Rfiieir iif Rffn'icx, 30j-i,'}'j. 



Leading Articles. 



293 



THE GOSPEL OF DISOBEDIENCE : 



Count Tolstoy's Latest Evangel. 



" Both the bodily welfare of man as well as the 

 highest spiritual welfare can only be attained in 

 one way ... by disobedience to the authori- 

 ties."' That, in the Forinigkily Revrezv for Feb- 

 ruar}-, is the last word of Count Tolstoy's philo- 

 sophy. '' Disobey. Disobey, and again 1 say unto 

 you Disobey '." would be no inaccurate summary 

 of the Russian prophet's message. He is against 

 the ver\- idea of the State. He detests modern 

 civilisation. 



THE ACCURSED THING. 



His ideal is to destroy the State — to root out the 

 very idea of the State. The State, voila the enemy '. 

 For 



government for the Russian people has never been a neces- 

 sity but alwavs a burden. Wherever Russian people settle 

 down without the inter\ention of (iovernnient they have 

 alwavs established a mutual order, not coercive, but 

 founded upon mutual 'ia:reement. communal, and with com- 

 mima! possession of land, which has completely satisfied 

 the demands of peaceful social life. Therefore the libera- 

 tion of men from obedience to a;o\ernment. and from the 

 belief in the artificial combination of States and of the 

 fatherland, must lead them to the natural, joyous, and in 

 the highest degree moral life of agricultural communities, 

 subject onlv t/> their own regulations, realisable by all. 

 and founded, not on coercion, but on mutual agreement. 

 In this lies the essence of the great revulsion approaching 

 for all Christian nations. 



THE WAY OF SALVATIOX. 



Count Tolstoy is certainly explicit enough. He 

 tells us people — 



should first of all free themselves from the very idea of a 

 State, and consequentlv also from all concern in the rights 

 of the citizens of such a State. In this alteration of men's 

 attitude towards the State and the authorities is the end 

 of the old and the beginning of the new age. People main- 

 taining their ser\itude in the name of their belief in the 

 State are exactiv like those birds which, notwithstanding 

 that the door of "their cage is open, continue to sit in their 

 prison partly by habit and partly because they do not 

 realise they are free. 



It is onlv the non-participation of the people in any vio- 

 lence whatever which can abolish all the coercion from 

 which thev sufler. and prevent all possibility of endless 

 armaments" ni.d wars, and also abolish private property 

 ii' land. Thus should the agricultural peas>ants act that 

 the revolution :iow taking place may produce good results. 

 The revolution now impending over mankind consists in 

 their liberation from the deceit of obedience to human 

 power. 



ANARCHY TEMPERED BY LYNCH LAW! 



Count Tolstoy faces the question as to what good 

 men must do if bad men refuse to abide by the 

 higher law. He says: — 



Tn every human societ.v there are alw^iys ambitious, uii- 

 sr-rupiiloiis, cruel men. who. I have already endeavoured to 

 show, are ever ready to per|)etrate every kind of violence, 

 robbery, murder for their own advantage, and who in a 

 society without government would be robbers, restrained 

 in their .ictions partly by strife with those injured by them 

 (.^elf-instituted .justice, lynching), but partly and cbielly by 

 the most powerful weapon pf influence upon men public- 

 opinion. 



Oh ho! Here we have Count Tolstoy relying, in 

 part at least, on "self-instituted justice, lynching." 

 to correct the disorders that would ensue if his 

 theories were adopted. 



WHEN VIOLENCE IS .JUSTIFIABLE. 



If this makes a hole in his absolute non-resistance 



theory, it is nothing to that which is made by the 



following admission: — 



Eitler one or the other: men are either rational or irra- 

 tional beings. If they are not rational beings, then all 

 matters between them can, and should be, decided by vio- 

 lence, and there is no reason for some to have and other* 

 not to have this right of violence. But if men are rational 

 beings, then their relations should be founded not on vio- 

 lence, but on reason. 



But ever)"one knows, even from his own personal, 

 e.xperience, that man is often by no means a rational 

 being. The majority of men are often most irra- 

 tional. But if so, their " violence '" — that is to say, 

 the law and the magistrate — is justifiable and neces- 

 sary. 



THE CO-OPERATIVE COMMONWEALTH. 



Count Tolstoy recognises that after he has de- 

 stroyed the existing State, his ideal agricultural 

 communities mav wish to re-establish it on a volun- 

 tary foundation. He says: — 



It is very probable that these communities will not live 

 in isolation, but owing to unity of economic, r;u-ial, or re- 

 ligious conditions, will enter into new free mutual com- 

 binations, completely different, however, from the former 

 State combinations founded upon violence. The repudia- 

 tion of coerc-ion does not depiive men of the possibility of 

 c<imbination, but coml)inatioii founded upon mutual agree- 

 ment can be formed only when those founded upon violeiue 

 are .ibolished. 



} Yes. But suppose that one of these communi- 

 ties should take advantage of its exceptionally 

 [favoured position on some river or highway of com- 

 'merce to levy blackmail, like the old barons on the 

 Rhine, on all the traffic of the other communities, 

 are they to allow the whole co-operative common- 

 wealth to go to pieces becau.'^e one of the (communi- 

 ties has taken to piracy ? 



THE CONDITIO SINE QUA NOX. 



The fact is that, as Count Tolstoy practically 

 admits. his Anarchistic anti-State theories cannot 

 work until all men are perfect. We cannot consti- 

 tut<* the futur<" State on the principle that every- 

 man shall do what s«emeth goo<l in his own eyes 

 until the only thing tliat .seemeth good to each is 

 the good of all. Count Tolstoy says: — 



Let the people only cease to obey the Government, and 

 there will be neither taxes, nor seizure of land, nor pr"".'- 

 bitions from the authorities, nor soldiery, nor wars. Tins 

 is so simple and appears so easy. Then why have not men 

 done this hitherto, and why are they yet not doing it.» 

 Why. because if one is not to ol)e>- tlie Government one 

 has to obev God, i.e.. to live a righteous and moral life. 



Only in "that degree in which men live such a life, i.r., 

 obey \in\l. can they ceaxf to obey men and become fre*. 



One cannot s.iy to one's self I will not obey men. It is 

 possilile not to obe.v men only when one obeys the higher 

 law of Goil. common to all. 



in tile J}'/in/s»i Magazine there are excellent 

 illustrations accompanying both the article on the 

 art of Mr, George W. Joy, and the '• Chronicles 

 in Cart(x>n,' the latter in colour. The text of the 

 Cartoon article is bv Mr. B. Fletcher Robinson, 

 and it recalls some of the most famous political 

 rari<-ature>^ nml personages of the last twenty-five 

 vears. 



