When Tolstoy speaks of Christianity, he's referring to his more objective, philosophical, non-supernatural interpretation of his translation of the Gospels: The Gospel In Brief. For context: https://lemmyverse.link/lemmy.world/post/25679868

Redit link: https://www.reddit.com/r/TolstoysSchoolofLove/s/g6Q9jbAKSo

"The Church says that the doctrine of Jesus cannot be literally practiced here on earth, because this earthly life is naturally evil, since it is only a shadow of the true life. The best way of living is to scorn this earthly existence, to be guided by faith (that is, by imagination) in a happy and eternal life to come, and to continue to live a bad life here and to pray to the good God. Philosophy, science, and public opinion all say that the doctrine of Jesus is not applicable to human life as it is now, because the life of man does not depend upon the light of reason, but upon general laws; hence it is useless to try to live absolutely conformable to reason; we must live as we can with the firm conviction that according to the laws of historical and sociological progress, after having lived very imperfectly for a very long time, we shall suddenly find that our lives have become very good.

People come to a farm; they find there all that is necessary to sustain life, a house well furnished, barns filled with grain, cellars and storerooms well stocked with provisions, implements of husbandry, horses and cattle, in a word, all that is needed for a life of comfort and ease. Each wishes to profit by this abundance, but each for himself, without thinking of others, or of those who may come after him. Each wants the whole for himself, and begins to seize upon all that he can possibly grasp. Then begins a veritable pillage; they fight for the possessions of the spoils; oxen and sheep are slaughtered; wagons and other implements are broken up into firewood; they fight for the milk and grain; they grasp more then they can consume. No one is able to sit down to the tranquil enjoyment of what he has, lest another take away the spoils already secured, to surrender them in turn to someone stronger. All these people leave the farm, bruised and famished. There upon the Master puts everything to rights, and arranges matters so that one may live there in peace. The farm is again a treasury of abundance. Then comes another group of seekers, and the same struggle and tumult is repeated, till these in their turn go away brushed and angry, cursing the Master for providing so little and so ill. The good Master is not discouraged; he again provides for all that is needed to sustain life, and the same incidents are repeated over and over again.

Finally, amongst those who come to the farm, is one who says to his companions: "Comrades, how foolish we are! See how abundantly everything is supplied, how well everything is arranged! There is enough here for us and for those who come after us; let us act in a reasonable manner. Instead of robbing each other, let us help one another. Let us work, plant, care for the dumb animals, and everyone will be satisfied." Some of the company understand what this wise person says; they cease from fighting and from robbing one another, and begin to work. But others, who have not heard the words of the wise man, or who distrust him, continue their former pillage of the Master's goods. This condition of things last for a long time. Those who have followed the counsels of the wise man say to those about them: "Cease from fighting, cease from wasting the Master's goods; you will be better off by doing so; follow the wise man's advice." Nevertheless, a great many do not hear and will not believe, and matters go on very much as they did before.

All this is natural [ignorance (lack of knowledge) being an inevitability], and will continue as long as people do not believe the wise man's words. But, we are told, a time will come when everyone on the farm will listen to and understand the words of the wise man, and will realize that God spoke through his lips, and that the wise man was himself none other than God in person; and all will have faith in his words. Meanwhile, instead of living according to the advice of the wise man, each struggles for his own, and they slay each other without pity, saying, "The struggle for existence is inevitable; we cannot do otherwise."

What does it all mean? Even the beasts graze in the fields without interfering with each other's needs, and men, after having learned the conditions of the true life, and after being convinced that God himself has shown them how to live the true life, follow still their evil ways, saying that it is impossible to live otherwise. What should we think of the people at the farm if, after having heard the words of the wise man, they had continued to live as before, snatching the bread from each other's mouths, fighting, and trying to grasp everything, to their own loss? We should say that they misunderstood the wise man's words, and imagined things to be different from what they really were. The wise man says to them, "Your life here is bad; amend your ways, and it will become good." And they imagined that the wise man had condemned their life on the farm, and had promised them another and a better life somewhere else. This is the only way in which we can explain the strange conduct of the people on the farm, of whom some believed that the wise man was God, and others that he was a man of wisdom, but all continued to live as before in defiance of the wise man's words." - Leo Tolstoy, What I Believe, Chapter seven

The wise man is the bee that stirred the hive: https://www.reddit.com/r/TolstoysSchoolofLove/s/L43m7To9xE

"We must, say the believers and the sceptics:" https://www.reddit.com/r/TolstoysSchoolofLove/s/yMoR0j9h5m

When Tolstoy speaks of Christianity, he's referring to his more objective, philosophical, non-supernatural interpretation of his translation of the Gospels: The Gospel In Brief. For context: https://lemmyverse.link/lemmy.world/post/23133528

Reddit link: https://www.reddit.com/r/TolstoysSchoolofLove/s/g6Q9jbAKSo

"The Church says that the doctrine of Jesus cannot be literally practiced here on earth, because this earthly life is naturally evil, since it is only a shadow of the true life. The best way of living is to scorn this earthly existence, to be guided by faith (that is, by imagination) in a happy and eternal life to come, and to continue to live a bad life here and to pray to the good God. Philosophy, science, and public opinion all say that the doctrine of Jesus is not applicable to human life as it is now, because the life of man does not depend upon the light of reason, but upon general laws; hence it is useless to try to live absolutely conformable to reason; we must live as we can with the firm conviction that according to the laws of historical and sociological progress, after having lived very imperfectly for a very long time, we shall suddenly find that our lives have become very good.

