oh so good it's good for you too good boy good boy you're close to me I've got my own vitamins to take as well doctors orders vitamin B12 and zinc apparently I was a little low on them when they did their tests last month those are for me diesel for me you already had your vitamins what's up everybody another new day is here we're making our way towards Calgary putt putting away saving some fuel we're doing good doing some farming on the side here aren't you zooming out but yeah I'm doing pretty good how are you doing so today it'll be well I want to stop at Walmart pick a few things up I want to stop and get the truck washed in Fargo the Blue Beacon hopefully the lineup isn't too long there and then I'm probably thinking we'll probably make it up to like my not North Dakota or something tonight I think well I think that'll be a good spot to make it to I mean it'll be a maybe not quite that far but I really don't need to make it that far we have lots of time to get to Calgary not in that big of a rush it's really nice to be a little more stress-free a little bit more time to get to my destination it's well good I wouldn't want to go this slow all the time I wouldn't make any money that way but once in a while it's a nice break but my fridge the weasel got his treats and I got some garbage don't worry I went to Walmart you can't go to Walmart and not pick up any garbage Coke zero cancer in a can I got a bunch of fresh fruit as well which we have to remember to eat before we cross the border tomorrow can't take fresh fruits across the border because they have the fruit place the fruit Nazis they don't let us move fruit restricted thing I don't know why well I know why that obviously they don't want to you know bring any problems with the fruit let's say into Canada or vice versa they sort of want to localize it that's why we have borders right to restrict movement of people of products just so that if something let's say does happen and people start getting sick from the fruits down here in the U.S. that that sickness doesn't pass as easily into Canada into the next country or vice versa so no fresh meats no fresh fruits or raw meats or I know raw meats no fresh fruit stuff like that can cross the border with you you always got to gobble it down before you get there it can cross the border if it's in your belly that's the exception oh and diesel got new food bowls because the other ones were getting pretty gross already and because he's a good boy it's like that right man the Lord Lord of all the weasels and the who's yours look at that pose that is a very lordly pose thank you I've been practicing diesel Lord of all weasels and the who's yours man don't forget them your best we're taking bubble baths the truck is this truck is dirty one truck in front of me in either line so I'm not sure which one's gonna be done first but whichever one it is we'll take that line just gonna get the truck and engine wash today not gonna bother washing the trailer that's only for special occasions it's not my trailer so I do wash them it doesn't need to be washed but man I'm not gonna hold on to it very much longer anyways after Calgary I'm probably she know what I might be holding on to this trailer a little longer than that maybe I should get it washed you know nobody washes the trailers right because nobody cares nobody everybody just washes their trucks but nobody washes the trailers once in a while when I'm in a good spot to do it I like to wash them at least I have a whole nice clean unit but I only do that if I'm gonna be holding on to that trailer for a while sometimes I drop that trailer we call it a drop-in hook sometimes I grab that trailer and I drop it somewhere grab a different trailer bring that trailer drop it there grab a different trailer when I'm constantly switching trailers why would I spend my money into washing a trailer that I'm only gonna have behind me for a day right I'll be dropping this load off in Calgary and then picking up another load probably going back down to the Midwest of the US so I might be it might be worth it for me to wash it I mean it's that season of years gonna get dirty right away again anyways but for my truck anyways I want to get the salt off the frame and stuff oh looks like we can move forward here this guy's going in oh it's so nice to have proper power going to my bath coming from my batteries let's roll it forward that's right here very nice very nice we don't have to wait long at least not many people washing their trucks on the weather's like this rinse here we'll be out of here that's the rain next you can see it all beating off the windshield so nicely just did the truck I didn't bother with the windshield that always messes with the wipers the wipers don't wipe as good Carrington North Dakota I'm gonna stop here for the night it's 8 o'clock or quarter after 8 o'clock already past the chief in the motel that's where our our friend is waving at us again let's all wave back parking spot at the truck stop over the bridge there is on the right everybody wave how's it going chief third exit of one kilometer did you wave Karen they're a parking spot for trackers are here on this road for 21 kilometers no Karen why is this guy part that's not a parking spot my friend oh I just cleaned my truck it's gonna get so dirty here maybe we just go slow enough maybe just the wheels will get dirty side these guys over here spot right in here right beside a reefer I prefer not to park beside a reefer if I have a choice we'll find a spot and I'll catch up with you guys then and I guess this is it this is the end of the day end of the line we're gonna enjoy a nice long night here get some good rest clean this place up we'll be on our way tomorrow stop in my not tomorrow morning to shower it's just a little way down the road we didn't quite make it that's what I wanted to make it to tonight but we stopped quite a bit I stopped at Walmart to get groceries that took an hour stopped to get the truck washed I was only about a half hour and I was going pretty slow today so tomorrow we'll pick up the pace a little bit get a little bit further and we still got two days and we only have 1300 kilometers to go so that's 13 hours of driving I've got two days to do that in so shouldn't have a problem thanks for joining me today though if you like my videos you can say so by hitting that thumbs up button if you hated it thumbs down button one of the two you only got two options go for it I'll wait tomorrow there'll be another video make sure you subscribe and hit the bell button and turn on all notifications so you know when it goes live you can be the first to watch it I challenge you to be the first to leave a comment I've never done this before you guys have always sort of taken on this challenge on your own but now I challenge each and every one of you who will be the first one to leave the first comment on my video find out tomorrow the suspense will it be you will it be me I don't know you're gonna have to be pretty quick to beat me


CHAPTER XII The Governor, in spite of all the stupefying effect of his surroundings, cannot help hesitating when the moment comes to give the final decisive command. He knows that the action of the Governor of Oriel has called down upon him the disapproval of the best people, and he himself, influenced by the public opinion of the circles in which he moves, has more than once expressed his disapprobation of him. He knows that the prosecutor, who ought to have come, flatly refused to have anything to do with it, because he regarded it as disgraceful. He knows, too, that there may be changes any day in the government, and that what was aground for advancement yesterday may be the cause of disgrace, tomorrow. And he knows that there is a press, if not in Russia, at least abroad, which may report the affair and cover him with ignominy forever. He is already conscious of a change in public opinion, which condemns what was formally a duty. Moreover, he cannot feel fully assured that his soldiers will at the last moment obey him. He is wavering, and none can say beforehand what he will do. All the officers and functionaries who accompany him experience in greater or less degree the same emotions. In the depths of their hearts they all know what they are doing is shameful, that to take part in it is a discredit and blemish in the eyes of some people whose opinion they value. They know that after murdering and torturing the defenseless, each of them will be ashamed to face his betrothed or the woman he is courting. And besides, they, too, like the governor, are doubtful whether the soldier's obedience to order can be reckoned on. Not a contrast with the confident air they all put on as they sauntered about the station and platform. Inwardly they were not only in a state of suffering, but even of suspense. Indeed, they all assumed this bold and composed manner to conceal the wavering within, and this feeling increased as they drew near the scene of action, and imperceptible as it was, and strange as it seems to say so, all that mass of lads, the soldiers who seemed so submissive, were in precisely the same condition. These are not the soldiers of former days who gave up the natural life of industry and devoted their whole existence to debauchery, plunder, and murder, like the robin legionnaires or the warriors of the Thirty Years' War, or even the soldiers of more recent times who served for twenty-five years in the army. They have mostly been only lately taken from their families, and are full of the reconciliations of the good, rational, natural life they have left behind them. All these lads, peasants for the most part, know what is the business they have come about. They know that the landowner always oppresses their brothers and peasants, and that, therefore, it is most likely the same thing here. Moreover, a majority of them can now read, and the books they read are not all such as exalt a military life. There are some which point out its immorality. Among them are often free-thinking comrades who have enlisted voluntarily or young officers of liberal ideas, and already the first germ of doubt has been sown in regard to the unconditional legitimacy and glory of their occupation. It is true that they have all passed through the terrible, skillful education elaborated through centuries, which kills all initiative in a man, and that they are so trained to mechanical obedience that, at the word of command, fire all the line! Fire! And so on, their guns will rise themselves, and the habitual movements will be performed. But fire now does not mean shooting into the sand for amusement.  