consent to do. But what is it that is sacred to the civilized man of to-day? They say to him: 'You must become my slave, and this slavery may force you to kill even your own father;' and he, often very well educated, trained in all the sciences at the university, quietly puts his head under the yoke. They dress him up in a clown's costume, and order him to cut capers, turn and twist and bow, and kill—he does it all submissively. And when they let him go, he seems to shake himself and go back to his former life, and he continues to discourse upon the dignity of man, liberty, equality, and fraternity as before.
'Yes, but what is one to do?' people often ask in genuine perplexity. 'If everyone would stand out it would be something, but by myself, I shall only suffer without doing any good to anyone.'
And that is true. A man with the social conception of life cannot resist. The aim of his life is his personal welfare. It is better for his personal welfare for him to submit, and he submits.
Whatever they do to him, however they torture or humiliate him, he will submit, for, alone, he can do nothing; he has no principle for the sake of which he could resist violence alone. And those who control them never allow them to unite together. It is often said that the invention of terrible weapons of destruction will put an end to war. That is an error. As the means of extermination are improved, the means of reducing men who hold the state conception of life to submission can be improved to correspond. They may slaughter them by thousands, by millions, they may tear them to pieces, still they will march to war like senseless cattle. Some will want beating to make them move, others will be proud to go if they are allowed to wear a scrap of ribbon or gold lace.
And of this mass of men so brutalized as to be ready to promise to kill their own parents, the social reformers—conservatives, liberals, socialists, and anarchists—propose to form a rational and moral society. What sort of moral and rational society can be formed out of such elements? With warped and rotten planks you cannot build a house, however you put them together. And to form a rational moral society of such men is just as impossible a task. They can be formed into nothing but a herd of cattle, driven by the shouts and whips of the herdsmen. As indeed they are.
So, then, we have on one side men calling themselves Christians, and professing the principles of liberty, equality, and fraternity, and along with that ready, in the name of liberty, to submit to the most slavish degradation; in the name of equality, to accept the crudest, most senseless division of men by externals merely into higher and lower classes, allies and enemies; and, in the name of fraternity, ready to murder their brothers [see footnote].
[Footnote: The fact that among certain nations, as the English and the American, military service is not compulsory (though already one hears there are some who advocate that it should be made so) does not affect the servility of the citizens to the government in principle. Here we have each to go and kill or be killed, there they have each to give the fruit of their toil to pay for the recruiting and training of soldiers.]
The contradiction between life and conscience and the misery resulting from it have reached the extreme limit and can go no further. The state organization of life based on violence, the aim of which was the security of personal, family, and social welfare, has come to the point of renouncing the very objects for which it was founded—it has reduced men to absolute renunciation and loss of the welfare it was to secure.
The first half of the prophecy has been fulfilled in the generation of men who have not accepted Christ's teaching, Their descendants have been brought now to the absolute necessity of patting the truth of the second half to the test of experience.
CHAPTER IX.
THE ACCEPTANCE OF THE CHRISTIAN CONCEPTION OF LIFE WILL EMANCIPATE MEN FROM THE MISERIES OF OUR PAGAN LIFE.
The External Life of Christian Peoples Remains Pagan Though they are
Penetrated by Christian Consciousness—The Way Out of this Contradiction
is by the Acceptance of the Christian Theory of Life—Only Through
Christianity is Every Man Free, and Emancipated of All Human
Authority—This Emancipation can be Effected by no Change in External
Conditions of Life, but Only by a Change in the Conception of Life—The
Christian Ideal of Life Requires Renunciation of all Violence, and in
Emancipating the Man who Accepts it, Emancipates the Whole World from
All External Authorities—The Way Out of the Present Apparently Hopeless
Position is for Every Man who is Capable of Assimilating the Christian
Conception of Life, to Accept it and Live in Accordance with it—But Men
Consider this Way too Slow, and Look for Deliverance Through Changes in
Material Conditions of Life Aided by Government—That Will Lead to No
Improvement, as it is simply Increasing the Evil under which Men are
Suffering—A Striking Instance of this is the Submission to Compulsory
Military Service, which it would be More Advantageous for Every Man to
Refuse than to Submit to—The Emancipation of Men Can Only be Brought
About by each Individual Emancipating Himself, and the Examples of this
Self-emancipation which are already Appearing Threaten the Destruction
of Governmental Authority—Refusal to Comply with the Unchristian
Demands of Government Undermines the Authority of the State and
Emancipates Men—And therefore Cases of such Non-compliance are Regarded
with more Dread by State Authorities than any Conspiracies or Acts of
Violence—Examples of Non-compliance in Russia, in Regard to Oath of
Allegiance, Payment of Taxes, Passports, Police Duties, and Military
Service—Examples of such Non-compliance in other States—Governments do
not Know how to Treat Men who Refuse to Comply with their Demands on