People come to a farm; they find there all that is necessary to sustain life, a house well furnished, barns filled with grain, cellars and storerooms well stocked with provisions, implements of husbandry, horses and cattle, in a word, all that is needed for a life of comfort and ease. Each wishes to profit by this abundance, but each for himself, without thinking of others, or of those who may come after him. Each wants the whole for himself, and begins to seize upon all that he can possibly grasp. Then begins a veritable pillage; they fight for the possessions of the spoils; oxen and sheep are slaughtered; wagons and other implements are broken up into firewood; they fight for the milk and grain; they grasp more then they can consume. No one is able to sit down to the tranquil enjoyment of what he has, lest another take away the spoils already secured, to surrender them in turn to someone stronger. All these people leave the farm, bruised and famished. There upon the Master puts everything to rights, and arranges matters so that one may live there in peace. The farm is again a treasury of abundance. Then comes another group of seekers, and the same struggle and tumult is repeated, till these in their turn go away brushed and angry, cursing the Master for providing so little and so ill. The good Master is not discouraged; he again provides for all that is needed to sustain life, and the same incidents are repeated over and over again.

Finally, amongst those who come to the farm, is one who says to his companions: "Comrades, how foolish we are! See how abundantly everything is supplied, how well everything is arranged! There is enough here for us and for those who come after us; let us act in a reasonable manner. Instead of robbing each other, let us help one another. Let us work, plant, care for the dumb animals, and everyone will be satisfied." Some of the company understand what this wise person says; they cease from fighting and from robbing one another, and begin to work. But others, who have not heard the words of the wise man, or who distrust him, continue their former pillage of the Master's goods. This condition of things last for a long time. Those who have followed the counsels of the wise man say to those about them: "Cease from fighting, cease from wasting the Master's goods; you will be better off by doing so; follow the wise man's advice." Nevertheless, a great many do not hear and will not believe, and matters go on very much as they did before.

All this is natural [ignorance (lack of knowledge) being an inevitability], and will continue as long as people do not believe the wise man's words. But, we are told, a time will come when everyone on the farm will listen to and understand the words of the wise man, and will realize that God spoke through his lips, and that the wise man was himself none other than God in person; and all will have faith in his words. Meanwhile, instead of living according to the advice of the wise man, each struggles for his own, and they slay each other without pity, saying, "The struggle for existence is inevitable; we cannot do otherwise."

What does it all mean? Even the beasts graze in the fields without interfering with each other's needs, and men, after having learned the conditions of the true life, and after being convinced that God himself has shown them how to live the true life, follow still their evil ways, saying that it is impossible to live otherwise. What should we think of the people at the farm if, after having heard the words of the wise man, they had continued to live as before, snatching the bread from each other's mouths, fighting, and trying to grasp everything, to their own loss? We should say that they misunderstood the wise man's words, and imagined things to be different from what they really were. The wise man says to them, "Your life here is bad; amend your ways, and it will become good." And they imagined that the wise man had condemned their life on the farm, and had promised them another and a better life somewhere else. This is the only way in which we can explain the strange conduct of the people on the farm, of whom some believed that the wise man was God, and others that he was a man of wisdom, but all continued to live as before in defiance of the wise man's words." - Leo Tolstoy, What I Believe, Chapter seven

The wise man is the bee that stirred the hive: https://www.reddit.com/r/TolstoysSchoolofLove/s/L43m7To9xE

"We must, say the believers and the sceptics:" https://www.reddit.com/r/TolstoysSchoolofLove/s/yMoR0j9h5m

When Tolstoy speaks of Christianity, he's referring to his more objective, philosophical, non-supernatural interpretation of his translation of the Gospels: The Gospel In Brief. For context: https://www.reddit.com/r/TolstoysSchoolofLove/s/g6Q9jbAKSo

"I had such a need then to believe in order to live, but I unconsciously concealed from myself the contradictions and obscurities of Christian teaching. But this giving of meaning to the rituals had limits. If the main words of the Litany became clearer and clearer to me, if I somehow explained to myself the words, "Remembering our most Holy Lady the Mother of God and all the saints, let us give ourselves and one another and our whole life to Christ the Lord," if I explained the frequent repetitions of prayers for the tsar and his family by their being more open to temptation than others and therefore more in need of prayers, if I explained the prayers about trampling our foe and adversary beneath our feet, if I explained them by the fact of evil being that enemy—those other prayers, like the cherubim and the whole sacrament of oblation and "the chosen warriors" and the like, which make up two thirds of all services, either had no explanation or else I felt as I brought explanation to them that I was lying and by that completely destroying my relationship to God, completely losing any possibility of faith.

I felt the same in celebrating the major church feasts. To remember the Sabbath, that is, to devote a day to turning to God, I found understandable. But the chief feast day was a remembrance of the resurrection, the reality of which I could not imagine and understand. And this name of resurrection was also given to the day celebrated every week. And on those days there took place the sacrament of the Eucharist, which was completely incomprehensible to me. The other twelve feast days apart from Christmas commemorated miracles, something I was trying not to think about so as not to deny them—the Ascension, Pentecost, the Epiphany, the feast of the Intercession of the Holy Virgin, etc. In celebrating these feasts, feeling that importance was being given to what was for me the opposite of important, I either invented palliative [relieving symptoms without dealing with the cause of the condition] explanations or I shut my eyes so as not to see what was tempting me.

This happened to me most strongly when taking part in the most usual sacraments, those considered to be the most important, baptism and taking communion. Here I came up against actions that weren't incomprehensible but wholly comprehensible; these actions I found tempting and I was put into a dilemma—either to lie or to reject them.