Here they are, one with his scanty beard and patched coat and plaited shoes of reed just like the father they left at home in Kazan or Rizan province, one with grey beard and bent back leaning on a staff like the old grandfather, one a young fellow in boots and a red shirt, just as he was himself, a year ago, he was the soldier who must fire upon him. There, too, a woman in reed shoes in Penoeva, just like the mother they left at home, is it possible they must fire on them? And no one knows what each soldier will do at the last minute. The last word, the slightest illusion, would be enough to stop them. At the last moment they will all find themselves in the position of a hypnotized man to whom it has been suggested to chop a log, who, coming up to what has been indicated to them as a log, with the axe already lifted to strike, sees that it is not a log, but is sleeping brother. He may perform the act that has been suggested to him, and he may come to his senses at the last moment of performing it. In the same way all these men may come to themselves in time, or they may go on to the end. If they do not come to themselves, the most fearful crime will be committed, as in Oriel, and then the hypnotic suggestion under which they act will be strengthened in all other men. If they do come to themselves, not only this terrible crime will not be perpetrated, but many also who hear of the turn the affair has taken will be emancipated from the hypnotic influence in which they were held, or at least will be nearer being emancipated from it. Even if a few only come to themselves and boldly explain to the others all the wickedness of such a crime, the influence of these few may rouse the others to shake off the controlling suggestion, and the atrocity will not be perpetrated. More than that, if a few men, even of those who are not taking part in the affair, but are only present at the preparations for it, or have heard of such things being done in the past, do not remain indifferent, but boldly and plainly express their de-destation of such crimes to those who have to execute them, and point out to them all the senselessness crookedness of such acts that alone will be productive of good. That was what took place in the instance before us. It was enough for a few men, some personally concerned in the affair, and others simply outsiders, to express their disapproval of floggings that had taken place elsewhere, and their contempt and loathing for those who had taken part in inflicting them, for a few persons in the tulicase, to express their repugnance to having any share in it, for a lady traveling by the train, and a few other bystanders at the station, to express to those who formed the expedition their disgust at what they were doing, for one of the commanders of a company who had asked for troops for the restoration of order, to reply that soldiers ought not to be butchers, and thanks to these, and a few other seemingly insignificant influences, brought to bear on these hypnotized men, the affair took a completely different turn, and the troops, when they reached the place, did not inflict any punishment, but contented themselves with cutting down the forest, and giving it to the landowner. Had not a few persons had a clear consciousness that what they were doing was wrong, and consequently influenced one another in that direction, what was done in Oriel would have taken place at Tula. Had this consciousness still been stronger, and had the influence exerted been therefore greater than it was, it might well have been that the governor, with his troops, would not even have ventured to cut down the forest and give it to the landowner. Had the consciousness been stronger still, it might well have been that the governor would not have ventured to go to the scene of action at all, even that the minister would not have ventured to form this decision, or the Tsar to ratify it. All depends therefore on the strength of the consciousness of Christian truth on the part of each individual man. And therefore one would have thought that the efforts of all men of the present day who professed to wish to work for the welfare of humanity would have been directed to strengthening this consciousness of Christian truth in themselves and others. But, strange to say, it is precisely those people who profess most anxiety for the amelioration of human life, and are regarded as the leaders of public opinion, who assert that there is no need to do that, and that there are other more effective means for the amelioration of men's condition. They affirm that the amelioration of human life is affected not by the efforts of individual men to recognize and propagate the truth, but by the gradual modification of the general conditions of life, and that therefore the efforts of individuals should be directed to the gradual modification of external conditions for the better. For every advocacy of a truth inconsistent with the existing order by an individual is, they maintain, not only useless, but injurious, since it provokes coercive measures on the part of the authorities restricting these individuals from continuing any action useful to society. According to this doctrine, all modifications in human life are brought about by precisely the same laws as in the life of the animals. So that, according to this doctrine, all the founders of religions, such as Moses and the prophets, Confucius, Lao Tse, Buddha, Christ, and others, preached their doctrines and their followers accepted them not because they loved the truth, but because the political, social, and above all economic conditions of the peoples among whom these religions arose were favorable for their origination and development, and therefore the chief efforts of the man who wishes to serve society and improve the condition of humanity ought, according to this doctrine, to be directed not to the elucidation and propagation of truth, but to the improvement of the external, political, social, and above all economic conditions. And the modification of these conditions is partly affected by serving the government and introducing liberal and progressive principles into it, partly in promoting the development of industry and the propagation of socialistic ideas, and most of all by the diffusion of science. According to this theory, it is of no consequence whether you profess the truth revealed to you and therefore realize it in your life, or at least refrain from committing actions opposed to the truth, such as serving the government and strengthening its authority when you regard it as injurious, profiting by the capitalistic system when you regard it as wrong, showing veneration for various ceremonies which you believe to be degrading superstitions, giving support to the law when you believe it to be founded on error, serving as a soldier, taking oaths and lying and lowering yourself generally. It is useless to refrain from all that. What is of use is not altering the existing forms of life, but submitting to them against your own convictions, introducing liberalism into the existing institutions, promoting commerce, the propaganda of socialism, and the triumphs of what is called science and the diffusion of education. According to this theory, one can remain a landowner, merchant, manufacturer, judge, official in government pay, officer or soldier, and still be not only a humane man, but even a socialist and revolutionist. Hippocracy, which had formerly only a religious basis in the doctrine of original sin, the redemption and the church, has in our day gained a new scientific basis and has consequently caught in its nets all those who had reached too high a stage of development to be able to find support in religious hypocrisy, so that while in former days a man who professed the religion of the church could take part in all the crimes of the state and profit by them, and still regard himself as free from any taint of sin so long as he fulfilled the external observance of his creed. Nowadays all who do not believe in the Christianity of the church find similar, well founded, irrefutable reasons in science for regarding themselves as blameless and even highly moral in spite of their participation in the misdeeds of government and the advantages they gain from them. A rich landowner, not only in Russia but in France, England, Germany or America, lives on the rents exacted from the people living on his land and robs these generally poverty-stricken people of all he can get from them. This man's right of property in the land rests on the fact that at every effort on the part of the oppressed people, without his consent, to make use of the land he considers his. Troops are called out to subject them to punishment and murder. One would have thought that it was obvious that a man living in his way was an evil, egotistical creature, and could not possibly consider himself a Christian or liberal. One would have supposed in evident that the first thing such a man must do, if he wishes to approximate to Christianity or liberalism, would be to cease to plunder and ruin men by means of acts of state violence and support of his claim to the land, and