
against the current, will progress in that direction.
Christ recognizes the existence of both sides of the
parallelogram, of both eternal indestructible forces of which the
life of man is compounded: the force of his animal nature and the
force of the consciousness of Kinship to God. Saying nothing of
the animal force which asserts itself, remains always the same,
and is therefore independent of human will, Christ speaks only of
the Divine force, calling upon a man to know it more closely, to
set it more free from all that retards it, and to carry it to a
higher degree of intensity.
In the process of liberating, of strengthening this force, the
true life of man, according to Christ's teaching, consists. The
true life, according to preceding religions, consists in carrying
out rules, the law; according to Christ's teaching it consists in
an ever closer approximation to the divine perfection hell up
before every man, and recognized within himself by every man, in
an ever closer and closer approach to the perfect fusion of his
will in the will of God, that fusion toward which man strives, and
the attainment of which would be the destruction of the life me
know.
The divine perfection is the asymptote of human life to which it
is always striving, and always approaching, though it can only be
reached in infinity.
The Christian religion seems to exclude the possibility life only
when men mistake the pointing to an ideal as the laying down of a
rule. It is only then that the principles presented in Christ's
teaching appear to be destructive of life. These principles, on
the contrary, are the only ones that make true life possible.
Without these principles true life could not be possible.
"One ought not to expect so much," is what people usually say in
discussing the requirements of the Christian religion. "One
cannot expect to take absolutely no thought for the morrow, as is
said in the Gospel, but only not to take too much thought for it;
one cannot give away all to the poor, but one must give away a
certain definite part; one need not aim at virginity, but one must
avoid debauchery; one need not forsake wife and children, but one
must not give too great a place to them in one's heart," and so
on.
But to speak like this is just like telling a man who is
struggling on a swift river and is directing his course against
the current, that it is impossible to cross the river rowing
against the current, and that to cross it he must float in the
direction of the point he wants to reach.
In reality, in order to reach the place to which he wants to go,
he must row with all his strength toward a point
much higher up.
To let go the requirements of the ideal means not only to diminish
the possibility of perfection, but to make an end of the ideal
itself. The ideal that has power over men is not an ideal
invented by someone, but the ideal that every man carries within
his soul. Only this ideal of complete infinite perfection has
power over men, and stimulates them to action. A moderate
perfection loses its power of influencing men's hearts.
Christ's teaching only has power when it demands absolute
perfection - that is, the fusion of the divine nature which exists
in every man's soul with the will of God - the union of the Son
with the Father. Life according to Christ's teaching consists of
nothing but this setting free of the Son of God, existing in every
man, from the animal, and in bringing him closer to the Father.
The animal existence of a man does not constitute human life
alone. Life, according to the will of God only, is also not
human life. Human life is a combination of the animal life and
the divine life. And the more this combination approaches to the
divine life, the more life there is in it.
Life, according to the Christian religion, is a progress toward
the divine perfection. No one condition, according to this
doctrine, can be higher or lower than another. Every condition,
according to this doctrine, is only a particular stage, of no
consequence in itself, on the way toward unattainable perfection,
and therefore in itself it does not imply a greater or lesser
degree of life. Increase of life, according to this, consists in
nothing but the quickening of the progress toward perfection. And
therefore the progress toward perfection of the publican Zaccheus,
of the woman that was a sinner, and of the robber on the cross,
implies a higher degree of life than the stagnant righteousness of
the Pharisee. And therefore for this religion there cannot be
rules which it is obligatory to obey. The man who is at a lower
level but is moving onward toward perfection is living a more
moral, a better life, is more fully carrying out Christ's
teaching, than the man on a much higher level of morality who is
not moving onward toward perfection.
It is in this sense that the lost sheep is dearer to the Father
than those that were not lost. The prodigal son, the piece of
money lost and found again, were more precious than those that
were not lost.
The fulfillment of Christ's teaching consists in moving away from
self toward God. It is obvious that there cannot be definite laws
and rules for this fulfillment of the teaching. Every degree of
perfection and every degree of imperfection are equal in it; no
obedience to laws constitutes a fulfillment of this doctrine, and
therefore for it there can be no binding rules and laws.