I will never forget the feeling of torment I underwent when I took communion for the first time in many years. The services, confession, the ritual prayers—all that I could understand and brought about within me the joyous recognition of the meaning of life opening up to me. Taking communion itself I explained to myself as an action commemorating Christ and signifying cleansing from sin and a full understanding of Christ's teaching. If this explanation was artificial I didn't notice its artificiality. I was so full of joy, submitting and humbling myself before the confessor, a simple, timid priest, and exposing all the filth of my soul; I was so full of joy at my thoughts merging with the aspirations of the fathers who wrote the ritual prayers; I was so full of joy to be one with all believers, past and present, that I did not feel the artificiality of my explanation. But when I went up to the "Tsar's Gates" the priest made me repeat what I believe, that what I swallow is true flesh and blood, and I felt cut to the heart; it wasn't just a false note struck, it was a brutal requirement of someone who clearly had never known what faith is.

But now I let myself say it was a brutal requirement; then I didn't even think that, it was just inexpressibly painful for me. I was no longer in the situation I had been in my younger days, thinking that everything in life was clear; I had come to faith because apart from faith I had found nothing, really nothing but annihilation, so I couldn't reject this faith and I submitted. And I found a feeling in my soul that helped me to bear it. This was a feeling of self-abasement [the belittling or humiliation of oneself] and humility. I humbled myself; I swallowed this flesh and blood without any feeling of blasphemy, with the desire to believe, but the blow had been struck. And knowing in advance what was waiting for me, I could no longer go a second time. I continued in the same way to perform the rituals of the church precisely and still believed that in the Christian teaching I followed lay the truth, and something happened to me that now I find clear but then seemed strange.

I was listening to an illiterate peasant pilgrim talking about God, about faith, about life, about salvation, and knowledge of the truth was revealed to me. I became close to the people as I listened to his views on life and faith, and more and more I came to understand the truth. The same happened to me during a reading of Chetyi-Minei and the Prologues (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Menaion_Reader) ; this became my favorite reading. Apart from miracles, which I regarded as fables to express thoughts, this reading revealed to me the meaning of life. There were the lives of Macarius the Great, of Prince Joseph (the story of Buddha), there were the words of John Chrysostom; there were the stories of the traveler in the well, of the monk who found gold, of Peter the publican; there was the story of the martyrs who all declared the same thing, that death does not exclude life; there were stories of the salvation of men who were illiterate and foolish and knew nothing of the teachings of the church.

But I only had to meet educated believers or take up their books to find some doubts in myself rise up in me with dissatisfaction and an angry desire for argument, and I felt that the deeper I entered into their words, the further I went from the truth and walked toward the abyss." - Leo Tolstoy, Confession, Chapter Fourteen

What was his name? What did he say exactly that moved Tolstoy so? All we know is that some average joe, with no great wealth or station, decided to set the fear for himself (selfishness) aside that would've otherwise have stopped him, to teach something he felt as though needed to be taught, and that people weren't gaining the knowledge of whatsoever otherwise. No matter how many of his peers or contemporaries might look at him differently; no matter what consequences might be waiting for him for doing so, it didn't stop him from speaking out about something that he knew was being buried underneath the hypocrisy of his day that surrounded him.

Words of a knowledge he knew would only lead to a better, brighter future for not just those he may have loved and cared for, but for all those with ears and a means to understand them; and for all those living things presently suffering and dying at the hands of a human being, and of course and especially for all the countless that have yet to be born, only destined to suffer the same fate. And for all those he may save therefore, by setting himself aside (selflessness) and acting upon this great incentive; will; truth, that led to inspire men like Tolstoy, that led to inspire you and I, and you and I inspiring the people of today and subsequently of tomorrow, potentially stopping even just one of the present or the future from acting upon their instincts (selfishness; hate), saving therefore even just one, out of the countless of the present or future from being destroyed by either their own hands, or by the hands of another.

When Tolstoy speaks of Christianity, he's referring to his more objective, philosophical, non-supernatural interpretation of his translation of the Gospels: The Gospel In Brief. For context: https://www.reddit.com/r/TolstoysSchoolofLove/s/g6Q9jbAKSo

"I had such a need then to believe in order to live, but I unconsciously concealed from myself the contradictions and obscurities of Christian teaching. But this giving of meaning to the rituals had limits. If the main words of the Litany became clearer and clearer to me, if I somehow explained to myself the words, "Remembering our most Holy Lady the Mother of God and all the saints, let us give ourselves and one another and our whole life to Christ the Lord," if I explained the frequent repetitions of prayers for the tsar and his family by their being more open to temptation than others and therefore more in need of prayers, if I explained the prayers about trampling our foe and adversary beneath our feet, if I explained them by the fact of evil being that enemy—those other prayers, like the cherubim and the whole sacrament of oblation and "the chosen warriors" and the like, which make up two thirds of all services, either had no explanation or else I felt as I brought explanation to them that I was lying and by that completely destroying my relationship to God, completely losing any possibility of faith.

I felt the same in celebrating the major church feasts. To remember the Sabbath, that is, to devote a day to turning to God, I found understandable. But the chief feast day was a remembrance of the resurrection, the reality of which I could not imagine and understand. And this name of resurrection was also given to the day celebrated every week. And on those days there took place the sacrament of the Eucharist, which was completely incomprehensible to me. The other twelve feast days apart from Christmas commemorated miracles, something I was trying not to think about so as not to deny them—the Ascension, Pentecost, the Epiphany, the feast of the Intercession of the Holy Virgin, etc. In celebrating these feasts, feeling that importance was being given to what was for me the opposite of important, I either invented palliative [relieving symptoms without dealing with the cause of the condition] explanations or I shut my eyes so as not to see what was tempting me.

This happened to me most strongly when taking part in the most usual sacraments, those considered to be the most important, baptism and taking communion. Here I came up against actions that weren't incomprehensible but wholly comprehensible; these actions I found tempting and I was put into a dilemma—either to lie or to reject them.

