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The Kingdom of God is within you

L >> Leo Tolstoy >> The Kingdom of God is within you




Thus they refuse the voluntary payment of taxes, because taxes are
spent on deeds of violence--on the pay of men of violence--
soldiers, on the construction of prisons, fortresses, and cannons.
They as Christians regard it as sinful and immoral to have any
hand in such deeds.

Those who refuse to take the oath of allegiance refuse because to
promise obedience to authorities, that is, to men who are given to
deeds of violence, is contrary to the sense of Christ's teaching.
They refuse to take the oath in the law courts, because oaths are
directly forbidden by the Gospel. They refuse to perform police
duties, because in the performance of these duties they must use
force against their brothers and ill treat them, and a Christian
cannot do that. They refuse to take part in trials at law,
because they consider every appeal to law is fulfilling the law of
vengeance, which is inconsistent with the Christian law of
forgiveness and love. They refuse to take any part in military
preparations and in the army, because they cannot be executioners,
and they are unwilling to prepare themselves to be so.

The motives in all these cases are so excellent that, however
despotic governments may be, they could hardly punish them openly.
To punish men for refusing to act against their conscience the
government must renounce all claim to good sense and benevolence.
And they assure people that they only rule in the name of good
sense and benevolence.

What are governments to do against such people?

Governments can of course flog to death or execute or keep in
perpetual imprisonment all enemies who want to overturn them by
violence, they can lavish gold on that section of the people who
are ready to destroy their enemies. But what can they do against
men who, without wishing to overturn or destroy anything, desire
simply for their part to do nothing against the law of Christ, and
who, therefore, refuse to perform the commonest state
requirements, which are, therefore, the most indispensable to the
maintenance of the state?

If they had been revolutionists, advocating and practicing
violence and murder, their suppression would have been an easy
matter; some of them could have been bought over, some could have
been duped, some could have been overawed, and these who could not
be bought over, duped, or overawed would have been treated as
criminals, enemies of society, would have been executed or
imprisoned, and the crowd would have approved of the action of the
government. If they had been fanatics, professing some peculiar
belief, it might have been possible, in disproving the
superstitious errors mixed in with their religion, to attack also
the truth they advocate. But what is to be done with men who
profess no revolutionary ideas nor any peculiar religious dogmas,
but merely because they are unwilling to do evil to any man,
refuse to take the oath, to pay taxes, to take part in law
proceedings, to serve in the army, to fulfill, in fact, any of the
obligations upon which the whole fabric of a state rests? What is
to done with such people? To buy them over with bribes is
impossible; the very risks to which they voluntarily expose
themselves show that they are incorruptible. To dupe them into
believing that this is their duty to God is also impossible, since
their refusal is based on the clear, unmistakable law of God,
recognized even by those who are trying to compel men to act
against it. To terrify them by threats is still less possible,
because the deprivations and sufferings to which they are
subjected only strengthen their desire to follow the faith by
which they are commanded: to obey God rather than men, and not to
fear those who can destroy the body, but to fear him who can
destroy body and soul. To kill them or keep them in perpetual
imprisonment is also impossible. These men have friends, and a
past; their way of thinking and acting is well known; they are
known by everyone for good, gentle, peaceable people, and they
cannot be regarded as criminals who must be removed for the safety
of society. And to put men to death who are regarded as good men
is to provoke others to champion them and justify their refusal.
And it is only necessary to explain the reasons of their refusal
to make clear to everyone that these reasons have the same force
for all other men, and that they all ought to have done the same
long ago. These cases put the ruling powers into a desperate
position. They see that the prophecy of Christianity is coming to
pass, that it is loosening the fetters of those in chains, and
setting free them that are in bondage, and that this must
inevitably be the end of all oppressors. The ruling authorities
see this, they know that their hours are numbered, and they can do
nothing. All that they can do to save themselves is only
deferring the hour of their downfall. And this they do, but their
position is none the less desperate.