From this fundamental distinction between the religion of Christ
and all preceding religions based on the state conception of life,
follows a corresponding difference in the special precepts of the
state theory and the Christian precepts. The precepts of the
state theory of life insist for the most part on certain practical
prescribed acts, by which men are justified and secure of being
right. The Christian precepts (the commandment of love is not a
precept in the strict sense of the word, but the expression of the
very essence of the religion) are the five commandments of the
Sermon on the Mount - all negative in character. They show only
what at a certain stage of development of humanity men may not do.
These commandments are, as it were, signposts on the endless road
to perfection, toward which humanity is moving, showing the point
of perfection which is possible at a certain period in the
development of humanity.
Christ has given expression in the Sermon on the Mount to the
eternal ideal toward which men are spontaneously struggling, and
also the degree of attainment of it to which men may reach in our
times.
The ideal is not to desire to do ill to anyone, not to provoke ill
will, to love all men. The precept, showing the level below which
we cannot fall in the attainment of this ideal, is the prohibition
of evil speaking. And that is the first command.
The ideal is perfect chastity, even in thought. The precept,
showing the level below which we cannot fall in the attainment of
this ideal, is that of purity of married life, avoidance of
debauchery. That is the second command.
The ideal is to take no thought for the future, to live in the
present moment. The precept, showing the level below which we
cannot fall, is the prohibition of swearing, of promising anything
in the future. And that is the third command.
The ideal is never for any purpose to use force. The precept,
showing the level below which we cannot fall is that of returning
good for evil, being patient under wrong, giving the cloak also.
That is the fourth command.
The ideal is to love the enemies who hate us. The precept,
showing the level below which we cannot fall, is not to do evil to
our enemies, to speak well of them, and to make no difference
between them and our neighbors.
All these precepts are indications of what, on our journey to
perfection, we are already fully able to avoid, and what we must
labor to attain now, and what we ought by degrees to translate
into instinctive and unconscious habits. But these precepts, far
from constituting the whole of Christ's teaching and exhausting
it, are simply stages on the way to perfection. These precepts
must and will be followed by higher and higher precepts on the way
to the perfection held up by the religion.
And therefore it is essentially a part of the Christian religion
to make demands higher than those expressed in its precepts; and
by no means to diminish the demands either of the ideal itself, or
of the precepts, as people imagine who judge it from the
standpoint of the social conception of life.
So much for one misunderstanding of the scientific men, in
relation to the import and aim of Christ's teaching. Another
misunderstanding arising from the same source consists in
substituting love for men, the service of humanity, for the
Christian principles of love for God and his service.
The Christian doctrine to love God and serve him, and only as a
result of that love to love and serve one's neighbor, seems to
scientific men obscure, mystic, and arbitrary. And they would
absolutely exclude the obligation of love and service of God,
holding that the doctrine of love for men, for humanity alone, is
far more clear, tangible, and reasonable.
Scientific men teach in theory that the only good and rational
life is that which is devoted to the service of the whole of
humanity. That is for them the import of the Christian doctrine,
and to that they reduce Christ's teaching. They seek confirmation
of their own doctrine in the Gospel, on the supposition that the
two doctrines are really the same.
This idea is an absolutely mistaken one. The Christian doctrine
has nothing in common with the doctrine of the Positivists,
Communists, and all the apostles of the universal brotherhood of
mankind, based on the general advantage of such a brotherhood.
They differ from one another especially in Christianity's having a
firm and clear basis in the human soul, while love for humanity is
only a theoretical deduction from analogy.
The doctrine of love for humanity alone is based on the social
conception of life.
The essence of the social conception of life consists in the
transference of the aim of the individual life to the life of
societies of individuals: family, clan, tribe, or state. This
transference is accomplished easily and naturally in its earliest
forms, in the transference of the aim of life from the individual
to the family and the clan. The transference to the tribe or the
nation is more difficult and requires special training. And the
transference of the sentiment to the state is the furthest limit
which the process can reach.
To love one's self is natural to everyone, and no one needs any
encouragement to do so. To love one's clan who support and
protect one, to love one's wife, the joy and help of one's
existence, one's children, the hope and consolation of one's life,
and one's parents, who have given one life and education, is
natural. And such love, though far from being so strong as love
of self, is met with pretty often.