so it would be if it were not for the logic of hypocrisy, which reasons that from a religious point of view, possessions or non-possession of land is of no consequence for salvation. And from the scientific point of view, giving up the ownership of land is a useless individual renunciation, and that the welfare of mankind is not promoted in that way, but by a gradual modification of external forms. And so it is, man, without the least trouble of mind or doubt, that people will believe in his sincerity, organizing an agricultural exhibition or a temperate society, or sending some soup and stockings by his wife or children to three old women, and boldly in his family, in drawing rooms and committees, and in the press, advocating the gospel or humanitarian doctrine of love for one's neighbor in general, and the agricultural laboring population in particular, whom he is continually exploiting and oppressing. The other people who are in the same position as he believe him, commend him, and solemnly discuss with him measures for ameliorating the condition of the working class. On those exploitations their whole life rests, devising all kinds of possible methods for this, except the one without which all improvement of their condition is impossible, i.e., refraining from taking from them the land necessary for their substance. A striking example of this hypocrisy was the solicitude displayed by the Russian landowners last year, their efforts to combat the famine which they had caused, and by which they profited, selling not only bread at the highest price, but even potato home at five rubles the dozen time, about two and four fifths acres, for fuel to the freezing peasants, or take a merchant whose whole trade, like all trade indeed, is founded on a series of trickery by means of which profiting by the ignorance or need of others, he buys goods below their value and sells them again above their value. One would have fancied it obvious that a man whose whole occupation was based on what in his language is called swindling, if it is done under other conditions, ought to be ashamed of his position and could not anyway, while he continues a merchant, profess himself a Christian or a liberal. But the sophistry of hypocrisy reasons that the man can pass for a virtuous man without giving up his pernicious course of action. A religious man need only have faith, and a liberal man need only promote the modification of external conditions, the progress of industry. And so we see the merchant, who often goes further and commits acts of direct dishonesty, selling adulterated goods, using false weights and measures, and trading in products injurious to health, such as alcohol and opium, boldly regarding himself as being regarded by others, so long as he does not directly deceive his colleagues in business, as a pattern of probity and virtue. And if he spends a thousandth part of his stolen wealth on some public institution, a hospital or museum or school, then he is even regarded as a benefactor of the people on the exploitation and corruption of whom his whole prosperity has been founded. If he sacrifices to a portion of his ill-gotten gains on a church and the poor, then he is an exemplary Christian. A manufacturer is a man whose whole income consists of value squeezed out of the workmen, and whose whole occupation is based on forced unnatural labor, exhausting whole generations of men. It would seem obvious that if this man professes any Christian or liberal principles, he must first of all give up ruining human lives for his own profit. But, by the existing theory, he is promoting industry and he ought not to abandon his pursuit. It would even be injuring society for him to do so. And so, we see this man, the harsh slave driver of thousands of men, building almshouses with little gardens, two yards square, for the workmen, broken down and toiling for him, and a bank, and a poor house, and a hospital, fully persuaded that he has amply expatiated in this way for all the human lives morally and physically ruined by him, and calmly going on with his business, taking pride in it. Any civil, religious, or military official in government employ who serves the state from vanity, or, as is most often the case, simply for the sake of the pay rung from the harassed and toil-worn working classes, all taxes, however raised, always fall on labor, if he, as is very seldom, the case, does not directly rob the government in the usual way, considers himself, as is considered by his fellows, as a most useful and virtuous member of society. A judge or a public prosecutor knows that through his sentence, or his prosecution, hundreds or thousands of poor wretches are at once torn from their families and thrown into prison, where they may go out of their minds, kill themselves with pieces of broken glass, or starve themselves. He knows that they have wives and mothers and children, disgraced and made miserable by separation from them, vainly begging for pardon for them, or some alleviation of their sentence.  According to the metaphysics of hypocrisy, it is held that he is doing a work of public utility, and this man who has ruined hundreds, thousands of men, who curse him and are driven to desperation by his action, goes to mass, a smile of shining benevolence on his smooth face, in perfect faith, in good and in God, listens to the gospel, caresses his children, preaches moral principles to them, and is moved by imaginary sufferings. All these men and those who depend on them, their wives, tutors, children, cooks, actors, jockeys, and so on, are living on the blood which by one means or another, through one set of bloodsuckers or another, is drawn out of the working class, and every day their pleasures cost hundreds or thousands of days of labor. They see the sufferings and privations of these labors, and their children, their aged, their wives, and their sick. They know the punishments inflicted on those who resist this organized plunder, and far from decreasing, far from concealing their luxury, they insolently display it before these oppressed laborers who hate them, as though intentionally provoking them with the pomp of their parks and palaces, their theaters, hunts, and races. At the same time they continue to persuade themselves and others that they are all much concerned about the welfare of those working classes whom they have always trampled under their feet, and on Sundays, richly dressed, they drive insumptuous carriages to the house of God built in very mockery of Christianity, and their listen to men trained to this work of deception who in white neckties or in brocaded vestments, according to their denomination, preach the love for their neighbor which they all gainsay in their lives, and these people have so entered into their part that they seriously believe that they really are what they pretend to be. The universal hypocrisy has so entered into the flesh and blood of all classes of our modern society, it has reached such a pitch that nothing in that way can rouse indignation. Hypocrisy in the Greek means acting, and acting, playing a part, is always possible. The representatives of crimes to the ranks and murderers holding their guns loaded against their brothers for prayer, priests, ministers, and various Christian sects are always present, as indispensable as the hangmen at executions, and sanctioned by their presence the compatibility of murder with Christianity, a clergyman assisted at the attempt at murder by electricity in America, but such facts cause no one any surprise. There was recently held at Petersburg an international exhibition of instruments of torture, handcuffs, models of solitary cells that is to say instruments of torture worse than knots or rods, and sensitive ladies and gentlemen went and amused themselves by looking at them. No one is surprised that together with its recognition of liberty, equality, and fraternity, liberal science should prove the necessity of war, punishment, customs, the censure, the regulation of prostitution, the exclusion of cheap foreign laborers, the hindrance of immigration, the justifiableness of colonization based on poisoning and destroying whole races of men called savages, and so on. People talk of the time when all men shall profess what is called Christianity, that is, various professions of faith, hostile to one another, when all shall be well fed and clothed, when all shall be united from one end of the world to the other by telegraphs and telephones, and be able to communicate by balloons when all the working classes are permeated by socialistic doctrines, when the trade unions possess so many millions of members and so many millions of rubles, when everyone is educated and all can read newspapers and learn all the sciences. But what good or useful thing can come of all these improvements if men do not speak or act in accordance with what they believe to be the truth? The condition of men is the result of their disunion. Their disunion results from their not following the truth which is one but falsehoods which are many. The sole means of uniting men is their union in the truth, and therefore the more sincerity men strive towards the truth, the nearer they get to unity. But how can men be united in the truth or even approximate to it if they do not even express the truth they know, but hold that there is no need to do so, and pretend to regard as truth what they believe to be false. And therefore no improvement is possible so long as men are hypocritical and hide the truth from themselves, so long as they do not recognize that their union and therefore their welfare is only possible in the truth, and do not put the recognition and profession of the truth revealed to them higher than everything else. All the material improvements that religious and scientific men can dream of may be accomplished. All men may accept Christianity and all the reforms