It is like the position of a conqueror who is trying to save a
town which has been been set on fire by its own inhabitants.
Directly he puts out the conflagration in one place, it is alight
in two other places; directly he gives in to the fire and cuts off
what is on fire from a large building, the building itself is
alight at both ends. These separate fires may be few, but they
are burning with a flame which, however small a spark it starts
from, never ceases till it has set the whole ablaze.

Thus it is that the ruling authorities are in such a defenseless
position before men who advocate Christianity, that but little is
necessary to overthrow this sovereign power which seems so
powerful, and has held such an exalted position for so many
centuries. And yet social reformers are busy promulgating the
idea that it is not necessary and is even pernicious and immoral
for every man separately to work out his own freedom. As though,
while one set of men have been at work a long while turning a
river into a new channel, and had dug out a complete water-course
and had only to open the floodgates for the water to rush in and
do the rest, another set of men should come along and begin to
advise them that it would be much better, instead of letting the
water out, to construct a machine which would ladle the water up
from one side and pour it over the other side.

But the thing has gone too far. Already ruling governments feel
their weak and defenseless position, and men of Christian
principles are awakening from their apathy, and already begin to
feel their power.

"I am come to send a fire on the earth," said Christ, "and what
will I, if it be already kindled?"

And this fire is beginning to burn.




CHAPTER X.

EVIL CANNOT BE SUPPRESSED BY THE PHYSICAL FORCE OF THE
GOVERNMENT--THE MORAL PROGRESS OF HUMANITY IS BROUGHT ABOUT NOT
ONLY BY INDIVIDUAL RECOGNITION OF TRUTH, BUT ALSO THROUGH THE
ESTABLISHMENT OF A PUBLIC OPINION.

Christianity Destroys the State--But Which is Most Necessary:
Christianity or the State?--There are Some who Assert the
Necessity of a State Organization, and Others who Deny it, both
Arguing from same First Principles--Neither Contention can be
Proved by Abstract Argument--The Question must be Decided by the
Stage in the Development of Conscience of Each Man, which will
either Prevent or Allow him to Support a Government Organization--
Recognition of the Futility and Immorality of Supporting a State
Organization Contrary to Christian Principles will Decide the
Question for Every Man, in Spite of any Action on Part of the
State--Argument of those who Defend the Government, that it is a
Form of Social Life, Needed to Protect the Good from the Wicked,
till all Nations and all Members of each Nation have Become
Christians--The Most Wicked are Always those in Power--The whole
History of Humanity is the History of the Forcible Appropriation
of Power by the Wicked and their Oppression of the Good--The
Recognition by Governments of the Necessity of Opposing Evil by
Force is Equivalent to Suicide on their Part--The Abolition of
State-violence cannot Increase the Sum Total of Acts of Violence--
The Suppression of the Use of Force is not only Possible, but is
even Taking Place before Our Eyes--But it will Never be Suppressed
by the Violence of Government, but through Men who have Attained
Power by Evidence Recognizing its Emptiness and Becoming Better
and Less Capable of Using Force--Individual Men and also Whole
Nations Pass Through this Process--By this Means Christianity is
Diffused Through Consciousness of Men, not only in Spite of Use of
Violence by Government, but even Through its Action,and therefore
the Suppression is not to be Dreaded, but is Brought About by the
National Progress of Life--Objection of those who Defend State
Organization that Universal Adoption of Christianity is hardly
Likely to be Realized at any Time--The General Adoption of the
Truths of Christianity is being Brought About not only by the
Gradual and Inward Means,that is, by Knowledge of the Truth,
Prophetic Insight, and Recognition of the Emptiness of Power, and
Renunciation of it by Individuals, but also by Another External
Means, the Acceptance of a New Truth by Whole Masses of Men on a
Lower Level of Development Through Simple Confidence in their
Leaders--When a Certain Stage in the Diffusion of a Truth has been
Reached, a Public Opinion is Created which Impels a Whole Mass of
Men, formerly Antagonistic to the New Truth, to Accept it--And
therefore all Men may Quickly be Brought to Renounce the use of
Violence when once a Christian Public Opinion is Established--The
Conviction of Force being Necessary Hinders the Establishment of a
Christian Public Opinion--The Use of Violence Leads Men to
Distrust the Spiritual Force which is the Only Force by which they
Advance--Neither Nations nor Individuals have been really
Subjugated by Force, but only by Public Opinion, which no Force
can Resist--Savage Nations and Savage Men can only be Subdued by
the Diffusion of a Christian Standard among them, while actually
Christian Nations in order to Subdue them do all they can to
Destroy a Christian Standard--These Fruitless Attempts to Civilize
Savages Cannot be Adduced as Proofs that Men Cannot be Subdued by
Christianity--Violence by Corrupting Public Opinion, only Hinders
the Social Organization from being What it Ought to Be--And by the
Use of Violence being Suppressed, a Christian Public Opinion would
be Established--Whatever might be the Result of the Suppression of
Use of Force, this Unknown Future could not be Worse than the
Present Condition, and so there is no Need to Dread it--To Attain
Knowledge of the Unknown, and to Move Toward it, is the Essence of
Life.