To love - for one's own sake, through personal pride - one's tribe,
one's nation, though not so natural, is nevertheless common. Love
of one's own people who are of the same blood, the same tongue,
and the same religion as one's self is possible, though far from
being so strong as love of self, or even love of family or clan.
But love for a state, such as Turkey, Germany, England, Austria,
or Russia is a thing almost impossible. And though it is
zealously inculcated, it is only an imagined sentiment; it has no
existence in reality. And at that limit man's power of
transferring his interest ceases, and he cannot feel any direct
sentiment for that fictitious entity. The Positivists, however,
and all the apostles of fraternity on scientific principles,
without taking into consideration the weakening of sentiment in
proportion to the extension of its object, draw further deductions
in theory in the same direction. "Since," they say, "it was for
the advantage of the individual to extend his personal interest to
the family, the tribe, and subsequently to the nation and the
state, it would be still more advantageous to extend his interest
in societies of men to the whole of mankind, and so all to live
for humanity just as men live for the family or the state."
Theoretically it follows, indeed, having extended the love and
interest for the personality to the family, the tribe, and thence
to the nation and the state, it would be perfectly logical for men
to save themselves the strife and calamities which result from the
division of mankind into nations and states by extending their
love to the whole of humanity. This would be most logical, and
theoretically nothing would appear more natural to its advocates,
who do not observe that love is a sentiment which may or may not
he felt, but which it is useless to advocate; and moreover, that
love must have an object, and that humanity is not an object. It
is nothing but a fiction.
The family, the tribe, even the state were not invented by men,
but formed themselves spontaneously, like ant-hills or swarms of
bees, and have a real existence. The man who, for the sake of his
own animal personality, loves his family, knows whom he loves:
Anna, Dolly, John, Peter, and so on. The man who loves his tribe
and takes pride in it, knows that he loves all the Guelphs or all
the Ghibellines; the man who loves the state knows that he loves
France bounded by the Rhine, and the Pyrenees, and its principal
city Paris, and its history and so on. But the man who loves
humanity - what does he love? There is such a thing as a state, as
a nation; there is the abstract conception of man; but humanity as
a concrete idea does not, and cannot exist.
Humanity! Where is the definition of humanity? Where does it end
and where does it begin? Does humanity end with the savage, the
idiot, the dipsomaniac, or the madman? If we draw a line
excluding from humanity its lowest representatives, where are we
to draw the line? Shall we exclude the negroes like the
Americans, or the Hindoos like some Englishmen, or the Jews like
some others? If we include all men without exception, why should
we not include also the higher animals, many of whom are superior
to the lowest specimens of the human race.
We know nothing of humanity as an eternal object, and we know
nothing of its limits. Humanity is a fiction, and it is
impossible to love it. It would, doubtless, be very advantageous
if men could love humanity just as they love their family. It
would be very advantageous, as Communists advocate, to replace the
competitive, individualistic organization of men's activity by a
social universal organization, so that each would be for all and
all for each.
Only there are no motives to lead men to do this. The
Positivists, the Communists, and all the apostles of fraternity on
scientific principles advocate the extension to the whole of
humanity of the love men feel for themselves, their families, and
the state. They forget that the love which they are discussing is
a personal love, which might expand in a rarefied form to embrace
a man's native country, but which disappears before it can embrace
an artificial state such as Austria, England, or Turkey, and which
we cannot even conceive of in relation to all humanity, an
absolutely mystic conception.
"A man loves himself (his animal personality), he loves his
family, he even loves his native country. Why should he not love
humanity? That would be such an excellent thing. And by the way,
it is precisely what is taught by Christianity." So think the
advocates of Positivist, Communistic, or Socialistic fraternity.
It would indeed be an excellent thing. But it can never be, for
the love that is based on a personal or social conception of life
can never rise beyond love for the state.
The fallacy of the argument lies in the fact that the social
conception of life, on which love for family and nation is
founded, rests itself on love of self, and that love grows weaker
and weaker as it is extended from self to family, tribe,
nationality, and slate; and in the state we reach the furthest
limit beyond which it cannot go.
The necessity of extending the sphere of love is beyond dispute.
But in reality the possibility of this love is destroyed by the
necessity of extending its object indefinitely. And thus the
insufficiency of personal human love is made manifest.