desired by the Bellymans may be brought about with every possible addition and improvement, but if the hypocrisy which rules nowadays still exists, if men do not profess the truth they know, but continue to feign belief in what they do not believe, and veneration for what they do not respect, their condition will remain the same. Or even grow worse and worse. The more men are freed from privation, the more telegraphs, telephones, books, papers, and journals there are, the more means there will be of diffusing inconsistent lies and hypocrisies, and the more disunited and consequently miserable will men become, which indeed is what we see actually taking place. All these material reforms may be realized, but the position of humanity will not be improved, but only let each man, according to his powers, at once realize in his life the truth he knows, or at least cease to support the falsehoods he is supporting in the place of the truth, and at once in this year, 1893, we should see such reforms as we do not dare to hope for within a century the emancipation of men and the reign of truth upon earth. Not without good reason was Christ's only harsh and threatening reproof directed against hypocrisies and hypocrisy. It is not theft or robbery nor murder nor fornication, but falsehood, the special falsehood of hypocrisy which corrupts men, brutalizes them, and makes them vindictive, destroys all distinction between right and wrong in their conscience, deprives them of what is the true meaning of all real, and debars them from all progress towards perfection. Those who do evil through ignorance of the truth provoke sympathy with their victims and repugnance for their actions. They do harm only to those they attack, but those who know the truth and do evil masked by hypocrisy, injure themselves and their victims, and thousands of other men as well who are led astray by the falsehood with which the wrongdoing is disguised. Thieves, robbers, murderers, and cheats who commit crimes recognized by themselves and everyone else's evil serve as an example of what ought not to be done, and deter others from similar crimes. But those who commit the same thefts, robberies, murders, and other crimes, disguising them under all kinds of religious or scientific or humanitarian justifications, as all landowners, merchants, manufacturers, and government officials do, provoke others to imitation, and so do harm not only to those who are directly the victims of their crimes, but to thousands and millions of men who they corrupt by obliterating their sense of the distinction between right and wrong. A single fortune gained by trading in goods necessary to the people or in goods pernicious in their effects, or by financial speculations, or by acquiring land at a low price, the value of which is increased by the needs of the population, or by an industry ruinous to the health and life of those employed in it, or by military or civil service of the state, or by any employment which trades on men's evil instincts. A single fortune acquired in any of these ways, not only with the sanction, but even with the approbation of the leading men in society, and masked with an ostentation of philanthropy, corrupts men incomparably more than millions of thefts and robberies committed against the recognized forms of law and punishable as crimes. A single execution carried out by prosperous educated men uninfluenced by passion, with the approbation and assistance of Christian ministers and represented as something necessary, and even just, is infinitely more corrupting and brutalizing to men than thousands of murders committed by uneducated working people under the influence of passion. An execution, such as was proposed by Djerkovsky, which would produce even a sentiment of religious emotion in the spectators, would be one of the most perverting actions imaginable. See volume four of the works of Djerkovsky. Every war, even the most humanely conducted, with all its ordinary consequences, the destruction of harvests, robberies, the license and debauchery, and the murder with the justifications of its necessity and justice, the exaltation and glorification of military exploits, the worship of the flag, the patriotic sentiments, the feigned solitude for the wounded, and so on, does more in one year to pervert men's minds than thousands of robberies, murders and arsons perpetuated during hundreds of years by individual men under the influence of passion. The luxurious expenditure of a single respectable and so-called honorable family, even within the conventional limits consuming as it does the produce of as many days of labor as would suffice to provide for thousands living in probation near, does more to pervert men's minds than thousands of the violent orgies and coarse tradespeople, officers, and workmen of drunken and debauched habits who smash up glasses and crockery for amusement. One solemn religious procession, one service, one sermon, from the altar steps or the pulpit in which the preacher does not believe, produces incomparably more evil than thousands of swindling tricks, adulterations of food, and so on. We talk of the hypocrisy of the Pharisees, but the hypocrisy of our society far surpasses the comparatively innocent hypocrisy of the Pharisees. They had at least an external role, the fulfillment of which hinders them from seeing their obligations to their neighbors. Moreover, these obligations were not nearly so clearly defined in their day. Nowadays we have no such religious law to exonerate us from our duties to our neighbors. I am speaking now of the course and ignorant persons who still fancy their sins can be absolved by confession to a priest or by the absolution of the pope. On the contrary, the law of the gospel which we all profess in one form or another directly defines these duties. Besides, the duties which had been then only vaguely and mystically expressed by a few prophets have now been so clearly formulated have become such truisms that they are repeated even by school boys and journalists and so it would seem that men of today cannot pretend that they do not know these duties. A man of the modern world who profits by the order of things based on violence and at the same time protests that he loves his neighbor and does not observe what he is doing at all his daily life to his neighbor is like a brigand who has spent his life in robbing men and who caught at last knife in hand in the very act of striking his shrieking victim should declare that he had no idea that what he was doing was disagreeable to the man he had robbed and was prepared to murder. Just as this robber and murderer could not deny what was evident to everyone so it would seem that a man living upon the privations of the oppressed classes cannot persuade himself and others that he desires the welfare of those he plunders and that he does not know how the advantages he enjoys are obtained. It is impossible to convince ourselves that we do not know that there are a hundred thousand men in prison in Russia alone to guarantee the security of our property and tranquility and that we do not know of the law tribunals in which we take part and which at our initiative condemn those who have attacked our property and our security to prison exile and forced labor whereby men no worse than those who condemn them are ruined and corrupted or that we do not know that we only possess all that we do possess because it has been acquired and is defended for us by murder and violence. We cannot pretend that we do not see the armed policeman who marches up and down beneath our windows to guarantee our security while we eat our luxurious dinner or look at the new piece at the theater or that we are unaware of the existence of the soldiers who will make their appearance with guns and cartridges directly our property is attacked. We know very well that we are only allowed to go on eating our dinner to finish seeing the new play or to enjoy to the end the ball the Christmas feet the promenade the races or the hunt thanks to the policeman's revolver or the soldier's rifle which will shoot down the famished outcast who has been robbed of his share and who looks around the corner with covetous eyes at our pleasures ready to interpret them instantly. We're not the policeman and the soldier they're prepared to run up at our first call for help and therefore just as a brigand caught in broad daylight in the act cannot persuade us that he did not lift his knife in order to rob his victim of his purse and had no thought of killing him we too it would seem cannot persuade ourselves or others that the soldiers and policemen around us are not to guard us but only for defense against foreign foes and to regulate traffic and fatigues and reviews. We cannot persuade ourselves and others that we do not know that men do not like dying of hunger barraft of the right to gain their substance from the earth on which they live that they do not like working underground in the water or in stifling heat for 10 to 14 hours a day at night in factories to manufacture objects for our pleasure one would imagine it impossible to deny what is so obvious yet it is denied still there are among the rich especially among the young and among women persons whom i am glad to meet more and more frequently who when they are shown in what way and at what cost their pleasures are purchased do not try to conceal the truth but hiding their head in their hands cry oh don't speak of that if it is so life is impossible but though there are such sincere people who even though they cannot renounce their fault at least see it the vast majority of the men of the modern world have so entered into the parts they play in their hypocrisy that they boldly deny what is staring everyone in the face all that is unjust they say no one forces the people to work for the landowners and manufacturers that is an affair for