Chapter XVII: Conclusion (4)

"But science, art, civilization, and culture will cease to be!" But if all these are only diverse manifestations of truth, the impending change is to be accomplished for the sake of a further advance toward truth and its realization. "How, then, can the manifestations of truth disappear, in consequence of further realization of truth?" The manifestations of truth will be different, better, loftier, the error that has been in them will perish, while the verity that is in them will remain and flourish with renewed vigor.

Return to yourselves, sons of men, and have faith in the gospel, and in its doctrine of eternal happiness! If you heed not this warning, you shall all perish like the men slain by Pilate, like those upon whom the tower of Siloam fell; like millions of other men, who slew and were slain, who executed and suffered execution, who tortured and were tortured; as perished the man who so foolishly filled his granaries, counting on a long life, on the very night when his soul was required of him. Return, sons of men, and believe in the words which Christ uttered 1800 years ago, words which He repeats to-day with greater force, warning us that the evil day He foretold is at hand, and that our life has reached its last descent of folly and wickedness.

Now, after so many centuries of futile effort to protect ourselves by the methods of the pagan system of violence, it should be evident to every man that all such effort, far from insuring our safety, tends only to add a new element of danger both to individual and social existence.

No matter by what names we may be called, nor what garments we may wear, nor in the presence of what priest we may be anointed, nor how many millions our subjects may number, nor how many guards may be posted on our journey, nor how many policemen may protect our property, nor how many so-called criminals, revolutionists, or anarchists we may execute; no matter what exploits we may perform, nor what states we may establish, nor what fortresses and towers we may erect, from the Tower of Babel to the Eiffel Tower,--we have before us two ever present and unavoidable conditions, that deprive our mode of life of all significance: (1) death, that may overtake each of us at any moment, and (2) the transitory nature of all our undertakings, that disappear, leaving no trace behind them. No matter what we may do, found kingdoms, build palaces and monuments, write poems and songs,--all is but fleeting and leaves no trace behind. Therefore no matter how much we may attempt to conceal this from ourselves, we cannot fail to perceive that the true significance of our life lies neither in our individual, physical existence, subjected to unavoidable suffering and death, nor in any institution or social organization.

Whoever you are, you who read these lines, reflect upon your position and your duties, not upon the position of landowner, merchant, judge, emperor, president, minister, priest, or soldier, which you may assume but for a time, not upon the imaginary duties which these positions impose upon you, but upon your actual and eternal position as a being, who, after a whole eternity of non-existence, is called by the will of Some One from unconsciousness into life, and who may at any moment return whence he came by the same will. Consider your duties! Not your imaginary duties of landowner in regard to your estate, nor of merchant to your capital, nor of emperor, minister, or governor to the State, but of your real duties, of a being called forth into life and endowed with love and reason. Do that which He who has sent you into this world, and to whom you will shortly return, demands of you. Are you doing what he requires? Are you doing right when, as landowner or manufacturer, you take the products of the labor of the poor, and establish your life on this spoliation; or when, as governor or judge, you do violence in condemning men to death; or when, as soldier, you prepare for war, for fighting, robbery, and murder,--are you doing right?

You say that the world is as you find it, that it is inevitable that it should be as it is, that what you do you are compelled to do. But can it be that, having so strongly rooted an aversion to the suffering of men, to violence, to murder; having such a need of loving your fellow-men, and of being loved by them; seeing clearly, too, that the greatest good possible to men comes from acknowledging human brotherhood, from one serving another: can it be that your heart tells you all this, that you are taught it by your reason, that science repeats it to you, and yet regardless of it, on the strength of some mysterious and complicated argument, you are forced to contradict it all in your daily conduct? Is it possible that, being a landowner or a capitalist, you should establish your life on the oppression of the people; that, being an emperor or a president, you should command armies, and be a leader of murderers; that, being a functionary of State, you should take from the poor their hard-earned money for your own benefit, or for the benefit of the rich; that, being a judge or juror, you should condemn erring men to torture and death, because the truth has not been revealed to them; or, above all, is it possible that you, a youth, should enter the army, doing that upon which all the evil of the world is founded, that, renouncing your own will, all your human sympathy, you should engage at the will of others to murder those whom they bid you murder?