And here the advocates of Positivist, Communistic, Socialistic
fraternity propose to draw upon Christian love to make up the
default of this bankrupt human love; but Christian love only in
its results, not in its foundations. They propose love for
humanity alone, apart from love for God.
But such a love cannot exist. There is no motive to produce it.
Christian love is the result only of the Christian conception of
life, in which the aim of life is to love and serve God.
The social conception of life has led men, by a natural transition
from love of self and then of family, tribe, nation, and state, to
a consciousness of the necessity of love for humanity, a
conception which has no definite limits and extends to all living
things. And this necessity for love of what awakens no kind of
sentiment in a man is a contradiction which cannot be solved by
the social theory of life.
The Christian doctrine in its full significance can alone solve
it, by giving a new meaning to life. Christianity recognizes love
of self, of family, of nation, and of humanity, and not only of
humanity, but of everything living, everything existing; it
recognizes the necessity of an infinite extension of the sphere of
love. But the object of this love is not found outside self in
societies of individuals, nor in the external world, but within
self, in the divine self whose essence is that very love, which
the animal self is brought to feel the need of through its
consciousness of its own perishable nature.
The difference between the Christian doctrine and those which
preceded it is that the social doctrine said: "Live in opposition
to your nature [understanding by this only the animal nature],
make it subject to the external law of family, society, and
state." Christianity says: "Live according to your nature
[understanding by this the divine nature]; do not make it subject
to anything - neither you (an animal self) nor that of others - and
you will attain the very aim to which you are striving when you
subject your external self."
The Christian doctrine brings a man to the elementary
consciousness of self, only not of the animal self, but of the
divine self, the divine spark, the self as the Son of God, as much
God as the Father himself, though confined in an animal husk. The
consciousness of being the Son of God, whose chief characteristic
is love, satisfies the need for the extension of the sphere of
love to which the man of the social conception of life had been
brought. For the latter, the welfare of the personality demanded
an ever-widening extension of the sphere of love; love was a
necessity and was confined to certain objects - self, family,
society. With the Christian conception of life, love is not a
necessity and is confined to no object; it is the essential
faculty of the human soul. Man loves not because it is his
interest to love this or that, but because love is the essence of
his soul, because he cannot but love.
The Christian doctrine shows man that the essence of his soul is
love - that his happiness depends not on loving this or that
object, but on loving the principle of the whole - God, whom he
recognizes within himself as love, and therefore he loves all
things and all men.
In this is the fundamental difference between the Christian
doctrine and the doctrine of the Positivists, and all the
theorizers about universal brotherhood on non-Christian
principles.
Such are the two principal misunderstandings relating to the
Christian religion, from which the greater number of false
reasonings about it proceed. The first consists in the belief
that Christ's teaching instructs men, like all previous religions,
by rules, which they are bound to follow, and that these rules
cannot be fulfilled. The second is the idea that the whole
purport of Christianity is to teach men to live advantageously
together, as one family, and that to attain this we need only
follow the rule of love to humanity, dismissing all thought of
love of God altogether.
The mistaken notion of scientific men that the essence of
Christianity consists in the supernatural, and that its moral
teaching is impracticable, constitutes another reason
of the failure of men of the present day to understand
Christianity.
CHAPTER V.
CONTRADICTION BETWEEN OUR LIFE AND OUR CHRISTIAN CONSCIENCE.
Men Think they can Accept Christianity without Altering their
Life - Pagan Conception of Life does not Correspond with Present
Stage of Development of Humanity, and Christian Conception
Alone Can Accord with it - Christian Conception of Life not yet
Understood by Men, but the Progress of Life itself will Lead
them Inevitably to Adopt it - The Requirements of a New Theory
of Life Always Seem Incomprehensible, Mystic, and Supernatural
- So Seem the Requirements of the Christian Theory of Life to
the Majority of Men - The Absorption of the Christian Conception
of Life will Inevitably be Brought About as the Result of
Material and Spiritual Causes - The Fact of Men Knowing the
Requirements of the Higher View of Life, and yet Continuing to
Preserve Inferior Organizations of Life, Leads to
Contradictions and Sufferings which Embitter Existence and Must
Result in its Transformation - The Contradictions of our Life -
The Economic Contradiction and the Suffering Induced by it for
Rich and Poor Alike - The Political Contradiction and the
Sufferings Induced by Obedience to the Laws of the State - The
International Contradiction and the Recognition of it by
Contemporaries: Komarovsky, Ferri, Booth, Passy, Lawson,
Wilson, Bartlett, Defourney, Moneta - The Striking Character of
the Military Contradiction.
