4H 



POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



methods of agriculture, they cling to 

 those of the subjects of Rurik. They 

 use the old plow, distribute tillage in 

 three crops, and divide their fields 

 into long, narrow strips. So slowly 

 do they toil with primitive imple- 

 ments and debilitated animals, and 

 so indifferent are they to what they 

 are doing, that it takes them a day 

 to do the work that a well-fed and 

 alert peasant would do in half the 

 time. A more deplorable sign of 

 demoralization is the prevalence of 

 family discord and loss of interest in 

 a higher life. The aggressions of 

 the state have stimulated selfishness, 

 bad temper, and incipient rebellion. 

 The children disobey their parents, 

 the younger brothers reject the pri- 

 macy of the older, and money earned 

 elsewhere is kept from the family 

 treasury. With the decadence of 

 family life there is a decadence of 

 religious life. Although the peas- 

 ants are nominally orthodox, they 

 care nothing for religion. Even the 

 clergy confirm the fact that they are 

 becoming more and more indifferent 

 to the church. What they seek is 

 not to penetrate the mysteries of life, 

 but to obliterate conscious!] ess of 

 them. " Under these circumstances,'"' 

 says Tolstoi, alluding to the eco- 

 nomic and mental decadence, " the 

 craving for forgetf ulness is natural, 

 and accordingly spirits and tobacco 

 are being consumed in ever greater 

 and greater quantities/' He adds 

 that " even quite young boys drink 

 and smoke." 



Since the loss of freedom due to 

 the seizure of property is the same 

 in the last analysis as that due to an 

 abridgment of the right to think and 

 act, the evils of ecclesiastical and 

 bureaucratic despotism do not differ 

 from those of excessive taxation. 

 Nevertheless, they receive separate 

 attention at the hands of Tolstoi. 

 As a proof of the blight of a church 

 that the peasants have no part in di- 



recting, he points to the profound 

 and beneficent change wrought the 

 moment they fall in with a sect of 

 dissenters. " Their spirits at once 

 rise," he says, " and at the same time 

 the foundation of their material 

 prosperity is laid." A blight of the 

 same kind can be traced to the at- 

 tempt of the state to play the pater- 

 nal role. " Nominally," says Tolstoi 

 again, "there exist for the peasants 

 special laws with regard to the pos- 

 session and division of land, to in- 

 heritance, aiid to all the duties con- 

 nected with it, but in reality there is 

 a kind of hodge-podge of regulations, 

 explanation, customary laws, decrees 

 of courts of cassation, and so on, 

 which naturally makes the peasants 

 feel their absolute dependence on 

 the will of innumerable officials." 

 Knowing that they are powerless to 

 resist the Government, which is con- 

 stantly flogging them for disobe- 

 dience or stupidity, they comply as 

 best they can with the thousand rules 

 and regulations made for them. Sel- 

 dom do they think of acting upon 

 their own responsibility. Thus they 

 lose the power of private initiative. 

 What the impoverishment of taxa- 

 tion has not done to ruin them is left 

 to ecclesiastical and bureaucratic des- 

 potism to complete. 



It is curious to note that Tolstoi's 

 remedy for these evils is the one that 

 Herbert Spencer himself might have 

 suggested. With one stroke he dis- 

 misses the prescriptions that the so- 

 cial reformer in the United States 

 as well as in Russia attaches so much 

 importance to. It is not, in his opin- 

 ion, "the ministry of agriculture, with 

 all its contrivances," that will re- 

 claim the peasants, nor is it "exhibi- 

 tions nor schools for rural economy," 

 nor that "unfailing" remedy "for 

 all evils," i. e., parish schools. The 

 thing they need is freedom. "It is 

 necessary," says Tolstoi, "to give 

 them religious liberty, to subject them 