free contract great properties and fortunes are necessary because they provide an organized work for the working classes and labor in the factories and workshops is not at all the terrible thing you make it out to be even if there are some abuses and factories the government and the public are taking steps to oblige them and to make the labor of the factory workers much easier and even agreeable the working classes are accustomed to physical labor and are so far fit for nothing else the poverty of the people is not the result of private property in land nor of capitalistic oppression but of other causes it is the result of the ignorance brutality and intemperance of the people and we men in authority who are striving against this impoverishment of the people by wise legislation we capitalists who are combating it by the extension of useful inventions we clergymen by religious instruction and we liberals by the formation of trade unions and the diffusion of education are in this way increasing the prosperity of the people without changing our own positions we do not want all to be as poor as the poor we want all to be as rich as the rich as for the assertion that men are ill treated and murdered to force them to work for the profit of the rich that is esiphism the army is only called out against the mob when the people in ignorance of their own interests make disturbances and destroy the tranquility necessary for the public welfare in the same way too it is necessary to keep in restraint the malfactors for whom the prisons and gallows are established we ourselves wish to suppress these forms of punishment and are working in that direction hypocrisy in our day is supported on two sides by false religion and by false science and it has reached such proportions that if we were not living in the midst we could not believe that men could attain such a pitch of self-deception men of the present day have come into such an extraordinary condition their hearts are so hardened that seeing they see not hearing they do not hear and understand not men have long been living in antagonism to their conscience if it were not for hypocrisy they could not go on living such a life the social organization in opposition to their conscience only continues to exist because it is disguised by hypocrisy and the greater the divergence between actual life and men's conscience the greater the extension of hypocrisy but even hypocrisy has its limits and it seems to me that we have reached those limits in the present day every man of the present day with the christian principles assimilated involuntarily in his conscience finds himself in precisely the position of a man asleep who dreams that he is obliged to do something which even in his dream he knows he ought not to do he knows this in the depths of his conscience and all the same he seems unable to change his position he cannot stop and cease doing what he ought not to do and just as in a dream his position becoming more and more painful at last reaches such a pitch of intensity that he begins sometimes to doubt the reality of what is passing and makes a moral effort to shake off the nightmare which is oppressing him this is just the condition of the average man of our christian society he feels that all that he does himself and that is done around him is something absurd hideous impossible and opposed to his conscience he feels that his position is becoming more and more unendurable and reaching a crisis of intensity it is not possible that we modern men with the christian sense of human dignity and equality permeating us soul and body with our need for peaceful association and unity between nations should really go on living in such a way that every joy occasion we have is bought by the sufferings by the lives of our brother men and moreover that we should be every instant within a hair's breath of falling on one another nation against nation like wild beasts mercilessly destroying men's lives and labor only because some benign diplomat or ruler says or writes some stupidity to another equally benign diplomat or ruler it is impossible yet every man of our day sees that this is so and awaits the calamity and the situation becomes more and more insupportable and as men who is dreaming does not believe that what appears to him can be truly the reality and tries to wake up from the actual real world again so the average man of modern days cannot in the bottom of his heart believe that the awful position in which he is placed and which is growing worse and worse can be the reality and tries to wake up to a true real life as it exists in his conscience and just as the dreamer needs only make a moral effort and ask himself isn't it a dream and the situation which seemed to him so hopeless will instantly disappear and he will wake up to peaceful and happy reality so the man of the modern world need only make a moral effort to doubt the reality presented to him by his own hypocrisy and the general hypocrisy around him and to ask himself isn't it all a delusion and he will at once like the dreamer awakened feel himself transported from an imaginary and dreadful world to the true calm and happy reality and to do this a man need accomplish no great feats or exploits he need only make a moral effort but can a man make this effort according to the existing theory so essential to support hypocrisy man is not free and cannot change his life man cannot change his life because he is not free he is not free because all his actions are conditioned by previously existing causes and whatever the man may do there are always some causes or other through which he does these or those acts and therefore man cannot be free and change his life say the champions of the metaphysics of hypocrisy and they would be perfectly right if man were a creature without conscience and incapable of moving toward the truth that is to say if after recognizing a new truth man always remained at the same stage of moral development but man is a creature with a conscience and capable of attaining a higher and higher degree of truth and therefore even if man is not free as regards performing these or those acts because there exists a previous cause for every act the very causes of the acts consisting as they do for the man of conscience of the recognition of this or that truth are within his own control so that though man may not be free as regards the performance of his actions he is free as regards the foundation on which they are performed just as the makinian who is not free to modify the movement of his locomotive when it is in motion is free to regulate the machine beforehand so as to determine what the movement is to be whatever the conscience man does he acts just as he does and not otherwise only because he recognizes that to act as he is acting is in accord with the truth or because he has recognized it at some previous time and is now only through inertia through habit acting in accordance with his previous recognition of truth in any case the cause of his action is not to be found in any given previous fact but in the consciousness of a given relation to truth and the consequent recognition of this or that fact as a sufficient basis for action whether a man eats or does not eat works or rests runs risks or avoids them if he has a conscience he acts thus only because he considers it right and rational because he considers that to act thus is in harmony with truth or else because he has made this reflection in the past the recognition or non-recognition of a certain truth depends not on external causes but on certain other causes within the man himself so that at times under external conditions apparently very favorable for the recognition of truth one man will not recognize it and another on the contrary under the most unfavorable conditions will without apparent cause recognize it as it is said in the gospel no man can come unto me except the father which hath sent me draw him that is to say the recognition of truth which is the cause of all the manifestations of human life does not depend on external phenomena but on certain inner spiritual characteristics of the man which escape our observation and therefore man though not free in his acts always feels himself free and what is the motive of his acts the recognition or non-recognition of truth and he feels himself independent not only of facts external to his own personality but even of his own actions thus a man who under the influence of passion has committed an act contrary to the truth he recognizes remains nonetheless free to recognize it or not to recognize it that is he can by refusing to recognize the truth regard his action as necessary and justifiable or he may recognize the truth and regard his act as wrong and censure himself for it thus a gambler or a drunkard who does not resist temptation and yields to his passion is still free to recognize gambling and drunkenness as wrong or to regard them as a harmless pastime in the first case even if he does not at once get over his passion he gets the more free format the more sincerely he recognizes the truth about it in the second case he will be strengthened in his vice and will deprive himself of every possibility of shaking it off in the same way a man who has made his escape alone from a house on fire not having had the courage to save his friend remains free recognizing the truth that a man ought to save the life of another even at the risk of his own to regard his action as bad and to censure himself for it or not recognizing this truth to regard his action as natural and necessary and to justify it to himself in the first case if he recognizes the truth in spite of his departure from it he prepares for himself in the future a whole series of acts of self-sacrifice necessarily flowing from this recognition of the truth in the second case a whole series of egotistic acts not that a