There are many reasons why Christ's teaching is not understood.
One reason is that people suppose they have understood it when
they have decided, as the Churchmen do, that it was revealed by
supernatural means, or when they have studied, as the scientific
men do, the external forms in which it has been manifested.
Another reason is the mistaken notion that it is impracticable,
and ought to be replaced by the doctrine of love for humanity.
But the principal reason, which is the source of all the other
mistaken ideas about it, is the notion that Christianity is a
doctrine which can be accepted or rejected without any change of
life.
Men who are used to the existing order of things, who like it and
dread its being changed, try to take the doctrine as a collection
of revelations and rules which one can accept without their
modifying one's life. While Christ's teaching is not only a
doctrine which gives rules which a man must follow, it unfolds a
new meaning in life, and defines a whole world of human activity
quite different from all that has preceded it and appropriate to
the period on which man is entering.
The life of humanity changes and advances, like the life of the
individual, by stages, and every stage has a theory of life
appropriate to it, which is inevitably absorbed by men. Those who
do not absorb it consciously, absorb it unconsciously. It is the
same with the changes in the beliefs of peoples and of all
humanity as it is with the changes of belief of individuals. If
the father of a family continues to be guided in his conduct by
his childish conceptions of life, life becomes so difficult for
him that he involuntarily seeks another philosophy and readily
absorbs that which is appropriate to his age.
That is just what is happening now to humanity at this time of
transition through which we are passing, from the pagan conception
of life to the Christian. The socialized man of the present day
is brought by experience of life itself to the necessity of
abandoning the pagan conception of life, which is inappropriate to
the present stage of humanity, and of submitting to the obligation
of the Christian doctrines, the truths of which, however corrupt
and misinterpreted, are still known to him, and alone offer him a
solution of the contradictions surrounding him.
If the requirements of the Christian doctrine seem strange and
even alarming to the than of the social theory of life, no less
strange, incomprehensible, and alarming to the savage of ancient
times seemed the requirements of the social doctrine when it was
not fully understood and could not be foreseen in its results.
"It is unreasonable," said the savage, "to sacrifice my peace of
mind or my life in defense of something incomprehensible,
impalpable, and conventional - family, tribe, or nation; and above
all it is unsafe to put oneself at the disposal of the power of
others."
But the time came when the savage, on one hand, felt, though
vaguely, the value of the social conception of life, and of its
chief motor power, social censure, or social approbation - glory,
and when, on the other hand, the difficulties of his personal life
became so great that he could not continue to believe in the value
of his old theory of life. Then he accepted the social, state
theory of life and submitted to it.
That is just what the man of the social theory of life is passing
through now.
"It is unreasonable," says the socialized man, "to sacrifice my
welfare and that of my family and my country in order to fulfill
some higher law, which requires me to renounce my most natural and
virtuous feelings of love of self, of family, of kindred, and of
country; and above all, it is unsafe to part with the security of
life afforded by the organization of government."
But the time is coming when, on one hand, the vague consciousness
in his soul of the higher law, of love to God and his neighbor,
and, on the other hand, the suffering, resulting from the
contradictions of life, will force the man to reject the social
theory and to assimilate the new one prepared ready for him, which
solves all the contradictions and removes all his sufferings - the
Christian theory of life. And this time has now come.
We, who thousands of years ago passed through the transition, from
the personal, animal view of life to the socialized view, imagine
that that transition was an inevitable and natural one; but this
transition though which we have been passing for the last eighteen
hundred years seems arbitrary, unnatural, and alarming. But we
only fancy this because that first transition has been so fully
completed that the practice attained by it has become unconscious
and instinctive in us, while the present transition is not yet
over and we have to complete it consciously.
It took ages, thousands of years, for the social conception of
life to permeate men's consciousness. It went through various
forms and has now passed into the region of the instinctive
through inheritance, education, and habit. And therefore it seems
natural to us. But five thousand years ago it seemed as unnatural
and alarming to men as the Christian doctrine in its true sense
seems to-day.
