First, protection against the bad men in our midst.[1050] "But who are
the bad men among us? If there once were such men three or four
centuries ago, when people still paraded warlike arts and equipments and
looked upon killing as a brilliant deed, they are gone to-day anyhow;
nobody any longer carries weapons, everybody acknowledges the commands
of philanthropy. But, if by the men from whom the State must protect us
we mean the criminals, then we know that they are not special creatures
like the wolf among the sheep, but just such men as all of us, who like
committing crimes as little as we do; we know that the activity of
governments with their cruel forms of punishment, which do not
correspond to the present stage of morality, their prisons, tortures,
gallows, guillotines, contributes more to the barbarizing of the people
than to their culture, and hence rather to the multiplication than to
the diminution of such criminals."[1051] If we are Christians and start
from the principle that "what our life exists for is the serving of
others, then no one will be foolish enough to rob men that serve him of
their means of support or to kill them. Miklucho-Maclay settled among
the wildest so-called 'savages', and they not only left him alive but
loved him and submitted to his authority, solely because he did not fear
them, asked nothing of them, and did them good."[1052]
Secondly, the question is asked how in the future societary condition we
can find protection against external enemies.[1053] But we do know "that
the nations of Europe profess the principles of liberty and fraternity,
and therefore need no protection against each other; but, if it were a
protection against the barbarians that was meant, a thousandth part of
the armies that are now kept up would suffice. State authority not
merely leaves in existence the danger of hostile attacks, but even
itself provokes this danger."[1054] But, "if there existed a community
of Christians who did evil to nobody and gave to others all the
superfluous products of their labor, then no enemy, neither the German
nor the Turk nor the savage, would kill or vex such men; all one could
do would be to take from them what they were ready to give voluntarily
without distinguishing between Russians, Germans, Turks, and
savages."[1055]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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