It is impossible!

If you are told that all this is essential for the support of the existing system of life; that this system, with its pauperism, famine, prisons, executions, armies, wars, is necessary for society, and that if it were to be abolished worse evils would follow, you are told so only by those who benefit by this system; while those who suffer from it,--and their numbers are ten times greater,--all think and say the opposite. And at the bottom of your heart you know that this is false,--that the existing system has had its day, and must inevitably be remodeled on new foundations; and that there is no need whatsoever to support it by the sacrifice of human life.

Even supposing that the existing system is necessary, how is it that you should have to support it by trampling upon all finer feelings? But who has made you a guardian of this crumbling structure? Neither has the State, nor society, nor has any one requested you individually to support it by occupying your position of landowner, merchant, emperor, priest, or soldier, and you are well aware that you have accepted and are holding it, not for purposes of self-denial, for the good of your fellow-men, but for your own selfish interest; for your greed of gain, vainglory, ambition, through your indolence or your cowardice. If you do not desire this position you should not persist in doing what is cruel, false, and contemptible in order to retain it. If you would once refrain from these things which you do continually for the purpose of retaining it, you would lose it at once. If you are a ruler or an official, make only an attempt to cease polite lying, cease to take part in violences and executions; if you are a priest, desist from deceiving; if a soldier, cease killing; if a land-owner or manufacturer, cease defending your property by roguery and violence; and forthwith you will lose the position which, as you say, is forced upon you and seems to you burdensome.

It cannot be that a man should be placed against his will in a position contrary to conscience.

If you are put in such a position, it is not because it is necessary for some one to be there, but only because you are willing to accept it. And therefore, knowing that such a position is directly opposed to the mandates of your heart, your reason, your faith, and even to the teaching of that science you believe in, you cannot but pause to consider, if you wish to keep it, and especially if you try to justify it, if you are doing what you ought to do.

You might run the risk if you had but the time to see your mistake and correct it, and if you ran the risk for something worth having. But when you know for certain that you are liable to die at any moment, without the slightest possibility either for yourself or for those whom you have drawn in with you of rectifying your mistake; and, moreover, since you know that no matter what those about you may accomplish in the material organization of the world, it will all very shortly disappear as certainly as you yourself, leaving no trace behind,--it is surely obvious that you have no inducement to run the risk of making a mistake so terrible.

This would seem perfectly plain and simple if we did not veil with hypocrisy the truth that is indubitably revealed to us.

Share what you have with others; do not amass riches; be not vain; do not rob, torture, or murder men; do not to others what you would not that others should do to you,--these things have been said not eighteen hundred but five thousand years ago, and there can be no doubt of the truth of them. Save for hypocrisy, it would be impossible, even if one did not obey these rules, not to acknowledge that they ought to be obeyed, and that those who do not obey them do wrong.

But you say that there is still the general well-being, for the sake of which one should deviate from these rules. It is allowable for the general well-being to kill, torture, and rob. "It is better that one man should perish than a whole nation," you say, like Caiaphas, when you are signing death-warrants; or you load your gun to shoot your fellow-man, who is to perish for the general good; or you imprison him or take away his goods.

You say that you do these cruel things because you are a part of society, of the State, and must serve your government and carry out its laws, as landowner, judge, emperor, or soldier. But if you are a part of the State and have duties in consequence, you are also a partaker of the infinite life of God's universe, and have higher duties in consequence of that.

As your duties to your family or to society are always subject to the higher duties that depend upon your citizenship in the State, so your duties of citizenship are subject to the duties arising from your relations to the life of the universe, from your sonship to God. And as it would be unwise to cut down telegraph poles in order to furnish fuel for the benefit of a family or a few people, because this would be breaking the laws that protect the welfare of the State; so it is equally unwise, in order to promote the welfare of the State, to execute or murder a man, because this is breaking the immutable laws which preserve the welfare of the world.