I will never forget the feeling of torment I underwent when I took communion for the first time in many years. The services, confession, the ritual prayers—all that I could understand and brought about within me the joyous recognition of the meaning of life opening up to me. Taking communion itself I explained to myself as an action commemorating Christ and signifying cleansing from sin and a full understanding of Christ's teaching. If this explanation was artificial I didn't notice its artificiality. I was so full of joy, submitting and humbling myself before the confessor, a simple, timid priest, and exposing all the filth of my soul; I was so full of joy at my thoughts merging with the aspirations of the fathers who wrote the ritual prayers; I was so full of joy to be one with all believers, past and present, that I did not feel the artificiality of my explanation. But when I went up to the "Tsar's Gates" the priest made me repeat what I believe, that what I swallow is true flesh and blood, and I felt cut to the heart; it wasn't just a false note struck, it was a brutal requirement of someone who clearly had never known what faith is.

But now I let myself say it was a brutal requirement; then I didn't even think that, it was just inexpressibly painful for me. I was no longer in the situation I had been in my younger days, thinking that everything in life was clear; I had come to faith because apart from faith I had found nothing, really nothing but annihilation, so I couldn't reject this faith and I submitted. And I found a feeling in my soul that helped me to bear it. This was a feeling of self-abasement [the belittling or humiliation of oneself] and humility. I humbled myself; I swallowed this flesh and blood without any feeling of blasphemy, with the desire to believe, but the blow had been struck. And knowing in advance what was waiting for me, I could no longer go a second time. I continued in the same way to perform the rituals of the church precisely and still believed that in the Christian teaching I followed lay the truth, and something happened to me that now I find clear but then seemed strange.

I was listening to an illiterate peasant pilgrim talking about God, about faith, about life, about salvation, and knowledge of the truth was revealed to me. I became close to the people as I listened to his views on life and faith, and more and more I came to understand the truth. The same happened to me during a reading of Chetyi-Minei and the Prologues (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Menaion_Reader) ; this became my favorite reading. Apart from miracles, which I regarded as fables to express thoughts, this reading revealed to me the meaning of life. There were the lives of Macarius the Great, of Prince Joseph (the story of Buddha), there were the words of John Chrysostom; there were the stories of the traveler in the well, of the monk who found gold, of Peter the publican; there was the story of the martyrs who all declared the same thing, that death does not exclude life; there were stories of the salvation of men who were illiterate and foolish and knew nothing of the teachings of the church.

But I only had to meet educated believers or take up their books to find some doubts in myself rise up in me with dissatisfaction and an angry desire for argument, and I felt that the deeper I entered into their words, the further I went from the truth and walked toward the abyss." - Leo Tolstoy, Confession, Chapter Fourteen

What was his name? What did he say exactly that moved Tolstoy so? All we know is that some average joe, with no great wealth or station, decided to set the fear for himself (selfishness) aside that would've otherwise have stopped him, to teach something he felt as though needed to be taught, and that people weren't gaining the knowledge of whatsoever otherwise. No matter how many of his peers or contemporaries might look at him differently; no matter what consequences might be waiting for him for doing so, it didn't stop him from speaking out about something that he knew was being buried underneath the hypocrisy of his day that surrounded him.

Words of a knowledge he knew would only lead to a better, brighter future for not just those he may have loved and cared for, but for all those with ears and a means to understand them; and for all those living things presently suffering and dying at the hands of a human being, and of course and especially for all the countless that have yet to be born, only destined to suffer the same fate. And for all those he may save therefore, by setting himself aside (selflessness) and acting upon this great incentive; will; truth, that led to inspire men like Tolstoy, that led to inspire you and I, and you and I inspiring the people of today and subsequently of tomorrow, potentially stopping even just one of the present or the future from acting upon their instincts (selfishness; hate), saving therefore even just one, out of the countless of the present or future from being destroyed by either their own hands, or by the hands of another.

When Tolstoy speaks of Christianity, he's referring to his more objective, philosophical, non-supernatural interpretation of his translation of the Gospels: The Gospel In Brief. For context: https://lemmy.world/post/25679868

This is a direct continuation of Tolstoy's Thoughts On Hypocrisy (Part Two): https://lemmy.world/post/30601134

"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, every gratification 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-breadth of falling on one another, nation against nation, like wild beasts, mercilessly destroying men's lives and labor, only because some benighted [in a state of pitiful or contemptible intellectual or moral ignorance, typically owing to a lack of opportunity] diplomatist or ruler says or writes some stupidity to another equally benighted diplomatist 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 the man who is dreaming does not believe that what appears to him can be truly the reality and tries to wake up to 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 need 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 his 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 preformed. Just as the mechanician 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 conscious 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 in 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 none the less 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 from it 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 egoistic 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." - Leo Tolstoy, The Kingdom Of God Is Within You, Chapter Twelve: "Conclusion—Repent Ye, For The Kingdom Of Heaven Is At Hand"

When Tolstoy speaks of Christianity, he's referring to his more objective, philosophical, non-supernatural interpretation of his translation of the Gospels: The Gospel In Brief. For context: https://lemmy.world/post/23133528

This is a direct continuation of Tolstoy's Thoughts On Hypocrisy (Part Two): https://lemmy.world/post/30601158

"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, every gratification 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-breadth of falling on one another, nation against nation, like wild beasts, mercilessly destroying men's lives and labor, only because some benighted [in a state of pitiful or contemptible intellectual or moral ignorance, typically owing to a lack of opportunity] diplomatist or ruler says or writes some stupidity to another equally benighted diplomatist 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 the man who is dreaming does not believe that what appears to him can be truly the reality and tries to wake up to 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 need 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 his 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 preformed. Just as the mechanician 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 conscious 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 in 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 none the less 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 from it 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 egoistic 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." - Leo Tolstoy, The Kingdom Of God Is Within You, Chapter Twelve: "Conclusion—Repent Ye, For The Kingdom Of Heaven Is At Hand"

