Lectures on Russian Literature: Pushkin, Gogol, Turgenef, TolstoyPanin, Ivan
History
Lectures on Russian Literature: Pushkin, Gogol, Turgenef, Tolstoy
Panin, Ivan
Russian literature -- 19th century -- History and criticism
12. Trust ye, therefore, your heart ere you trust your logic. Whatever
the heart dictates must be from God, logic or no logic; whatever the
heart rebels against must be from the Devil, reason or no reason. Time
never yet was when the Devil lacked reasons; and if he can find reasons
nowhere else, he at last finds them in science and in Scripture. Next to
the slaveholders themselves, the last to forsake the sinking ship of
slavery, were the preachers of the gospel of the brotherhood of man, who
argued finely from Scripture twisted for the purpose, that the great God
having made Mr. Preacher white and Mr. Negro black, had therefore
intended that black shall be the minion of white. Time never was when
reason and logic most inexorable could not find excuse most sufficient
for the shedding of blood of brother by brother, for the burning of
village and town, for the erecting of luxurious palace within
stone's-throw of the homeless. Time never was when logic could not show
the fine propriety, nay, the utmost necessity, for competition and
struggle for existence; when men, who might create a paradise of this
green earth of ours, if they but chose to help one another, transform
themselves into pigs, jostling and pushing one another at the trough,
and grunting with satisfaction abundant at having driven the weaker
piglet off into starvation,--all of which is our modern, _necessary_
competition in business; and this is logical, reasonable, scientific
struggle for existence!
13. No, no, my friends, let logic cry never so loudly at the necessity
of struggle for existence, and competition for bread between men, when
the great God hath provided enough for a hundredfold of the present
number of men if they but chose to help one another. The heart saith it
is wrong; and whatever logic makes it out to be right is accursed, is
from the Devil; and it is for ye, if ye are to become the children of
the Prince of Light, and not the children of the Prince of Darkness, to
have none of such logic, and trust the God within you, who dwelleth not
in your heads, but in your hearts.
14. And once more, out of this fundamental idea of the supremacy of love
and the brotherhood of _all_ men,--of all men, observe,--follows the
insistence of Tolstoy upon the words of Christ,--"Give to him that
asketh." For it is not for man to judge his neighbor, but for God. To
Tolstoy, therefore, all men are his brothers, the unworthy as well as
the worthy; or rather, he never asks whether they be worthy. To him
therefore the law of Christ stands not for utility, nor for fear of
consequence, but for mercy and trust in God. Hence Tolstoy would never
fear to help from what are branded as sentimental motives. And the third
articulate utterance in the message of Tolstoy is therefore the
supremacy in charity of the sentiment which comes from God over the
logic which comes from the Devil.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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