We think to-day that the requirements of the Christian doctrine -
of universal brotherhood, suppression of national distinctions,
abolition of private property, and the strange injunction of non-
resistance to evil by force - demand what is impossible. But it
was just the same thousands of years ago, with every social or
even family duty, such as the duty of parents to support their
children, of the young to maintain the old, of fidelity in
marriage. Still more strange, and even unreasonable, seemed the
state duties of submitting to the appointed authority, and paying
taxes, and fighting in defense of the country, and so on. All
such requirements seem simple, comprehensible, and natural to us
to-day, and we see nothing mysterious or alarming in them. But
three or five thousand years ago they seemed to require what was
impossible.
The social conception of life served as the basis of religion
because at the time when it was first presented to men it seemed
to them absolutely incomprehensible, mystic, and supernatural.
Now that we have outlived that phase of the life of humanity, we
understand the rational grounds for uniting men in families,
communities, and states. But in antiquity the duties involved by
such association were presented under cover of the supernatural
and were confirmed by it.
The patriarchal religions exalted the family, the tribe, the
nation. State religions deified emperors and states. Even now
most ignorant people - like our peasants, who call the Tzar an
earthly god - obey state laws, not through any rational recognition
of their necessity, nor because they have any conception of the
meaning of state, but through a religious sentiment.
In precisely the same way the Christian doctrine is presented to
men of the social or heathen theory of life to-day, in the guise
of a supernatural religion, though there is in reality nothing
mysterious, mystic, or supernatural about it. It is simply the
theory of life which is appropriate to the present degree of
material development, the present stage of growth of humanity, and
which must therefore inevitably be accepted.
The time will come - it is already coming - when the Christian
principles of equality and fraternity, community of property, non-
resistance of evil by force, will appear just as natural and
simple as the principles of family or social life seem to us now.
Humanity can no more go backward in its development than the
individual man. Men have outlived the social, family, and state
conceptions of life. Now they must go forward and assimilate the
next and higher conception of life, which is what is now taking
place. This change is brought about in two ways: consciously
through spiritual causes, and unconsciously through material
causes.
Just as the individual man very rarely changes his way of life at
the dictates of his reason alone, but generally continues to live
as before, in spite of the new interests and aims revealed to him
by his reason, and only alters his way of living when it has
become absolutely opposed to his conscience, and consequently
intolerable to him; so, too, humanity, long after it has learnt
through its religions the new interests and aims of life, toward
which it must strive, continues in the majority of its
representatives to live as before, and is only brought to accept
the new conception by finding it impossible to go on living its
old life as before.
Though the need of a change of life is preached by the religious
leaders and recognized and realized by the most intelligent men,
the majority, in spite of their reverential attitude to their
leaders, that is, their faith in their teaching, continue to be
guided by the old theory of life in their present complex
existence. As though the father of a family, knowing how he ought
to behave at his age, should yet continue through habit and
thoughtlessness to live in the same childish way as he did in
boyhood.
That is just what is happening in the transition of humanity from
one stage to another, through which we are passing now. Humanity
has outgrown its social stage and has entered upon a new period.
It recognizes the doctrine which ought to be made the basis of
life in this new period. But through inertia it continues to keep
up the old forms of life. From this inconsistency between the new
conception of life and practical life follows a whole succession
of contradictions and sufferings which embitter our life and
necessitate its alteration.
One need only compare the practice of life with the theory of it,
to be dismayed at the glaring antagonism between our conditions of
life and our conscience.
Our whole life is in flat contradiction with all we know, and with
all we regard as necessary and right. This contradiction runs
through everything, in economic life, in political life, and in
international life. As though the had forgotten what we knew and
put away for a time the principles we believe in (we cannot help
still believing in them because they are the only foundation we
have to base our life on) we do the very opposite of all that our
conscience and our common sense require of us.
We are guided in economical, political, and international
questions by the principles which were appropriate to men of three
or five thousand years ago, though they are directly opposed to
our conscience and the conditions of life in which we are placed
to-day.
It was very well for the man of ancient times to live in a society
based on the division of mankind into masters and slaves, because
he believed that such a distinction was decreed by God and must
always exist. But is such a belief possible in these days?