man is always free to recognize or to refuse to recognize every truth there are truths which he has recognized long before or which have been handed down to him by education and tradition and accepted by him on faith and to follow these truths has become a habit a second nature with him and there are truths only vaguely as it were distantly apprehended by him the man is not free to refuse to recognize the first nor to recognize the second class of truths but there are truths of a third kind which have not yet become an unconscious motive of action but yet have been revealed so clearly to him that he cannot pass them by and is inevitably obliged to do one thing or the other to recognize or not to recognize them and it is in regard to these truths that the man's freedom manifests itself every man during his life finds himself in regard to truth in the position of a man walking in the darkness with light thrown before him by the lantern he carries he does not see what is not yet lighted up by the lantern he does not see what he has passed which is hidden in the darkness but at every stage of his journey he sees what is lighted up by the lantern and he can always choose one side or the other of the road there are always unseen truths not yet revealed to the man's intellectual vision and there are other truths outlived forgotten and assimilated by him and there are also certain truths that rise up before the light of his reason and require his recognition and it is in the recognition or non-recognition of these truths that what we call his freedom is manifested all the difficulty and seeming insolubility of the question of the freedom of man results from those who tried to solve the question imagining man's statutory in his relation to the truth man is certainly not free if we imagine him stationary and if we forget that the life of a man and of humanity is nothing but a continual movement from darkness into light from a lower stage of truth to a higher from a truth more alloyed with errors to a truth more purified from them man would not be free if he knew no truth at all and in the same way he would not be free and would not even have any idea of freedom if the whole truth which was to guide him in life had been revealed once for all to him in all its purity without any admixture of error but man is not stationary in regard to truth but every individual man as he passes through life and humanity has a whole in the same way is continually learning to know a greater and greater degree of truth and growing more and more free from error and therefore men are in a three-fold relation to truth some truths have been so assimilated by them that they have become the unconscious basis of action others are only just on the point of being revealed to him and a third class though not yet assimilated by him have been revealed to him with sufficient clearness to force him to decide either to recognize them or to refuse to recognize them these then are the truths which man is free to recognize or to refuse to recognize end of chapter 12c recorded by david shep los angeles california chapter 12d the kingdom of god is within you this is a libre vox recording all libre vox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit libre vox.org recorded by david shep the kingdom of god is within you by leo tollstoy translated by constance garnett the liberty of man does not consist in the power of acting independently of the progress of life and the influences arising from it but in the capacity for recognizing and acknowledging the truth revealed to him and becoming the free and joyful participator in the eternal and infinite work of god the life of the world or on the other hand for refusing to recognize the truth and so being a miserable and reluctant slave dragged wither he has no desire to go truth not only points out the way along which human life ought to move but reveals also the only way along which it can move and therefore all men must willingly or unwillingly move along the way of truth some spontaneously accomplishing the task set them in life others submitting involuntarily to the law of life man's freedom lies in the power of his choice this freedom within these narrow limits seems so insignificant to men that they do not notice it some the determinists consider this amount of freedom so trifling that they do not recognize it at all others the champions of complete free will keep their eyes fixed on their hypothetical free will and neglect this which seemed to them such a trivial degree of freedom this freedom confined between the limits of complete ignorance of the truth and a recognition of a part of the truth seems hardly freedom at all especially since whether a man is willing or unwilling to recognize the truth revealed to him he will be inevitably forced to carry it out in life a horse harnessed with others to a cart is not free to refrain from moving the cart if he does not move forward the cart will knock him down and go on dragging him with it whether he will or not but the horse is free to drag the cart himself or to be dragged with it and so it is with man whether this is a great or small degree of freedom in comparison with the fantastic liberty we should like to have it is the only freedom that really exists and in it consists the only happiness attainable by man and more than that this freedom is the sole means of accomplishing the divine work of the life of the world according to christ's doctrine the man who sees the significance of life in the domain in which it is not free in the domain of effects that is of acts has not the true life according to the christian doctrine that man is living in the truth who has transported his life to the domain in which it is free the domain of causes that is the knowledge and recognition the profession and realization in life of revealed truth devoting his life to works with the flesh a man busies himself with the actions depending on temporary causes outside himself he himself does nothing really he merely seems to be doing something in reality all the acts which seem to be his or the work of a higher power and he is not the creator of his own life but the slave of it devoting his life to the recognition and fulfillment of the truth revealed to him he identifies himself with the source of universal life and accomplishes acts not personal independent on conditions of space and time but acts unconditioned by previous causes acts which constitute the causes of everything else and have an infinite unlimited significance the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence and the violent take it by force mat 10.12 it is this violent effort to rise above external conditions to the recognition and realization of truth by which the kingdom of heaven is taken and it is this effort of violence which must and can be made in our times men need only understand this they need only cease to trouble themselves about the general external conditions in which they are not free and devote one one-hundredth part of the energy they waste on those material things to that in which they are free to the recognition and realization of the truth which is before them and to the liberation of themselves and others from deception and hypocrisy and without effort or conflict there would be an end at once of the false organization of life which makes men miserable and threatens them with worse calamities in the future and then the kingdom of god would be realized or at least that first stage of it for which men are ready now by the degree of development of their conscience just as a single shock may be sufficient when a liquid is saturated with some salt to precipitate it at once in crystals a slight effort may be perhaps all that is needed now that the truth already revealed to men may gain a mystery over hundreds thousands millions of men that a public opinion consistent with conscience may be established and through this change of public opinion the whole order of life may be transformed and it depends on us to make this effort let's stand and accept the christian truth which in the most varied forms surrounds us on all sides and forces itself upon us let us only cease from lying and pretending that we do not see this truth or wish to realize it at least in what it demands from us above all else only let us accept and boldly profess the truth to which we are called and we should find at once that hundreds thousands millions of men are in the same position as we that they see truth as we do and dread as we do to stand alone in recognizing it and like us are only waiting for others to recognize it also only let men cease to be hypocrites and they would at once see that this cruel social organization which holds them in bondage and is represented to them as something stable necessary and ordained of god is already tottering and is only propped up by the falsehood of hypocrisy with which we and others like us support it but if this is so if it is true that it depends on us to break down the existing organization of life have we the right to destroy it without knowing clearly what we shall set up in its place what will become of human society when the existing order of things is at an end once shall we find the other side of the walls of the world we are abandoning fear will come upon us avoid a vast emptiness freedom how are we going to go forward not knowing whether how face loss not seeing hope of gain if Columbus had reasoned thus he would never have weighed anchor it was madness to set off upon the ocean not knowing the route on the ocean on which no one had sailed to sail toward a land whose existence was doubtful but this madness he discovered a new world doubtless if the peoples of the world could simply transfer themselves from one furnished mansion to another and better one it would make it much easier but unluckily there is no one to get humanity's new