by Leo Tolstoy
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PARABLE THE FIRST
A WEED had spread over a beautiful meadow. And in order to get rid of it the tenants of the meadow mowed it, but the weed only increased in consequence. And now the kind, wise master came to visit the tenants of the meadow, and among the other good counsels which he gave them, he told them they ought not to mow the weed, since that only made it grow the more luxuriantly, but that they must pull it up by the roots.
But either because the tenants of the meadow did not, amongst the other prescriptions of the good master, take heed of his advice not to mow down the weed, but to pull it up, or because they did not understand him, or because, according to their calculations, it seemed foolish to obey, the result was that his advice not to mow the weed but to pull it up was not followed, just as if he had never proffered it, and the men went on mowing the weed and spreading it.
And although, during the succeeding years, there were men that reminded the tenants of the meadow of the advice of the kind, wise master, they did not heed them, and continued to do as before, so that mowing of the weed as soon as it began to appear became not only a custom but even a sacred tradition, and the meadow grew more and more infested. And the matter went so far that the meadow grew nothing but weeds, and men lamented this and invented all kinds of means to correct the evil ; but the only one they did not use was that which had long ago been prescribed by their kind, wise master.
And now, as time went on, it occurred to one man who saw the wretched condition into which the meadow had fallen, and who found among the master’s forgotten prescriptions the rule not to mow the weed, but to pull it up by the root it occurred to the man, I say, to remind the tenants of the meadow that they were acting foolishly, and that their folly had long ago been pointed out by the kind, wise master.
But what do you think instead of putting credence in the correctness of this man’s recollections, and in case they proved to be reliable ceasing to mow the weed, and in case he were mistaken proving to him the incorrectness of his recollections, or stigmatizing the good, wise master’s recommendations as impracticable and not obligatory upon them, the tenants of the meadow did nothing’ of the sort ; but they took exception to this man’s recollections and began to abuse him. Some called him a conceited fool who imagined that he was the only one to understand the master’s regulations ; others called him a malicious false interpreter and slanderer; still others, forgetting that he was not giving them his own opinions, but was only reminding them of the prescriptions of the wise master whom they all revered, called him a dangerous man because he wished to pull up the weed and deprive them of their meadow. “ He says we ought not to mow the meadow,” said they, purposely suppressing the fact that the man did not say that it was not necessary to destroy the weed, but said that they should pull it up by the roots instead of mowing it, “but if we do not destroy the weed, then it will spread and wholly ruin our meadow. And why was the meadow granted to us if we must train the weed in it ? “
And the general impression that this man was either a fool or a false interpreter, or had the purpose of injuring the people, became so deeply grounded that every one cast reproaches and ridicule upon him. And however earnestly he asseverated that he not only did not desire to spread the weed, but on the contrary considered that the destruction of the weed was one of the chief duties of the agriculturist, just as it was meant by the good, wise master whose words he merely repeated, still they would not listen to him because they had definitely made up their minds that he was either a conceited fool misinterpreting the good, wise master’s words, or a villain trying to induce men not to destroy the weeds but to protect and spread them more widely.
The same thing took place in my own case when I pointed out the injunction of the evangelical teaching about the non-resistance of evil by violence. This rule was laid down by Christ and after Him in all times by all His true disciples. But either because they did not notice this rule, or because they did not understand it, or because its fulfilment seemed to them too difficult, as time went the more completely this rule was forgotten, the farther the manner of men’s lives departed from this rule ; and finally it came to the pass to which it has now come that this rule has already begun to seem to people something new, strange, unheard-of, and even foolish. And I, also, have the same experience as the man had who reminded men of the good, wise master’s prescription to refrain from mowing the weed, but to pull it up by the roots.
