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
All men who are travelling on this train will, when they proceed
to execute the deed for which they have set out, be in the same
position in which a hypnotized person would be, who has received the
suggestion to chop a log, and, having walked up to what has been
pointed out to him as a log and having raised the axe to strike,
suddenly sees or is told that it is not a log, but his sleeping
brother. He may perform the act suggested to him, and he may wake up
before its performance. Even so all these men may awaken, or not. If
they do not, as terrible a deed as the one in Orél will be done, and
in other men the auto-suggestion and the suggestion under which they
act will be increased; if they awaken, such a deed will not only not
be performed, but many others, upon finding out the turn which the
affair has taken, will be freed from that suggestion in which they
are, or at least will approach such a liberation.
But if not all men travelling on this train shall awaken and refrain
from doing the deed which has been begun, if only a few of them
shall do so and shall boldly express to other men the criminality
of this affair, these few men even may have the effect of awakening
all the other men from the suggestion, under which they are, and the
proposed evil deed will not take place.
More than that: if only a few men, who do not take part in this
affair, but are only present at the preparations for the same, or
who have heard of similar acts previously committed, will not remain
indifferent, but will frankly and boldly express their disgust with
the participants in these matters, and will point out to them their
whole senselessness, cruelty, and criminality, even that will not
pass unnoticed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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