"We now reach the stage in this story when I began seriously to think of taking the brahmacharya vow (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brahmacharya). I had been wedded to a monogamous [involving marriage to one person at a time] ideal ever since my marriage, faithfulness to my wife being part of the love of truth. But it was in South Africa that I came to realize the importance of observing brahmacharya even with respect to my wife. I cannot definitely say what circumstance or what book it was, that set my thoughts in that direction, but I have a recollection that the predominant factor was the influence of Raychandbhai (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shrimad_Rajchandra) of whom I have already written. I can still recall a conversation that I had with him. On one occasion I spoke to him in high praise of Mrs Gladstone's devotion to her husband. I had read somewhere that Mrs Gladstone insisted on preparing tea for Mr Gladstone even in the House of Commons, and that this had become a rule in the life of this illustrious couple, whose actions were governed by regularity. I spoke of this to the poet, and incidentally eulogized [praise highly in speech or writing] conjugal [relating to marriage or the relationship of a married couple] love. 'Which of the two do you prize more,' asked Raychandbhai, 'the love of Mrs Gladstone for her husband as his wife, or her devoted service irrespective [regardless] of her relation to Mr Gladstone? Supposing she had been his sister, or his devoted servant, and ministered to him with the same attention, what would you have said? Do we not have instances of such devoted sisters or servants? Supposing you had found the same loving devotion in a male servant, would you have been pleased in the same way as in Mrs Gladstone's case? Just examine the viewpoint suggested by me.'

Raychandbhai was himself married. I have an impression that at the moment his words sounded harsh, but they gripped me irresistibly. The devotion of a servant was, I felt, a thousand times more praiseworthy than that of a wife to her husband. There was nothing surprising in the wife's devotion to her husband, as there was an indissoluble [unable to be destroyed; lasting] bond between them. The devotion was perfectly natural. But it required a special effort to cultivate equal devotion between master and servant. The poet's point of view began gradually to grow upon me. What then, I asked myself, should be my relation with my wife? Did my faithfulness consist in making my wife the instrument of my lust? So long as I was the slave of lust, my faithfulness was worth nothing. To be fair to my wife, I must say that she was never the temptress. It was therefore the easiest thing for me to take the vow of brahmacharya, if only I willed it. It was my weak will or lustful attachment that was the obstacle.

Even after my conscience had been roused in the matter, I failed twice. I failed because the motive that actuated the effort was none the highest. My main object was to escape having more children. Whilst in England I had read something about contraceptives. I have already referred to Dr Allinson's birth control propaganda in the chapter on Vegetarianism. If it had some temporary effect on me, Mr Hill's opposition to those methods and his advocacy of internal efforts as opposed to outward means, in a word, of self-control, had a far greater effect, which in due time came to be abiding [lasting a long time; enduring]. Seeing, therefore, that I did not desire more children I began to strive after self-control. There was endless difficulty in the task. We began to sleep in separate beds. I decided to retire to bed only after the day's work had left me completely exhausted. All these efforts did not seem to bear much fruit, but when I look back upon the past, I feel that the final resolution was the cumulative effect of those unsuccessful strivings. The final resolution could only be made as late as 1906. Satyagraha (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satyagraha) had not then been started. I had not the least notion of its coming. I was practising in Johannesburg at the time of the Zulu 'Rebellion' in Natal, which came soon after the Boer War. I felt that I must offer my services to the Natal Government on that occasion. The offer was accepted, as we shall see in another chapter. But the work set me furiously thinking in the direction of self-control, and according to my wont (one's customary behavior in a particular situation) I discussed my thoughts with my co-workers. It became my conviction that procreation and the consequent care of children were inconsistent with public service. I had to break up my household at Johannesburg to be able to serve during the ‘Rebellion'. Within one month of offering my services, I had to give up the house I had so carefully furnished. I took my wife and children to Phoenix and led the Indian ambulance corps attached to the Natal forces. During the difficult marches that had then to be performed, the idea flashed upon me that, if I wanted to devote myself to the service of the community in this manner, I must relinquish the desire for children and wealth and live the life of vanaprastha (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanaprastha) —of one retired from household cares.

The 'Rebellion' did not occupy me for more than six weeks, but this brief period proved to be a very important epoch in my life. The Importance of vows grew upon me more clearly than ever before. I realized that a vow, far from closing the door to real freedom, opened it. Up to this time I had not met with success because the will had been lacking, because I had no faith in myself, no faith in the grace of God, and therefore, my mind had been tossed on the boisterous (noisy, energetic, and cheerful; rowdy) sea of doubt. I realized that in refusing to take a vow man was drawn into temptation, and that to be bound by a vow was like a passage from libertinism (characterized by a disregard of morality, especially in sexual matters) to a real monogamous marriage, 'I believe in effort, I do not want to bind myself with vows,' is the mentality of weakness and betrays a subtle desire for the thing to be avoided. Or where can be the difficulty in making a final decision? I vow to flee from the serpent which I know will bite me, I do not simply make an effort to flee from him. I know that mere effort may mean certain death. Mere effort means ignorance of the certain fact that the serpent is bound to kill me. The fact, therefore, that I could rest content with an effort only, means that I have not yet clearly realized the necessity of definite action. 'But supposing my views are changed in the future, how can I bind myself by a vow?' Such a doubt often deters us. But that doubt also betrays a lack of clear perception that a particular thing must be renounced. That is why Nishkulanand (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nishkulanand_Swami) has sung: Renunciation without aversion [a strong dislike or disinclination] is not lasting. Where therefore the desire is gone, a vow of renunciation is the natural and inevitable fruit." - Mahatma Gandhi, The Story Of My Experiments With Truth, Part Three, Chapter Seven: Brahmacharya - I