dwelling ready for it the future is even worse than the ocean there is nothing there it will be what men and circumstances make it if you are content with the old world try to preserve it it is very sick and cannot hold out much longer but if you cannot bear to live in everlasting dissonance between your beliefs and your life thinking one thing and doing another get out of the medieval whitened sepatures and face your fears i know very well it is not easy it is not a little thing to cut oneself off from all to which a man has been accustomed from his birth with which he has grown up to maturity men are ready for tremendous sacrifices but not for those in which life demands of them are they ready to sacrifice modern civilization their manner of life their religion the received conventional morality are we ready to give up all the results we have attained with such effort results of which we have been boasting for three centuries to give up every convenience and charm of our existence to prefer savage youth to the senile decay of civilization to pull down the palace raised for us by our ancestors only for the pleasure of having a hand in the founding of a new house which will doubtless be built long after we are gone thus wrote almost half a century ago the russian writer who with prophetic insight saw clearly then what even the most unreflecting man sees today the impossibility that is of life continuing on its old basis and the necessity of establishing new forms of life it is clear now from the very simplest most commonplace point of view that it is madness to remain under the roof of a building which cannot support its weight and that we must leave it and indeed it is difficult to imagine a position more wretched than that of the christian world today with its nations armed against one another with its constantly increasing taxation to maintain its armies with the hatred of the working class for the rich ever growing more intense with the damically sword of war for heads of all ready every instant to fall certain to fall sooner or later hardly could any revolution be more disastrous for the great mass of the population than the present order or rather disorder of our life with its daily sacrifices to exhausting and unnatural toil to poverty drunkenness and prolificacy with all the horrors of the war that is at hand which will swallow up in one year more victims than all the revolutions of the century what will become of humanity if each of us performs the duty god demands of us through the conscience implanted within us will not harm cometh being holy in the power of the master i carry out in the workshop erected and directed by him the orders he gives me strange though they may seem to me who do not know the master's final aims but it is not even this question what will happen that agitates men when they hesitate to fulfill the master's will they are troubled by the question how to live without those habitual conditions of life which we call civilization culture art and science we feel ourselves all the burdensomeness of life as it is we see also that this organization of life must inevitably be our ruin if it continues at the same time we want the conditions of our life which arise out of the organization our civilization culture art and science to remain intact it is as though a man living in an old house and suffering from cold and all sorts of inconvenience in it knowing too that it is on the point of falling to pieces should consent to its being rebuilt but only on condition that he should not be required to leave it a condition which is equivalent to refusing to have it rebuilt at all but what if i leave the house and give up every convenience for a time and the new house is not built or is built on a different plan so that i do not find it the comforts to which i am accustomed but seeing that the materials and the builders are here there is very likelihood that our new house will on the same contrary be better built than the old one and at the same time there is not only the likelihood but the certainty that the old house will fall down and crush those who remain within it whether the old habitual conditions of life are supported or whether they are abolished and altogether new and better conditions arise in any case there is no doubt we shall be forced to leave the old forms of life which have become impossible and fatal and must go forward to meet the future civilization art science culture will disappear yes but all these we know are only various manifestations of truth and the change that is before us is only to be made for the sake of a closer attainment and realization of truth how then can manifestations of truth disappear through our realizing it these manifestations will be different higher better but they will not cease to be only what is false in them will be destroyed all the truth there was in them will only be stronger and more flourishing take thought oh man and have faith in the gospel in whose teaching is your happiness if you do not take thought you will perish just as the man perished slain by pilot or crushed by the tower of salem as millions of men have perished slayers and slain executing and executed torturers and tortured alike and as the man foolishly perished who fills his granaries full and made ready for a long life and died the very night that he planned to begin his life take thought and have faith in the gospel christ said enlighten hundred years ago and he says it with even greater force now that the calamities foretold by him have come to pass and the senselessness of our life has reached the furthest point of suffering and madness after so many centuries of fruitless efforts to make our life secure by the pagan organization of life it must be evident to everyone that all efforts in that direction only introduce fresh dangers into personal and social life and do not render it more secure in any way whatever names we dignify ourselves with whatever uniforms we wear whatever priests we anoint ourselves before however many millions we possess however many guards are stationed along our road however many policemen guard our wealth however many so-called criminals revolutionists and anarchanists we punish whatever exploits we have performed whatever states we have founded fortresses and towers we may have erected from babble to the eiffel tower there are two inevitable conditions of life confronting all of us which destroy its whole meaning one death which may at any moment pounce upon each of us and two the transitoryness of all our works which so soon pass away and leave no trace whatever we may do found companies build palaces and monuments write songs and poems it is all not for long time soon it passes away leaving no trace and therefore however we may conceal it from ourselves we cannot help seeing that the significance of our life cannot lie in our personal fleshy existence the pray of incurable suffering and inevitable death nor in any social institution or organization whoever you may be who are reading these lines think of your position and of your duties not of your position as landowner merchant judge emperor president minister priest soldier which has been temporarily allotted to you by men and not of your imaginary duties laid on you by those positions but of your real position in eternity as a creature who at the will of someone has been called out of unconsciousness after an eternity of non-existence to which you may return at any moment at his will think of your duties not your supposed duties as a land owner to your estate as a merchant to your business as an emperor minister or official to the state but of your real duties the duties that follow from your real position as a being called into life and endowed with reason and love are you doing what he demands of you who has sent you into the world and to whom you will soon return are you doing what he wills are you doing his will when as a land owner or manufacturer you rob the poor of the fruits of their toil basing your life on this plunder of the workers or when as judge or governor you ill treat men sentence them to execution or when as soldiers you prepare for war kill and plunder you will say that the world is so made that this is inevitable and that you do not do this of your own free will but because you are forced to do so but can it be that you have such a strong aversion to men's sufferings ill treatment and murder that you have such an intense need of love and cooperation with your fellows that you see clearly that only by the recognition of the equality of all and by mutual services can the greatest possible happiness be realized that your head and your heart the faith you profess and even science itself tell you the same thing and yet that in spite of it all you can be forced by some confused and complicated reasoning to act in direct opposition to all this that as landowner or capitalist you are bound to base your whole life on the oppression of the people that as emperor or president you are to command armies that is to be the head of commander of murderers or that as government official you are forced to take from the poor their last pence for rich men to profit and share them among themselves or that as judge or journeyman you could be forced to sentence airing men to ill treatment and death because the truth was not revealed to them or above all for that is the basis of all the evil that you could be forced to become a soldier and renouncing your free will and your human sentiments could undertake to kill anyone at the command of other men it cannot be even if you are told that all this is necessary for the maintenance of the existing order of things and that this social order with its paparism feminists prisons gallows armies and wars is necessary to society that still greater disasters would ensure if this organization were destroyed all that is said only by