As the tenants of the meadow purposely shut their eyes to the fact that the counsel was not to give up destroying the weed, but to destroy it by a different method, and said, “ We will not listen to this man, he is a fool ; he forbids us to mow down the weeds and tells us to pull them up “ so in reply to my reminder that according to Christ’s teaching in order to annihilate evil we must not employ violence against it, but must destroy it from the root with love, men said : “ We will not listen to him, he is a fool ; he advises not to oppose evil to evil so that evil may overwhelm us.”
I said that, according to Christ’s teaching, evil cannot be eradicated by evil ; that all resistance of evil by violence only intensifies the evil, that according to Christ’s teaching evil is eradicated by good. Bless them that curse you, pray for them that abuse you, do good to them that hate you, love your enemies, and you will have no enemies!
I said that, according to Christ’s teaching, the whole life of man is a battle with evil, a resistance of evil by reason and love, but that out of all the methods of resisting evil Christ excepted only the one unreasonable method of resisting evil with violence, which is equivalent to fighting evil with evil.
And I was misunderstood as saying that Christ taught that we must not resist evil. And all those whose lives were based on violence, and to whom in consequence violence was dear, were glad to take such a misconstruction of my words, and at the same time of Christ’s words, and it was avowed that the teaching of non-resistance of evil was incredible, stupid, godless, and dangerous. And men calmly continue under the guise of destroying evil to make it more widely spread.
PARABLE THE SECOND
MEN were trafficking in flour, butter, milk, and all kinds of food-stuffs. And as each one was desirous of receiving the greatest profit and becoming rich as soon as possible, all these men got more and more into the habit of adulterating their goods with cheap and injurious mixtures : with the flour they mixed bran and lime, they put oleomargarin into their butter, they put water and chalk into their milk. And until these goods reached the consumers all went well : the wholesale traders sold them to the retailers, and the retailers distributed them in small quantities.
There were many stores and shops, and the wares, it seemed, went off very rapidly. And the tradesmen were satisfied. But the city consumers, those that did not raise their own produce and were therefore obliged to buy it, found it very harmful and disagreeable. The flour was bad, the butter and milk were bad, but as there were no other wares except those adulterated to be had in the city markets, the city consumers continued to buy them, and they complained because the food tasted bad and was unwholesome ; they blamed themselves, and ascribed it to the wretched way in which the food was prepared. Meantime the tradespeople continued more and more flagrantly to adulterate their food-stuffs with cheap foreign ingredients. Thus passed a sufficiently long time. The city people were all suffering, and no one had the resolution to express his dissatisfaction.
And it happened that a housekeeper who had always given her family food and drink of her own make came to the city. This woman had spent her whole life in the preparation of food, and though she was not a famous cook, still she knew very well how to bake bread and to cook good dinners.
This woman bought various articles in the city and began to bake and cook. Her loaves did not rise, but fell. Her cakes, owing to the oleomargarin butter, seemed tasteless. She set her milk, but there was no cream. The housekeeper instantly came to the conclusion that her purchases were poor. She examined them, and her surmises were confirmed. She found lime in the flour, oleomargarin in the butter, chalk in the milk. Finding that all the materials she had bought were adulterated, the housekeeper went to the bazaars and began in a loud voice to accuse the tradesmen, and to demand that they should either stock their shops with good, nutritious, unadulterated articles, or else cease to trade, and shut up shop.
But the tradesmen paid no attention to the housekeeper, but told her that their goods were first class, that the whole city had been buying of them for so many years, and that they even had medals, and they showed her their medals on their signs. But the housekeeper did not give in.
“I don’t need any medals,” said she, “but wholesome food, so that I and my children may not have stomach troubles from it.”
“Apparently, my good woman, you have never seen genuine flour and butter,” said the tradesmen, showing her the white, pure-looking flour in varnished bins, the wretched imitation of butter lying in neat dishes, and the white fluid in glittering transparent jars.
“Of course I know them,” replied the housekeeper, “ because all my life long I have had to do with them, and I have cooked with them and have eaten them, I and my children. Your goods are adulterated. Here is the proof of it,” said she, displaying the spoilt bread, the oleomargarin in the cakes, and the sediment in the milk. “ You ought to throw all this stuff of yours into the river or burn it, and get unadulterated goods instead.”