"We now reach the stage in this story when I began seriously to think of taking the brahmacharya vow (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brahmacharya). I had been wedded to a monogamous [involving marriage to one person at a time] ideal ever since my marriage, faithfulness to my wife being part of the love of truth. But it was in South Africa that I came to realize the importance of observing brahmacharya even with respect to my wife. I cannot definitely say what circumstance or what book it was, that set my thoughts in that direction, but I have a recollection that the predominant factor was the influence of Raychandbhai (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shrimad_Rajchandra) of whom I have already written. I can still recall a conversation that I had with him. On one occasion I spoke to him in high praise of Mrs Gladstone's devotion to her husband. I had read somewhere that Mrs Gladstone insisted on preparing tea for Mr Gladstone even in the House of Commons, and that this had become a rule in the life of this illustrious couple, whose actions were governed by regularity. I spoke of this to the poet, and incidentally eulogized [praise highly in speech or writing] conjugal [relating to marriage or the relationship of a married couple] love. 'Which of the two do you prize more,' asked Raychandbhai, 'the love of Mrs Gladstone for her husband as his wife, or her devoted service irrespective [regardless] of her relation to Mr Gladstone? Supposing she had been his sister, or his devoted servant, and ministered to him with the same attention, what would you have said? Do we not have instances of such devoted sisters or servants? Supposing you had found the same loving devotion in a male servant, would you have been pleased in the same way as in Mrs Gladstone's case? Just examine the viewpoint suggested by me.'

Raychandbhai was himself married. I have an impression that at the moment his words sounded harsh, but they gripped me irresistibly. The devotion of a servant was, I felt, a thousand times more praiseworthy than that of a wife to her husband. There was nothing surprising in the wife's devotion to her husband, as there was an indissoluble [unable to be destroyed; lasting] bond between them. The devotion was perfectly natural. But it required a special effort to cultivate equal devotion between master and servant. The poet's point of view began gradually to grow upon me. What then, I asked myself, should be my relation with my wife? Did my faithfulness consist in making my wife the instrument of my lust? So long as I was the slave of lust, my faithfulness was worth nothing. To be fair to my wife, I must say that she was never the temptress. It was therefore the easiest thing for me to take the vow of brahmacharya, if only I willed it. It was my weak will or lustful attachment that was the obstacle.

Even after my conscience had been roused in the matter, I failed twice. I failed because the motive that actuated the effort was none the highest. My main object was to escape having more children. Whilst in England I had read something about contraceptives. I have already referred to Dr Allinson's birth control propaganda in the chapter on Vegetarianism. If it had some temporary effect on me, Mr Hill's opposition to those methods and his advocacy of internal efforts as opposed to outward means, in a word, of self-control, had a far greater effect, which in due time came to be abiding [lasting a long time; enduring]. Seeing, therefore, that I did not desire more children I began to strive after self-control. There was endless difficulty in the task. We began to sleep in separate beds. I decided to retire to bed only after the day's work had left me completely exhausted. All these efforts did not seem to bear much fruit, but when I look back upon the past, I feel that the final resolution was the cumulative effect of those unsuccessful strivings. The final resolution could only be made as late as 1906. Satyagraha (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satyagraha) had not then been started. I had not the least notion of its coming. I was practising in Johannesburg at the time of the Zulu 'Rebellion' in Natal, which came soon after the Boer War. I felt that I must offer my services to the Natal Government on that occasion. The offer was accepted, as we shall see in another chapter. But the work set me furiously thinking in the direction of self-control, and according to my wont (one's customary behavior in a particular situation) I discussed my thoughts with my co-workers. It became my conviction that procreation and the consequent care of children were inconsistent with public service. I had to break up my household at Johannesburg to be able to serve during the ‘Rebellion'. Within one month of offering my services, I had to give up the house I had so carefully furnished. I took my wife and children to Phoenix and led the Indian ambulance corps attached to the Natal forces. During the difficult marches that had then to be performed, the idea flashed upon me that, if I wanted to devote myself to the service of the community in this manner, I must relinquish the desire for children and wealth and live the life of vanaprastha (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanaprastha) —of one retired from household cares.

The 'Rebellion' did not occupy me for more than six weeks, but this brief period proved to be a very important epoch in my life. The Importance of vows grew upon me more clearly than ever before. I realized that a vow, far from closing the door to real freedom, opened it. Up to this time I had not met with success because the will had been lacking, because I had no faith in myself, no faith in the grace of God, and therefore, my mind had been tossed on the boisterous (noisy, energetic, and cheerful; rowdy) sea of doubt. I realized that in refusing to take a vow man was drawn into temptation, and that to be bound by a vow was like a passage from libertinism (characterized by a disregard of morality, especially in sexual matters) to a real monogamous marriage, 'I believe in effort, I do not want to bind myself with vows,' is the mentality of weakness and betrays a subtle desire for the thing to be avoided. Or where can be the difficulty in making a final decision? I vow to flee from the serpent which I know will bite me, I do not simply make an effort to flee from him. I know that mere effort may mean certain death. Mere effort means ignorance of the certain fact that the serpent is bound to kill me. The fact, therefore, that I could rest content with an effort only, means that I have not yet clearly realized the necessity of definite action. 'But supposing my views are changed in the future, how can I bind myself by a vow?' Such a doubt often deters us. But that doubt also betrays a lack of clear perception that a particular thing must be renounced. That is why Nishkulanand (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nishkulanand_Swami) has sung: Renunciation without aversion [a strong dislike or disinclination] is not lasting. Where therefore the desire is gone, a vow of renunciation is the natural and inevitable fruit." - Mahatma Gandhi, The Story Of My Experiments With Truth, Part Three, Chapter Seven: Brahmacharya - I

