The Kingdom of God is Within You / Christianity and Patriotism / MiscellaniesTolstoy, Leo, graf
Religion
The Kingdom of God is Within You / Christianity and Patriotism / Miscellanies
Tolstoy, Leo, graf
Russian literature -- Translations into English
"It is very likely that the state was necessary and even now is
necessary for all those purposes which you ascribe to it," says the
man who has made the Christian life-conception his own, "but all I
know is that, on the one hand, I no longer need the state, and, on
the other, I can no longer perform those acts which are necessary
for the existence of the state. Arrange for yourselves what you need
for your lives: I cannot prove either the common necessity, or the
common harm of the state; all I know is what I need and what not,
what I may do and what not. I know for myself that I do not need any
separation from the other nations, and so I cannot recognize my
exclusive belonging to some one nation or state, and my subjection
to any government; I know in my own case that I do not need all
those government offices and courts, which are the product of
violence, and so I cannot take part in any of them; I know in my own
case that I do not need to attack other nations and kill them, nor
defend myself by taking up arms, and so I cannot take part in wars
and in preparations for them. It is very likely that there are some
people who cannot regard all that as necessary and indispensable. I
cannot dispute with them,--all I know concerning myself, but that
I know incontestably, is that I do not need it all and am not able
to do it. I do not need it, and I cannot do it, not because I, my
personality, do not want it, but because He who has sent me into
life, and has given me the incontestable law for guidance in my
life, does not want it."
No matter what arguments men may adduce in proof of the danger
of abolishing the power of the state and that this abolition may
beget calamities, the men who have outgrown the political form can
no longer find their place in it. And, no matter what arguments
may be adduced to a man who has outgrown the political form, about
its indispensableness, he cannot return to it, cannot take part
in the affairs which are denied by his consciousness, just as the
full-grown chicks can no longer return into the shell which they
have outgrown.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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