those who profit by this organization while those who suffer from it and they are 10 times as numerous think and say quite the contrary and at the bottom of your heart you know yourself that it is not true that the existing organization has outlived its time and must inevitably be reconstruction on new principles and that consequently there is no obligation upon you to sacrifice your sentiments of humanity to support it above all even if you allow that this organization is necessary why do you believe it to be your duty to maintain it at the cost of your best feelings who has made you the nurse in charge of this sick and morbid organization not society nor the state nor anyone no one has asked you to undertake this you will fulfill your position of landowner merchant czar priest or soldier know very well that you occupy that position by no means with the unselfish aim of maintaining the organization of life necessary to men's happiness but simply in your own interests to satisfy your own covetousness or vanity or ambition or idleness or cowardice if you did not desire that position you would not be doing your utmost to retain it try the experiment of ceasing to commit the cruel treacherous and base actions that you are constantly committing in order to retain your position and you will lose it at once try this simple experiment as a government official of giving up lying and refusing to take apart in executions and acts of violence as a priest of giving up deception as a soldier of giving up murder as a landowner or manufacturer of giving up defending your property by fraud and force and you will at once lose the position which you pretend is forced upon you and which seems burdensome to you a man cannot be placed against his will in a situation opposed to his conscience if you find yourself in such a position it is not because it is necessary to anyone whatever but simply because you wish it and therefore knowing that your position is repugnant to your heart and your head and to your faith and even to the science in which you believe you cannot help reflecting upon the question whether in retaining it and above all trying to justify it you are doing what you ought to do you might risk making a mistake if you had time to see and retrieve your fault and if you ran the risk of something of some value but when you know beyond all down that you may disappear any minute without the least possibility either for yourself or those you draw after you into your error of retrieving the mistake when you know that whatever you may do in the external organization of life it will all disappear as quickly and surely as you will yourself and will leave no trace behind it is clear that you have no reasonable ground for running the risk of such a fearful mistake it would be perfectly simple and clear if you did not by your hypocrisy disguise the truth which has so unmistakably been revealed to us share all that you have with others do not heap up riches do not steal do not cause suffering do not kill do not unto others what you would not they should do unto you all that has been said not 1800 but 5000 years ago and there could be no doubt of the truth of this law if it were not for hypocrisy except for hypocrisy men could not have failed if not to put the law in practice at least to recognize it and admit that it is wrong not to put into practice but you will say that there is the public good to be considered and that on that account one must not and ought not to conform to these principles for the public good one may commit acts of violence and murder it is better for one man to die than that the whole people perish you will say like kayafas and you will sign the sentence of death of one man of a second and a third you load your gun against this man who is to perish for the public good you imprison him you take his possessions you say that you commit these acts of cruelty because you are a part of the society and of the state that it is your duty to serve them and as landowner judge emperor or soldier to conform to their laws but besides belonging to the state and having duties created by that position you belong also to eternity into god who also lays duties upon you and just as your duties to your family and to society are subordinate to your superior duties to the state in the same way the latter must necessarily be subordinated to the duties dictated to you by the eternal life and by god and just as it would be senseless to pull up the telegraph posts for fuel for a family or society and thus to increase its welfare at the expense of public interests in the same way it is senseless to do violence to execute and to murder to increase the welfare of the nation because that is at the expense of the interests of humanity your duties as a citizen cannot but be subordinated to the superior obligations of the eternal life of god and cannot be in position to them as christ's disciples said 18 centuries ago whether it be right in the sight of god to hearken unto you more than unto god judgy acts 419 and we ought to obey god rather than man acts 529 it is asserted that in order that the unstable order of things established in one corner of the world for a human may not be destroyed you ought to commit acts of violence which destroy the eternal and immutable order established by god and by reason can that possibly be and therefore you cannot but reflect on your position as landowner manufacturer judge emperor president minister priest and soldier which is bound up with violence deception and murder and recognize its unlawfulness i do not say that if you are a landowner you are bound to give up your lands immediately to the poor if a capitalist or manufacturer your money to the work people or that if you are czar minister official judge or general you are bound to renounce immediately the advantages of your position or if a soldier on whom all the system of violence is based to refuse immediately to obey in spite of all the dangers of insubordination if you do so you will be doing the best thing possible but it may happen and it is most likely that you will not have the strength to do so you have relations a family subordinates and superiors you are under an influence so powerful that you cannot shake it off but you can always recognize the truth and refuse to tell a lie about it you need not declare that you are remaining a landowner manufacturer merchant artist or writer because it is useful to mankind that you are governor prosecutor or czar not because it is agreeable to you because you are used to it but for the public good that you continue to be a soldier not from fear of punishment but because you consider the army necessary to society you can always avoid lying in this way to yourself and to others and you ought to do so because the one aim of your life ought to be to purify yourself from falsehood and to confess the truth and you need only do that and your situation will change directly of itself there is one thing and only one thing in which it is guaranteed you to be free in life all else being beyond your power that is to recognize and profess the truth and yet simply from the fact that other men as misguided as pitiful creatures as yourself have made you soldier czar landowner capitalist priest or general you undertake to commit acts of violence obviously opposed to your reason and your heart to base your existence on the misfortunes of others and above all instead of fulfilling the one duty of your life recognizing and professing the truth you fain not to recognize it and disguise it from yourself and others and what are the conditions in which you are doing this you who may die any instant you sign sentences of death you declare war you take part in it you judge you punish you plunder the working people you live luxuriously in the midst of the poor and teach weak men who have confidence in you that this must be so that the duty of men is to do this and yet it may happen at the moment when you are acting thus that a bacterium or a bull may attack you and you will fall and die losing forever the chance of repairing the harm you have done to others of all to yourself in uselessly wasting a life which has been given you only once in eternity without having accomplished the only thing you ought to have done however commonplace and out of date it may seem to us however confused we may be by hypocrisy and by the hypnotic suggestion which results from it nothing can destroy the certainty of this simple and clearly defined truth no external conditions can guarantee our life which is attended with inevitable sufferings and infallibility terminated by death and which consequently can have no significance except in the constant accomplishment of what is demanded by the power which has placed us in life with a sole certain guide the rational conscience that is why that power cannot require of us its irrational and impossible the organization of our temporary external life the life of society or of the state that power demands of us only what is reasonable certain and possible to serve the kingdom of god that is to contribute to the establishment of the greatest possible union between all living things a union possible only in truth and to recognize and to profess the revealed truth which is always in our power but seek ye first the kingdom of god and this righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you Matthew 633 the sole meaning of life is to serve humanity by contributing to the establishment of the kingdom of god which can only be done by the recognition and profession of the truth by every man the kingdom of god cometh not without word show neither shall they say low here or low there for behold the kingdom of god is within you luke 1720 21 end of chapter 12d recorded by david shep los angeles california end of the kingdom of god is within you by leo tollstoy translated by constant's carnet