When Tolstoy speaks of Christianity, he's referring to his more objective, philosophical, non-supernatural interpretation of his translation of the Gospels: The Gospel In Brief. For context: https://lemmy.world/post/23133528

This is a direct continuation of Tolstoy's Thoughts On Hypocrisy (Part One): https://lemmy.world/post/29870567

These posts serve as additional context if you're interested:

1. The Intoxication Of Power: https://lemmy.world/post/28177344

2. Truth And Auto Suggestion: https://lemmy.world/post/29118589

"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 Bellamys 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 [pretend to be affected by (a feeling, state, or injury)] 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 [a state in which things that are essential for human well-being such as food and warmth are scarce or lacking]; 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—emancipation of men and the reign of truth upon earth.

Not without good reason was Christ's only harsh and threatening reproof [an expression of blame or disapproval] directed against hypocrites and hypocrisy. It is not theft nor robbery 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 human life, and debars them from all progress toward 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 as 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 whom 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 [pretentious and vulgar display, especially of wealth and luxury, intended to impress or attract notice] of philanthropy [the desire to promote the welfare of others, expressed especially by the generous donation of money to good causes], 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 Joukovsky, which would produce even a sentiment of religious emotion in the spectators, would be one of the most perverting actions imaginable. (See vol. iv. of the works of Joukovsky.) 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 solicitude for the wounded, and so on, does more in one year to pervert men's minds than thousands of robberies, murders, and arsons perpetrated 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 privation near, does more to pervert men's minds than thousands of the violent orgies of 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 altarsteps or the pulpit, in which the preacher does not believe, produces incomparably more evil than thousands of swindling tricks, adulteration 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 religious law, the fulfillment of which hindered 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 not speaking now of the coarse 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 then been 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 schoolboys 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 in 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 tranquillity, 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 or our security to prison, exile, or 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 fête 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 round the corner with covetous eyes at our pleasures, ready to interrupt them instantly, were not the policeman and the soldier there 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 fètes and reviews; we cannot persuade ourselves and others that we do not know that men do not like dying of hunger, bereft of the right to gain their subsistence from the earth on which they live; that they do not like working underground, in the water, or in stifling heat, for ten to fourteen 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 heads in their hands, cry: "Ah! 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 of free contract. Great properties and fortunes are necessary, because they provide and organize 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 in factories, the government and the public are taking steps to obviate 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 [lack of moderation or restraint] 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 trades 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 a sophism [a fallacious argument, especially one used deliberately to decive]. The army is only called out against the mob, when the people, in ignorance of their own interests, make disturbances and destroy the tranquillity necessary for the public welfare. In the same way, too, it is necessary to keep in restraint the malefactors 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 its 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. This 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." - Leo Tolstoy, The Kingdom Of God Is Within You, Chapter Twelve: "Conclusion—Repent Ye, For The Kingdom Of Heaven Is At Hand"

When Tolstoy speaks of Christianity, he's referring to his more objective, philosophical, non-supernatural interpretation of his translation of the Gospels: The Gospel In Brief. For context: https://lemmy.world/post/25679868

This is a direct continuation of Tolstoy's Thoughts On Hypocrisy (Part One): https://lemmy.world/post/29870702

These posts serve as additional context if you're interested:

1. The Intoxication Of Power: https://lemmy.world/post/28177342

2. Truth And Auto Suggestion: https://lemmy.world/post/29118994

"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 Bellamys 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 [pretend to be affected by (a feeling, state, or injury)] 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 [a state in which things that are essential for human well-being such as food and warmth are scarce or lacking]; 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—emancipation of men and the reign of truth upon earth.

Not without good reason was Christ's only harsh and threatening reproof [an expression of blame or disapproval] directed against hypocrites and hypocrisy. It is not theft nor robbery 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 human life, and debars them from all progress toward 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 as 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 whom 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 [pretentious and vulgar display, especially of wealth and luxury, intended to impress or attract notice] of philanthropy [the desire to promote the welfare of others, expressed especially by the generous donation of money to good causes], 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 Joukovsky, which would produce even a sentiment of religious emotion in the spectators, would be one of the most perverting actions imaginable. (See vol. iv. of the works of Joukovsky.) 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 solicitude for the wounded, and so on, does more in one year to pervert men's minds than thousands of robberies, murders, and arsons perpetrated 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 privation near, does more to pervert men's minds than thousands of the violent orgies of 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 altarsteps or the pulpit, in which the preacher does not believe, produces incomparably more evil than thousands of swindling tricks, adulteration 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 religious law, the fulfillment of which hindered 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 not speaking now of the coarse 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 then been 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 schoolboys 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 in 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 tranquillity, 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 or our security to prison, exile, or 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 fête 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 round the corner with covetous eyes at our pleasures, ready to interrupt them instantly, were not the policeman and the soldier there 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 fètes and reviews; we cannot persuade ourselves and others that we do not know that men do not like dying of hunger, bereft of the right to gain their subsistence from the earth on which they live; that they do not like working underground, in the water, or in stifling heat, for ten to fourteen 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 heads in their hands, cry: "Ah! 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 of free contract. Great properties and fortunes are necessary, because they provide and organize 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 in factories, the government and the public are taking steps to obviate 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 [lack of moderation or restraint] 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 trades 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 a sophism [a fallacious argument, especially one used deliberately to decive]. The army is only called out against the mob, when the people, in ignorance of their own interests, make disturbances and destroy the tranquillity necessary for the public welfare. In the same way, too, it is necessary to keep in restraint the malefactors 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 its 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. This 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." - Leo Tolstoy, The Kingdom Of God Is Within You, Chapter Twelve: "Conclusion—Repent Ye, For The Kingdom Of Heaven Is At Hand"

This is my "more than yes or no" regarding the divine influence that shouldn't ever be considered to be promised to be held as unquestionably true (taken oaths to).