The obligations of citizenship must be subject to the higher and eternal obligations on your part in the everlasting life of God, and must not contradict them. As it was said eighteen hundred years ago by the disciples of Christ, "Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye."[33] "We ought to obey God rather than men."[34]

[33] Acts iv. 19.

[34] Acts v. 29.

You are told to believe that in order to maintain an ever changing system, established but yesterday by a few men in a corner of the globe, you should commit violent deeds that are against the fixed and eternal order established by God or reason. Can it be possible?

Do not fail, then, to reflect upon your position of land-owner, merchant, judge, emperor, president, minister, priest, or soldier--associated with violence, oppression, deceit, torture, and murder; refuse to recognize the lawfulness of these crimes. I do not mean that if you are a landowner you should forthwith give your land to the poor; or if a capitalist, your money or your factory to your workmen; or if a czar, a minister, a magistrate, a judge, or a general, you should forthwith abdicate all your advantages; or if a soldier, whose occupation in its very nature is based on violence, you should at once refuse to continue longer a soldier, despite all the dangers of such a refusal. Should you do this, it will indeed be an heroic act; but it may happen--and most probably--that you will not be able to do it. You have connections, a family, subordinates, chiefs; you may be surrounded by temptations so strong that you cannot overcome them; but to acknowledge the truth to be the truth, and not to lie--that you are always able to do. You can refrain from affirming that you continue to be a landowner or factory-owner, a merchant, an artist, an author, because you are thus useful to men; from declaring that you are a governor, an attorney-general, a czar, not because it is agreeable or you are accustomed to be such, but for the good of men; from saying that you remain a soldier, not through fear of punishment, but because you consider the army indispensable for the protection of men's lives. To keep from speaking thus falsely before yourself and others--this you are always able to do, and not only able, but in duty bound to do, because in this alone--in freeing yourself from falsehood and in working out the truth--lies the highest duty of your life. And do but this and it will be sufficient for the situation to change at once of itself.

One only thing in which you are free and all-powerful has been given you; all others are beyond you. It is this,--to know the truth and to profess it. And it is only because of other miserable and erring men like yourself that you have become a soldier, an emperor, a landowner, a capitalist, a priest, or a general; that you commit evil deeds so obviously contrary to the dictates of your heart and reason; that you torture, rob, and murder men, establishing your life on their sufferings; and that, above all, instead of performing your paramount duty of acknowledging and professing the truth which is known to you, you pretend not to know it, concealing it from yourself and others, doing the very opposite of what you have been called to do.

And under what conditions are you doing this? Being liable to die at any moment, you sign a death-warrant, declare war or take part in it, pass judgment, torture and rob workmen, live in luxury surrounded by misery, and teach weak and trusting men that all this is right and for you is a matter of duty, while all the time you are in danger of your life being destroyed by a bullet or a bacillus, and you may be deprived forever of the power to rectify or counteract the evil you have done to others and to yourself; having wasted a life given you but once in all eternity, having left undone in it the one thing for which it was given you.

No matter how trite it may appear to state it, nor how we may hypocritically deceive ourselves, nothing can destroy the certainty of the simple and obvious truth that external conditions can never render safe this life of ours, so fraught with unavoidable suffering, and ended infallibly by death, that human life can have no other meaning than the constant fulfilment of that for which the Almighty Power has sent us here, and for which He has given us one sure guide in this life, namely, our conscious reason.

This Power does not require from us what is unreasonable and impossible,--the organization of our temporal, material life, the life of society, or of the State. He demands of us only what is reasonable and possible,--to serve the Kingdom of God, which establishes the unity of mankind, a unity possible only in the truth; to recognize and profess the truth revealed to us, which it is always in our power to do.

"Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you."[35]

[35] Matt. vi. 33.

The only significance of life consists in helping to establish the Kingdom of God; and this can be done only by means of the acknowledgment and profession of the truth by each one of us. "The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold the kingdom of God is within you."[36]

[36] Luke xvii. 20, 21.