Christianity in its true sense puts an end to government. So it
was understood at its very commencement; it was for that cause
that Christ was crucified. So it has always been understood by
people who were not under the necessity of justifying a Christian
government. Only from the time that the heads of government
assumed an external and nominal Christianity, men began to invent
all the impossible, cunningly devised theories by means of which
Christianity can be reconciled with government. But no honest and
serious-minded man of our day can help seeing the incompatibility
of true Christianity--the doctrine of meekness, forgiveness of
injuries, and love--with government, with its pomp, acts of
violence, executions, and wars. The profession of true
Christianity not only excludes the possibility of recognizing
government, but even destroys its very foundations.

But if it is so, and we are right in saying that Christianity is
incompatible with government, then the question naturally presents
itself: which is more necessary to the good of humanity, in which
way is men's happiness best to be secured, by maintaining the
organization of government or by destroying it and replacing it by
Christianity?

Some people maintain that government is more necessary for
humanity, that the destruction of the state organization would
involve the destruction of all that humanity has gained, that the
state has been and still is the only form in which humanity can
develop. The evil which we see among peoples living under a
government organization they attribute not to that type of
society, but to its abuses, which, they say, can be corrected
without destroying it, and thus humanity, without discarding the
state organization, can develop and attain a high degree of
happiness. And men of this way of thinking bring forward in
support of their views arguments which they think irrefutable
drawn from history, philosophy, and even religion. But there are
men who hold on the contrary that, as there was a time when
humanity lived without government, such an organization is
temporary, and that a time must come when men need a new
organization, and that that time has come now. And men of this
way of thinking also bring forward in support of their views
arguments which they think irrefutable from philosophy, history,
and religion.

Volumes may be written in defense of the former view (and volumes
indeed have long ago been written and more will still be written
on that side), but much also can be written against it (and much
also, and most brilliantly, has been written--though more recently
--on this side).

And it cannot be proved, as the champions of the state maintain,
that the destruction of government involves a social chaos, mutual
spoliation and murder, the destruction of all social institutions,
and the return of mankind to barbarism. Nor can it be proved as
the opponents of government maintain that men have already become
so wise and good that they will not spoil or murder one another,
but will prefer peaceful associations to hostilities; that of
their own accord, unaided by the state, they will make all the
arrangements that they need, and that therefore government, far
from being any aid, under show of guarding men exerts a pernicious
and brutalizing influence over them. It is impossible to prove
either of these contentions by abstract reasoning. Still less
possible is it to prove them by experiment, since the whole matter
turns on the question, ought we to try the experiment? The
question whether or not the time has come to make an end of
government would be unanswerable, except that there exists another
living means of settling it beyond dispute.

We may dispute upon the question whether the nestlings are ready
to do without the mother-hen and to come out of the eggs, or
whether they are not yet advanced enough. But the young birds
will decide the question without any regard for our arguments when
they find themselves cramped for space in the eggs. Then they
will begin to try them with their beaks and come out of them of
their own accord.