I am Who I am

Vanity\Morality\Desire\Influence\Knowledge\Reason\Imagination\Conciousness\Sense Organs+Present Environment

"I am Who I am." Who I am being: consciousness, thus, imagination, thus, reason—knowledge, influence, desire, selflessness or selfishness, i.e., morality, vanity for either therefore—for ourselves or anything else, for love or hate; the most war or the most peace upon an environment via the species most capable to acknowledge, understand, imagine, and act upon this "I am who I am."

We'd love to tell a dog all about why exactly not to eat the chocolate left out on the counter (Sin: Selfishness), that it will harm them, and even lead to their own destruction (in this life, ultimately—God or not); what is it specifically that stops this? The difference in our levels of consciousness; and it's knowledge that governs this level. The more we understand of our universe and of space for example, the more the level of our consciousness grows in its regard—as it has, painfully slowly, as each mellienium passes; so of course the same will become of our knowledge of morality.

This is made possible by our unique ability to acknowledge knowledge at all in the first place and transfer it to the degrees we can and have in contrast. This God(s) or creator(s) of some kind is on a level of consciousness completely beyond our ability and comprehension; similar to how a microorganisms or an atoms perspective would be if it could speculate—if it hypothetically had the ability—regarding what we humans consist of exactly, not to mention the universe as we know it now.

"The Living God"

Our unique ability to retain and transfer knowledge, keeping any degree of it alive or "living," so to speak, as a result, but of God, morality and the value of selflessness especially, and the true value and potential it holds any conscious, capable being (and species)—on any planet; of selflessness' ability to overcome selfishness, by "offering its other cheek in return" for example, and by saving people (in our case) from a hell we make for ourselves—in this life, becoming either a prisoner of our minds, or to men, ultimately, that selfishness (Sin) inherently leads us into otherwise—being absent this knowledge. Ignorance (lack of knowledge) being an inevitability, as a direct consequence of any amount of knowledge in the first place, thus, warranting any amount of hate or evil, iniquity, or debauchery born as a result, infinite forgiveness.

"My people are destroyed from lack of knowledge [ignorance]" - Hosea 4:6 (https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Hosea+4&version=ESV)

"And should I not have concern for the great city of Nineveh, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left—and also many animals?” - Jonah 4:11 (https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Jonah+4&version=ESV)

Vanity\Morality\Desire\Influence\Knowledge\Reason\Imagination\Conciousness\Sense Organs+Present Environment: https://lemmy.world/post/25358329

Socrates, The Book Of Jonah, and Jesus: https://lemmy.world/post/23168611

When Tolstoy speaks of Christianity, he's referring to his more objective, philosophical, non-supernatural interpretation of his translation of the Gospels: The Gospel In Brief. For context: https://lemmy.world/post/25679868

These posts serve as additional context if you're interested:

1. The Intoxication Of Power: https://lemmy.world/post/28177342

2. Truth And Auto Suggestion: https://lemmy.world/post/29118994

"Hypocrisy, 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 observances 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 this way was an evil, egoistic creature and could not possibly consider himself a Christian or a liberal. One would have supposed it 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 in 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 possession 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 we see this man, without the least trouble of mind or doubt that people will believe in his sincerity, organizing an agricultural exhibition, or a temperance society, or sending some soup and stockings by his wife or children to three old women, and boldly in his family, in drawing rooms, in 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. And 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 whose exploitation 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 subsistence. (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 haulm at five rubles the dessiatine (about 2 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 own language is called swindling, if it is done under other conditions, ought to be ashamed of his position, and could not any way, while he continues a merchant, profess himself a Christian or a liberal.

But the sophistry [the use of fallacious arguments, especially with the intention of deceiving] of hypocrisy reasons that the merchant can pass for a virtuous man without giving up his pernicious [having a harmful effect, especially in a gradual or subtle way] 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 and being regarded by others, so long as he does not directly deceive his colleagues in business, as a pattern of probity [the quality of having strong moral principles] 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 the benefactor of the people on the exploitation and corruption of whom his whole prosperity has been founded: if he sacrifices, too, 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 in toiling for him, and a bank, and a poorhouse, and a hospital—fully persuaded that he has amply expiated [atone for (guilt or sin)] 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 wrung from the harassed and toilworn 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, and 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, and this judge or this prosecutor is so hardened in his hypocrisy that he and his fellows and his wife and his household are all fully convinced that he may be a most exemplary man. 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 blood-suckers 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 laborers 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 these working classes, whom they have always trampled under their feet, and on Sundays, richly dressed, they drive in sumptuous [splendid and expensive looking] carriages to the houses of God built in very mockery of Christianity, and there 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 [deny or contradict (a fact or statement)] 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 [feeling or showing anger or annoyance at what is perceived as unfair treatment]. Hypocrisy in the Greek means "acting," and acting—playing a part—is always possible. The representatives of Christ give their blessing to the ranks of murderers holding their guns loaded against their brothers; "for prayer" priests, ministers of various Christian sects are always present, as indispensably as the hangman, at executions, and sanction 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 knouts 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 emigration, 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 Trades 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 and 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 sincerely men strive toward 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." - Leo Tolstoy, The Kingdom Of God Is Within You, Chapter Twelve: "Conclusion—Repent Ye, For The Kingdom Of Heaven Is At Hand"