And the woman, standing in front of the shops, kept incessantly crying her one message to the purchasers who came by, and the purchasers began to be troubled.
Then perceiving that this audacious housekeeper was likely to injure their wares, the tradesmen said to the purchasers :
“ Look here, gentlemen, what a lunatic this woman is ! She wants people to perish of starvation. She insists on our burning up and destroying all our provisions. What would you have to eat if we should heed her and refuse to sell you our goods ? Do not listen to her, she is a coarse countrywoman, and she is no judge of provisions, and it is nothing but envy which makes her attack us. She is poor, and wants every one else to be as poor as she is.”
Thus spoke the tradesmen to the gathering throng, purposely blinking the fact that the woman wanted, not that all provisions should be destroyed, but that good ones should be substituted for bad.
And thereupon the throng fell upon the woman and began to beat her. And though she assured them all that she had no wish to destroy the food-stuffs, that, on the contrary, she had all her life been occupied in feeding others and herself, but that she only wanted that those men that took upon themselves the feeding of the people should not poison them with deleterious adulterations pretending to be edible. Though she pleaded her cause eloquently, they refused to hear her because their minds were made up that she wanted to deprive people of the food which they needed.
The same thing has happened to me in regard to the art and science of our day.
All my life long I have been fed on this food, and to the best of my ability I have attempted to feed others on it. And as this for me is a food and not an object of traffic or luxury, I know beyond a question when food is food and when it is only a counterfeit. And now when I made trial of the food which in our time began to be offered for sale in the intellectual bazaar under the guise of art and science, and attempted to feed those dear to me with it, I discovered that a large part of this food was not genuine. And when I declared that the art and the science on sale in the intellectual bazaar are margarined or at least contain great mixtures of what is foreign to true art and true science, and that I know this because the produce I have bought in the intellectual bazaar has been proved to be, not merely disadvantageous to me and those near and dear to me, but positively deleterious, then I was hooted at and abused, and it was insinuated that I did this because I was untrained and could not properly treat of such lofty objects.
When I began to show that the dealers themselves in these intellectual wares were all the time charging one another of cheating, when I called to mind that in all times under the name of art and science much that was bad and harmful was offered to men, and that consequently in our time also the same danger was threatening, that this was no joke, that the poison for the soul was many times more dangerous than a poison for the body, and that therefore these spiritual products ought to be examined with the greatest attention when they are offered to us. in the form of food, and everything counterfeit and deleterious ought to be rejected, when I began to say this, no one, no one, not a single man in a single article or book made reply to these arguments, but from all the shops there was a chorus of cries against me as against the woman : “ He is a fool ! He wants to destroy art and science which we live by ! Beware of him and do not heed him ! Hear us, hear us ! We have the very latest foreign wares ! “
A Dialogue Among Clever People
by Leo Tolstoy
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ONCE some guests were gathered in a rich man’s home, and it happened that a serious conversation about life arose.
They talked about persons absent and persons pres- ent, and they could not hit upon a single one contented with his life.
Not only did each one find something to complain of in his fortune, but there was not one who would consider that he was living as a Christian ought to live. All confessed that they were living worldly lives, concerned only about themselves and their families, thinking little about their neighbors, and still less about God.
Thus talked the guests, and all agreed in blaming themselves for their godless, unchristian lives.
“ Then why do we live so ? “ cried one youth. “ Why do we do what we ourselves do not approve ? Have we not the power over our own lives ? We ourselves are conscious that our luxury, our effeminacy, our wealth, and especially our pride our separation from our breth- ren are our ruin. In order to be important and rich we must deprive ourselves of everything that gives man joy in living; we crowd ourselves into cities, we make our- selves effeminate, we ruin our constitutions ; and not- withstanding all our diversion, we die of ennui and of disgust because our lives are not what they ought to be.