The man of antiquity could believe he had the right to enjoy the
good things of this world at the expense of other men, and to keep
them in misery for generations, since he believed that men came
from different origins, were base or noble in blood, children of
Ham or of Japhet. The greatest sages of the world, the teachers
of humanity, Plato and Aristotle, justified the existence of
slaves and demonstrated the lawfulness of slavery; and even three
centuries ago, the men who described an imaginary society of the
future, Utopia, could not conceive of it without slaves.
Men of ancient and medieval times believed, firmly believed, that
men are not equal, that the only true men are Persians, or Greeks,
or Romans, or Franks. But we cannot believe that now. And people
who sacrifice themselves for the principles of aristocracy and of
patriotism to-duty, don't believe and can't believe what they
assert.
We all know and cannot help knowing - even though we may never have
heard the idea clearly expressed, may never have read of it, and
may never have put it into words, still through unconsciously
imbibing the Christian sentiments that are in the air - with our
whole heart we know and cannot escape knowing the fundamental
truth of the Christian doctrine, that we are all sons of one
Father, wherever we may live and whatever language we may speak;
we are all brothers and are subject to the same law of love
implanted by our common Father in our hearts.
Whatever the opinions and degree of education of a man of to-day,
whatever his shade of liberalism, whatever his school of
philosophy, or of science, or of economics, however ignorant or
superstitious he may be, every man of the present day knows that
all men have an equal right to life and the good things of life,
and that one set of people are no better nor worse than another,
that all are equal. Everyone knows this, beyond doubt; everyone
feels it in his whole being. Yet at the same time everyone sees
all round him the division of men into two castes - the one,
laboring, oppressed, poor, and suffering, the other idle,
oppressing, luxurious, and profligate. And everyone not only sees
this, but voluntarily or involuntarily, in one way or another, he
takes part in maintaining this distinction which his conscience
condemns. And he cannot help suffering from the consciousness of
this contradiction and his share in it.
Whether he be master or slave, the man of to-day cannot help
constantly feeling the painful opposition between his conscience
and actual life, and the miseries resulting from it.
The toiling masses, the immense majority of mankind who are
suffering under the incessant, meaningless, and hopeless toil and
privation in which their whole life is swallowed up, still find
their keenest suffering in the glaring contrast between what is
and what ought to be, according to all the beliefs held by
themselves, and those who have brought them to that condition and
keep them in it.
They know that they are in slavery and condemned to privation and
darkness to minister to the lusts of the minority who keep them
down. They know it, and they say so plainly. And this knowledge
increases their sufferings and constitutes its bitterest sting.
The slave of antiquity knew that he was a slave by nature, but our
laborer, while he feels he is a slave, knows that he ought not to
be, and so he tastes the agony of Tantalus, forever desiring and
never gaining what might and ought to be his.
The sufferings of the working classes, springing from the
contradiction between what is and what ought to be, are increased
tenfold by the envy and hatred engendered by their consciousness
of it.
The laborer of the present day would not cease to suffer even if
his toil were much lighter than that of the slave of ancient
times, even if he gained an eight-hour working day and a wage of
three dollars a day. For he is working at the manufacture of
things which he will not enjoy, working not by his own will for
his own benefit, but through necessity, to satisfy the desires of
luxurious and idle people in general, and for the profit of a
single rich man, the owner of a factory or workshop in particular.
And he knows that all this is going on in a world in which it is a
recognized scientific principle that labor alone creates wealth,
and that to profit by the labor of others is immoral, dishonest,
and punishable by law; in a world, moreover, which professes to
believe Christ's doctrine that we are all brothers, and that true
merit and dignity is to be found in serving one's neighbor, not in
exploiting him. All this he knows, and he cannot but suffer
keenly from the sharp contrast between what is and what ought to
be.
"According to all principles, according to all I know, and what
everyone professes," the workman says to himself. "I ought to be
free, equal to everyone else, and loved; and I am - a slave,
humiliated and hated." And he too is filled with hatred and tries
to find means to escape from his position, to shake off the enemy
who is over-riding him, and to oppress him in turn. People say,
"Workmen have no business to try to become capitalists, the poor
to try to put themselves in the place of the rich." That is a