The Law of Violence and the Law of Love

Appendix to Chapter 17
But however much the blindness of those who believe in the necessity and inevitability of violence may strike me as strange, and however blatantly apparent the inevitability of nonresistance may be to me, it is not reasoned conclusions that convince me, or that can irrefutably convince other people, of the truth of nonresistance; it is only man’s awareness of his spirituality, the basic expression of which is love, that can convince. It is love, true love, which comprises the essence of man’s soul; that love which is revealed in Christ’s teaching, and excludes even the suggestion of any kind of violence. Whether the employment of violence or the endurance of evil will be useful or harmful I do not know, and no one knows. But I do know, as every person knows, that love is well-being; the love of others for me is a blessing and still more is my love for others. The supreme bliss is my love for others, and not only for those who love me, but as Christ said,... (From : Wikisource.org.)

Appendix to Chapter 8
One need only recall Christ’s teaching forbidding violent resistance to evil, and people, from the privileged gentry as compared to the laboring classes, will, whether they are believers or nonbelievers, simply smile ironically at such a reference, as if the idea that nonviolent resistance to evil were possible is such blatant nonsense that serious-minded people would not even mention it. The majority of such people, considering themselves moral and educated, will talk seriously and argue about the Trinity, the divinity of Christ, the redemption, the sacraments and so forth; or about which of two political parties would have the best chance of success, or which political unions are the most desirable, whose proposals are sounder, those of the social democrats or those of the Socialist revolutionaries; but they are all quite agreed that belief in nonviolent resistance to evil cannot be taken seriously. Why is this? Because people cannot but feel that a... (From : Wikisource.org.)

Appendix to Chapter 7
The Christian teaching in its true meaning, acknowledging the SUPREME LAW of human life to be the law of love which in no instance permits violence between men, is so close to the heart of man and gives such undoubted freedom, such independent happiness to both the individual and groups of people, as well as to the whole of humanity, that it would seem this need only be known for all men to accept it as the guiding principle of their behavior. And, in spite of all the efforts of the Church to conceal this law, people have really come to understand this more and more and striven to realize it. But the unhappy fact is that at the time when the true meaning of the Christian teaching started becoming clearer to people, a large section of the Christian world has already become accustomed to regarding the truth as existing in external religious forms. And these forms not only hide the true meaning of the Christian teaching but uphold a system of government that is in direct opposition t... (From : Wikisource.org.)

Appendix to Chapter 3
The most dangerous people have been hanged, or are serving sentences in penal battalions, fortresses and prisons; tens of thousands of others, less dangerous, have been driven out of the capital cities and big towns and are wandering around Russia, bedraggled and hungry; the ordinary police arrest, the secret police pursue; all books and newspapers dangerous to the government are withdrawn from circulation. In the Duma debates go on between various party spokesmen as to how to protect the welfare of the people: should or should not fleets be built? Should peasant land-ownership be organized in this way or that way? How and why a Council of Churches should, or should not, be held. There are leaders who dally in lobbies, there are quorums, blocs, premiers and everything else down to the last detail, exactly as in all civilized nations. It would seem that we need nothing more. And yet, the collapse of the existing structure is drawing closer and closer, precisely here and precisely n... (From : Wikisource.org.)

Chapter 19
‘Some people seek well-being, or happiness, in power, others seek it in science or in sensuality. Those who are truly close to bliss realize that it cannot exist in something that only a few, rather than everyone, can possess. They realize that the genuine well-being of man is such that all people can possess it at once, without division and without jealousy; it is such that no one can lose it unless he wants to.’ (Pascal) We have one, and only one, infallible guide: the eternal spirit that penetrates each and every one of us in unity and fills us with the ambition to attain that which we ought; it is the same spirit that urges the tree to grow towards the sun, the flower to drop its seeds in autumn, and which urges us to strive after God, thereby uniting ourselves. The true faith attracts people to it, not by the promise of good to the believer, but by the indication of the only means of saving us from all evil, and from death itself. Salvation... (From : Wikisource.org.)

The human soul is Christian by nature. Christianity is always perceived by people as something forgotten and suddenly remembered… Christianity raises man to a height revealing a world of happiness, governed by the law of reason. The feeling on discovering the truth of Christianity is similar to that experienced by a man who has been locked in a dark, stuffy tower and then climbs to the highest platform on the battlements, from where he can see a beautiful world he has never seen before. The realization of submitting to human law is enslaving; the realization of submitting to God’s law is liberating. One of the certain conditions of man’s undertaking is the fact that the further away the goal of our strivings, and the less... (From : Wikisource.org.)

‘Man need only divert his attention from searching for the solution to outer questions and pose the one, true inner question of how he should lead his life, and all the outer questions will be resolved in the best possible way. We do not and cannot know what is the essence of common well-being, but we know very well that it can only be achieved through fulfilling the law of goodness that has been revealed to each person.’ ‘If only instead of wishing to save the world people wished to save themselves, to liberate themselves rather than humanity, they would be doing so much more for the salvation of the world and the freedom of humanity.’ (Herzen) In both personal and public life there is only one law: if you wish to i... (From : Wikisource.org.)

‘And fear not them who kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body.’ (Matt., X, 28) Because of the perversion of the Christianity, the life of the Christian people has become worse than of the pagans. The reform of evil that exists in life must begin with a denunciation of the religious lie and the establishing of religious truth within each individual person. The sufferings involved in an irrational life lead to an awareness of the necessity of rational life. None of the wretchedness of either humanity or the individual is useless, for it always leads humanity, albeit in a roundabout way, to the only activity for which man is destined: self-perfection. (Sourc... (From : Wikisource.org.)

It is far more natural to conceive of a society of people governed by reasonable, advantageous laws, that are recognized by everyone, than of the society in which people live today, obeying only violence. The man who has not yet awoken to the truth sees political power as various sacred institutions, like the organs of a living body forming the essential conditions of life. For the man who has awakened to the truth, these people appear very mistaken, for they have attributed to themselves some kind of fantastic significance without any rational justification for it, and they fulfill their desires through violence. The awoken person also regards the lost and for the most part bribed people doing violence to other people just as highway robbe... (From : Wikisource.org.)

‘The savage instinct of military murder has been so carefully cultivated and encouraged over the course of a thousand years that it has dug deep roots in the human brain. One must hope, however, that a humanity better than ours will manage to free itself from this dreadful crime. But what will this superior humanity think of the so-called refined civilization which we are so proud of? Almost the same as we think of the tribes of ancient Mexico with their cannibalism, who are at once war-like, pious, and bestial.’ (Letourneau) ‘War will only be annihilated when people cease to have any share in violence, and are prepared to suffer all the persecutions they will bring upon themselves for doing so. This is the only way to ann... (From : Wikisource.org.)