It is the same with the question whether the time has come to do
away with the governmental type of society and to replace it by a
new type. If a man, through the growth of a higher conscience,
can no longer comply with the demands of government, he finds
himself cramped by it and at the same time no longer needs its
protection. When this comes to pass, the question whether men are
ready to discard the governmental type is solved. And the
conclusion will be as final for them as for the young birds
hatched out of the eggs. Just as no power in the world can put
them back into the shells, so can no power in the world bring men
again under the governmental type of society when once they have
outgrown it.

"It may well be that government was necessary and is still
necessary for all the advantages which you attribute to it," says
the man who has mastered the Christian theory of life. "I only
know that on the one hand, government is no longer necessary for
ME, and on the other hand, I can no longer carry out the measures
that are necessary to the existence of a government. Settle for
yourselves what you need for your life. I cannot prove the need
or the harm of governments in general. I know only what I need
and do not need, what I can do and what I cannot. I know that I
do not need to divide myself off from other nations, and therefore
I cannot admit that I belong exclusively to any state or nation,
or that I owe allegiance to any government. I know that I do not
need all the government institutions organized within the state,
and therefore I cannot deprive people who need my labor to give it
in the form of taxes to institutions which I do not need, which
for all I know may be pernicious. I know that I have no need of
the administration or of courts of justice founded upon force, and
therefore I can take no part in either. I know that I do not need
to attack and slaughter other nations or to defend myself from
them with arms, and therefore I can take no part in wars or
preparations for wars. It may well be that there are people who
cannot help regarding all this as necessary and indispensable. I
cannot dispute the question with them, I can only speak for
myself; but I can say with absolute certainty that I do not need
it, and that I cannot do it. And I do not need this and I cannot
do it, not because such is my own, my personal will, but because
such is the will of him who sent me into life, and gave me an
indubitable law for my conduct through life."

Whatever arguments may be advanced in support of the contention
that the suppression of government authority would be injurious
and would lead to great calamities, men who have once outgrown the
governmental form of society cannot go back to it again. And all
the reasoning in the world cannot make the man who has outgrown
the governmental form of society take part in actions disallowed
by his conscience, any more than the full-grown bird can be made
to return into the egg-shell.

"But even it be so," say the champions of the existing order of
things, "still the suppression of government violence can only be
possible and desirable when all men have become Christians. So
long as among people nominally Christians there are unchristian
wicked men, who for the gratification of their own lusts are ready
to do harm to others, the suppression of government authority, far
from being a blessing to others, would only increase their
miseries. The suppression of the governmental type of society is
not only undesirable so long as there is only a minority of true
Christians; it would not even be desirable if the whole of a
nation were Christians, but among and around them were still
unchristian men of other nations. For these unchristian men would
rob, outrage, and kill the Christians with impunity and would make
their lives miserable. All that would result, would be that the
bad would oppress and outrage the good with impunity. And
therefore the authority of government must not be suppressed till
all the wicked and rapacious people in the world are extinct. And
since this will either never be, or at least cannot be for a long
time to come, in spite of the efforts of individual Christians to
be independent of government authority, it ought to be maintained
in the interests of the majority. The champions of government
assert that without it the wicked will oppress and outrage the
good, and that the power of the government enables the good to
resist the wicked."

But in this assertion the champions of the existing order of
things take for granted the proposition they want to prove. When
they say that except for the government the bad would oppress the
good, they take it for granted that the good are those who at the
present time are in possession of power, and the bad are those who
are in subjection to it. But this is just what wants proving. It
would only be true if the custom of our society were what is, or
rather is supposed to be, the custom in China; that is, that the
good always rule, and that directly those at the head of
government cease to be better than those they rule over, the
citizens are bound to remove them. This is supposed to be the
custom in China. In reality it is not so and can never be so.
For to remove the heads of a government ruling by force, it is not
the right alone, but the power to do so that is needed. So that
even in China this is only an imaginary custom. And in our
Christian world we do not even suppose such a custom, and we have
nothing on which to build up the supposition that it is the good
or the superior who are in power; in reality it is those who have
seized power and who keep it for their own and their retainers'
benefit.