WHAT IS ART?

TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE

The fundamental thought expressed in this book leads inevitably to conclusions so new, so unexpected, and so contrary to what is usually maintained in literary and artistic circles, that although it is clearly and emphatically expressed (and this I hope has not been lost in translation), most readers who wish to possess themselves of it will have to read the work carefully, and to digest it slowly.

Especially the introductory Chapters II., III., IV., and V., need careful perusal by any who, having adopted one or other of the current theories on beauty and art, may find it difficult to abandon a preconceived view, and to clear their minds for a fair appreciation of what is new to them.

The first four chapters raise the problem, and tell us briefly what has been said by previous writers. Chapter III. gives (in highly condensed form) the substance of the teaching of some sixty philosophers on this subject, and since many of them were extremely confused, the chapter cannot, in the nature of things, be easy reading.

I should like to remark, in passing, that though Tolstoï in this chapter (presumably for convenience of verification) refers chiefly to the compilations of Schasler, Kralik, and Knight, he has gone behind these authorities to the primary sources. To give a single instance: in the paragraph on Darwin, the foot-note refers us to Knight, but the remark that the origin of the art of music may be traced back to the call of the males to the females in the animal world will be found in Darwin, but will not be found in Knight.

In Chapter V. we come to Tolstoï's definition of art, which definition should be kept well in mind while reading the rest of the book.

No doubt most of those to whom it is an end in itself, who live by it, or make it their chief occupation, will read this book (or leave it unread) and go on in their former way, much as Pharaoh, of old, hardened his heart, and did not sympathize with what Moses had to say on the labor question. But for those of us who have felt that art is too valuable a matter to be lost out of our lives, and who, in their quest for social justice, have met the reproach that they were sacrificing the pleasures and advantages of art, this book is of inestimable value, in that it solves a perplexed question of far-reaching importance to practical life.

To this class of readers neither the masterly elucidation of the former theories contained in the opening chapters, nor the explanation of how it has come about that such great importance is attached to the activity we call art (Chapters VI. and VII.), nor the explanation and illustrations of the perversion that art has undergone, nor even the elucidation of the terrible evils this perversion is producing (XVII.), will equal in significance the remaining chapters of the book. These show us what to look for in art, how to distinguish it from counterfeits (XV., XVI., and XVIII.), treat of the true art of the future (XIX.), and explain how science and art are linked together in man's life, are directed by his perception of the meaning of life, and inevitably react on all he thinks and feels.

THE AUTHOR'S PREFACE

This book of mine, "What is Art?" appears now for the first time in its true form. More than one edition has already been issued in Russia, but in each case it has been so mutilated by the "Censor," that I request all who are interested in my views on art only to judge of them by the work in its present shape. The causes which led to the publication of the book--with my name attached to it--in a mutilated form were the following: In accordance with a decision I arrived at long ago,--not to submit my writings to the "Censorship" (which I consider to be an immoral and irrational institution), but to print them only in the shape in which they were written,--I intended not to attempt to print this work in Russia. However, my good acquaintance, Professor Grote, editor of a Moscow psychological magazine, having heard of the contents of my work, asked me to print it in his magazine, and promised me that he would get the book through the "Censor's" office unmutilated if I would but agree to a few very unimportant alterations, merely toning down certain expressions. I was weak enough to agree to this, and it has resulted in a book appearing under my name, from which not only have some essential thoughts been excluded, but into which the thoughts of other men--even thoughts utterly opposed to my own convictions--have been introduced.

