The Kingdom of God Is Within You by Leo Tolstoy (good novels to read TXT) 📕

society does not rise in a body and revolt at the very mention of the word ‘war.’

“Oh, we shall always live under the burden of the ancient and odious customs, criminal prejudices, and savage ideas of our barbarous ancestors, because we are beasts, and shall remain beasts, who are dominated by instinct and do not change.

“Would not any other man than Victor Hugo have been disgraced, if he sent forth this cry of deliverance and truth?

“ ‘Today force is called violence and is about to be judged; war is summoned to court. Civilization, at the instigation of the human race, institutes proceedings and prepares the great criminal brief of the conquerors and captains. The nations are coming to understand that the increase of an offence cannot be its diminution; that if it is a crime to kill, killing much cannot be an extenuating circumstance; that if stealing is a disgrace, forcible seizing cannot be a glory. Oh, let us proclaim these absolute verities⁠—let us disgrace war!’

“Vain fury and indignation of a poet! War is honored more than ever.

“A versatile artist in these matters, a gifted butcher of men, Mr. von Moltke, one day spoke the following words to some delegates of peace:

“ ‘War is sacred and divinely instituted; it is one of the sacred laws of the world; it nurtures in men all the great and noble sentiments⁠—honor, disinterestedness, virtue, courage⁠—and, to be short, keeps men from falling into the most hideous materialism.’

“Thus, uniting into herds of four hundred thousand men, marching day and night without any rest, not thinking of anything, nor studying anything, nor learning anything, nor reading anything, not being useful to a single person, rotting from dirt, sleeping in the mire, living like the brutes in a constant stupor, pillaging cities, burning villages, ruining peoples, then meeting another conglomeration of human flesh, rushing against it, making lakes of blood and fields of battered flesh, mingled with muddy and bloodstained earth and mounds of corpses, being deprived of arms or legs, or having the skull crushed without profit to anyone, and dying in the corner of a field, while your old parents, your wife, and your children are starving⁠—that’s what is called not to fall into the most hideous materialism.

“The men of war are the scourges of the world. We struggle against Nature, against ignorance, against obstacles of every sort, in order to make our miserable life less hard. Men, benefactors, savants use their existence in order to work, to find what may help, may succor, may ease their brothers. They go with vim about their useful business, accumulate discovery upon discovery, increasing the human spirit, expanding science, giving every day a sum of new knowledge to the intelligence of man, giving every day well-being, ease, and force to their country.

“War arrives. In six months the generals destroy twenty years of effort, of patience, and of genius.

“This is what is called not to fall into the most hideous materialism.

“We have seen what war is. We have seen men turned into brutes, maddened, killing for the sake of pleasure, of terror, of bravado, of ostentation. Then, when law no longer exists, when law is dead, when every notion of right has disappeared, we have seen men shoot innocent people who are found on the road and who have roused suspicion only because they showed fear. We have seen dogs chained near the doors of their masters killed, just to try new revolvers on them; we have seen cows lying in the field shot to pieces, for the sake of pleasure, only to try a gun on them, to have something to laugh at.

“This is what is called not to fall into the most hideous materialism.

“To enter a country, to kill a man who is defending his home, simply because he wears a blouse and has no cap on his head, to burn the habitations of wretched people who have no bread, to smash the furniture, to steal some of it, to drink the wine which is found in the cellars, to rape the women who are found in the streets, to burn millions of dollars’ worth of powder, and to leave behind them misery and the cholera⁠—this is what is called not to fall into the most hideous materialism.

“What have the men of war done to give evidence of even a little intelligence? Nothing. What have they invented? Cannon and guns. That is all.

“What has Greece left to us? Books, marbles. Is she great because she has conquered, or because she has produced?

“Is it the invasion of the Persians that kept her from falling into the most hideous materialism?

“Is it the invasions of the barbarians that saved Rome and regenerated her?

“Was it Napoleon I who continued the great intellectual movement which was begun by the philosophers at the end of the last century?

“Oh, well, if the governments arrogate to themselves the right to kill the nations, there is nothing surprising in the fact that the nations now and then take upon themselves the right to do away with the governments.

“They defend themselves. They are right. Nobody has the absolute right to govern others. This can be done only for the good of the governed. Whoever rules is as much obliged to avoid war as a captain of a boat is obliged to avoid a shipwreck

“When a captain, has lost his boat, he is judged and condemned, if he is found guilty of negligence or even of incapacity.

“Why should not the governments be judged after the declaration of a war? If the nations understood this, if they themselves sat in judgment over the death-dealing powers, if they refused to allow themselves to be killed without reason, if they made use of their weapons against those who gave them to them for the purpose of massacring, war would be dead at once! But this day will not come!”

Sur l’Eau, pp. 71⁠–⁠80

The author sees all the horror of war; he sees that its cause is in this, that the governments, deceiving people,