The good cannot seize power, nor retain it; to do this men must
love power. And love of power is inconsistent with goodness; but
quite consistent with the very opposite qualities--pride, cunning,
cruelty.

Without the aggrandizement of self and the abasement of others,
without hypocrisies and deceptions, without prisons, fortresses,
executions, and murders, no power can come into existence or be
maintained.

"If the power of government is suppressed the more wicked will
oppress the less wicked," say the champions of state authority.
But when the Egyptians conquered the Jews, the Romans conquered
the Greeks, and the Barbarians conquered the Romans, is it
possible that all the conquerors were always better than those
they conquered? And the same with the transitions of power within
a state from one personage to another: has the power always passed
from a worse person to a better one? When Louis XVI. was removed
and Robespierre came to power, and afterward Napoleon--who ruled
then, a better man or a worse? And when were better men in power,
when the Versaillist party or when the Commune was in power? When
Charles I. was ruler, or when Cromwell? And when Peter III. was
Tzar, or when he was killed and Catherine was Tzaritsa in one-half
of Russia and Pougachef ruled the other? Which was bad then, and
which was good? All men who happen to be in authority assert that
their authority is necessary to keep the bad from oppressing the
good, assuming that they themselves are the good PAR EXCELLENCE,
who protect other good people from the bad.

But ruling means using force, and using force means doing to him
to whom force is used, what he does not like and what he who uses
the force would certainly not like done to himself. Consequently
ruling means doing to others what we would we would not they
should do unto us, that is, doing wrong.


To submit means to prefer suffering to using force. And to prefer
suffering to using force means to be good, or at least less wicked
than those who do unto others what they would not like themselves.

And therefore, in all probability, not the better but the worse
have always ruled and are ruling now. There may be bad men among
those who are ruled, but it cannot be that those who are better
have generally ruled those who are worse.

It might be possible to suppose this with the inexact heathen
definition of good; but with the clear Christian definition of
good and evil, it is impossible to imagine it.

If the more or less good, and the more or less bad cannot be
distinguished in the heathen world, the Christian conception of
good and evil has so clearly defined the characteristics of the
good and the wicked, that it is impossible to confound them.
According to Christ's teaching the good are those who are meek and
long-suffering, do not resist evil by force, forgive injuries, and
love their enemies; those are wicked who exalt themselves,
oppress, strive, and use force. Therefore by Christ's teaching
there can be no doubt whether the good are to be found among
rulers or ruled, and whether the wicked are among the ruled or the
rulers. Indeed it is absurd even to speak of Christians ruling.

Non-Christians, that is those who find the aim of their lives in
earthly happiness, must always rule Christians, the aim of whose
lives is the renunciation of such earthly happiness.

This difference has always existed and has become more and more
defined as the Christian religion has been more widely diffused
and more correctly understood.

The more widely true Christianity was diffused and the more it
penetrated men's conscience, the more impossible it was for
Christians to be rulers, and the easier it became for non-
Christians to rule them.

"To get rid of governmental violence in a society in which all are
not true Christians, will only result in the wicked dominating the
good and oppressing them with impunity," say the champions of the
existing order of things. But it has never been, and cannot be
otherwise. So it has always been from the beginning of the world,
and so it is still. THE WICKED WILL ALWAYS DOMINATE THE GOOD, AND
WILL ALWAYS OPPRESS THEM. Cain overpowered Abel, the cunning
Jacob oppressed the guileless Esau and was in his turn deceived by
Laban, Caiaphas and Pilate oppressed Christ, the Roman emperors
oppressed Seneca, Epictetus, and the good Romans who lived in
their times. John IV. with his favorites, the syphilitic drunken
Peter with his buffoons, the vicious Catherine with her paramours,
ruled and oppressed the industrious religious Russians of their
times.

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