The thing occurred in this way. First, Grote softened my expressions, and in some cases weakened them. For instance, he replaced the words: _always_ by _sometimes_, _all_ by _some_, _Church_ religion by _Roman Catholic_ religion, "_Mother of God_" by _Madonna_, _patriotism_ by _pseudo-patriotism_, _palaces_ by _palatii_,[37] etc., and I did not consider it necessary to protest. But when the book was already in type, the Censor required that whole sentences should be altered, and that instead of what I said about the evil of landed property, a remark should be substituted on the evils of a landless proletariate.[38] I agreed to this also, and to some further alterations. It seemed not worth while to upset the whole affair for the sake of one sentence, and when one alteration had been agreed to it seemed not worth while to protest against a second and a third. So, little by little, expressions crept into the book which altered the sense and attributed things to me that I could not have wished to say. So that by the time the book was printed it had been deprived of some part of its integrity and sincerity. But there was consolation in the thought that the book, even in this form, if it contains something that is good, would be of use to Russian readers whom it would otherwise not have reached. Things, however, turned out otherwise. _Nous comptions sans notre hôte._ After the legal term of four days had already elapsed, the book was seized, and, on instructions received from Petersburg, it was handed over to the "Spiritual Censor." Then Grote declined all further participation in the affair, and the "Spiritual Censor" proceeded to do what he would with the book. The "Spiritual Censorship" is one of the most ignorant, venal, stupid, and despotic institutions in Russia. Books which disagree in any way with the recognized state religion of Russia, if once it gets hold of them, are almost always totally suppressed and burnt; which is what happened to all my religious works when attempts were made to print them in Russia. Probably a similar fate would have overtaken this work also, had not the editors of the magazine employed all means to save it. The result of their efforts was that the "Spiritual Censor," a priest who probably understands art and is interested in art as much as I understand or am interested in church services, but who gets a good salary for destroying whatever is likely to displease his superiors, struck out all that seemed to him to endanger his position, and substituted his thoughts for mine wherever he considered it necessary to do so. For instance, where I speak of Christ going to the Cross for the sake of the truth He professed, the "Censor" substituted a statement that Christ died for mankind, _i.e_. he attributed to me an assertion of the dogma of the Redemption, which I consider to be one of the most untrue and harmful of Church dogmas. After correcting the book in this way, the "Spiritual Censor" allowed it to be printed.

[37] Tolstoï's remarks on Church religion were re-worded so as to
seem to relate only to the Western Church, and his disapproval of
luxurious life was made to apply, not, say, to Queen Victoria or
Nicholas II., but to the Cæsars or the Pharaohs.--TR.

[38] The Russian peasant is usually a member of a village commune,
and has therefore a right to a share in the land belonging to the
village. Tolstoï disapproves of the order of society which allows
less land for the support of a village full of people than is
sometimes owned by a single landed proprietor. The "Censor" will not
allow disapproval of this state of things to be expressed, but is
prepared to admit that the laws and customs, say, of England--where
a yet more extreme form of landed property exists, and the men who
actually labor on the land usually possess none of it--deserve
criticism.--TR.

To protest in Russia is impossible--no newspaper would publish such a protest; and to withdraw my book from the magazine, and place the editor in an awkward position with the public, was also not possible.

So the matter has remained. A book has appeared under my name containing thoughts attributed to me which are not mine.

I was persuaded to give my article to a Russian magazine in order that my thoughts, which may be useful, should become the possession of Russian readers; and the result has been that my name is affixed to a work from which it might be assumed that I quite arbitrarily assert things contrary to the general opinion, without adducing my reasons; that I only consider false patriotism bad, but patriotism in general a very good feeling; that I merely deny the absurdities of the Roman Catholic Church and disbelieve in the Madonna, but that I believe in the Orthodox Eastern faith and in the "Mother of God"; that I consider all the writings collected in the Bible to be holy books, and see the chief importance of Christ's life in the Redemption of mankind by His death.

I have narrated all this in such detail because it strikingly illustrates the indubitable truth that all compromise with institutions of which your conscience disapproves,--compromises which are usually made for the sake of the general good,--instead of producing the good you expected, inevitably lead you, not only to acknowledge the institution you disapprove of, but also to participate in the evil that institution produces.

I am glad to be able by this statement at least to do something to correct the error into which I was led by my compromise.

I have also to mention that besides reinstating the parts excluded by the Censor from the Russian editions, other corrections and additions of importance have been made in this edition.

_29th March, 1898._

WHAT IS ART?