“ Why live so ? Why destroy our lives so, and all the good which God has bestowed on us ? I mean to give up living as I have. I will give up the studies I have begun ;
A DIALOGUE
for, don’t you see, they would lead me to no other than that tormenting life which all of us are now complaining of. I will renounce my property, and I will go and live with the poor in the country. I will work with them ; I will learn to labor with my hands, and if my culture is necessary to the poor, I will share it with them, but not through institutions and books, but directly, living with them as if I were their brother. …. Yes, I have made up my mind,” he added, looking inquiringly at his father, who was also present.
“ Your desire is a worthy one,” said his father, -’but foolish and ill-considered. Everything seems to you quite easy because you don’t know life. How beautiful it seems to us ! But the truth is, the accomplishment of this beautiful ideal is very difficult and complicated. It is hard enough to go well on a beaten track, but still more to trace out new paths. They can be traced out only by men who have arrived at full maturity and have assimilated all that is in the power of man to absorb. It seems to you easy to break out new paths in life, because, as yet, you have had no experience of life. This is all the heedlessness and pride of youth. We old people are needed to curb your impulses and to guide you by our experience, while you young people must obey us so as to profit by our experience. Your active life is still before you ; now you are growing and developing. Get your education, and all the culture you can ; stand on your own legs, have your own firm convictions, and then begin your new life, if you feel you have the strength for it. But now you must obey those that are guiding you for your own good, and you must not strike out into new paths in life ! “
The youth made no reply, and the older persons pres- ent agreed with what his father said.
“ You are right,” said a middle-aged, married man, ad- dressing the youth’s father. “It is true that a youth having no experience of life may blunder in trying new paths of life, and his resolution may not be deeply set- tled ; but, you see, we are all agreed on this point, that our lives are contrary to our consciences, and do not
A DIALOGUE
make us happy. And so we can’t help regarding your desire to enter upon this new life as laudable.
“ The young man may adopt his ideal through reason, but I am not a young man, and I am going to speak to you about myself. As I listened to our talk this even- ing the same thought entered my mind. The life which I am leading, it is plain to me, cannot give me a serene conscience and happiness. Both experience and reason prove this. Then what am I waiting for ! You struggle from morning till night for your family, and the result is that both you and your family continue to live un- godly lives, and you are all the while worse and worse entangled in your sins. You work for your family, and it seems your family are not better off or happier because you work for them. And so I often think it would be better if I changed my whole life and did exactly what this young man proposed ceased to bother about wife and children, and only thought about my soul. Not without reason does it say in St. Paul : ‘ He that is married takes thought about his wife, but he that is unmarried about God.’ ‘
Before this married man had finished his remarks, all the women present, including his wife, fell upon him :
“ You ought to have thought about all this earlier,” said one of the elderly ladies. “ ‘ Once harnessed, you must work.’ According to your plan every man will be saying, ‘ I want to be saved,’ when it seems to him hard to maintain and feed a family. It is all deception and basebess. No ; a man ought to be able to live in a godly way even if he has a family. It is easy enough for him to save himself alone. And then the main thing to act so is to act contrary to the teaching of Christ. God has commanded us to love others, but in this way you would offend others as if it were for God. No ; a mar- ried man has his definite obligations, and he ought not to shirk them. It is another thing when your family has already been established. Then you may do as you please for yourself, but no one has any right to do vio- lence to his family.”
The married man did not agree with this. He said :
A DIALOGUE
“ I have no wish to give up my family. All I say is that it is not necessary to maintain one’s family and children in a worldly fashion, or to teach them to live for their own pleasures as we were just saying; but we ought to train them so that children in their early days may be accustomed to poverty, to labor, to help others ; and, above all, to lead a fraternal life with all men. And to do this it is necessary to renounce all wealth and distinc- tion.”
“ There is no sense in breaking in others while you yourself are not living a godly life,” retorted his wife, with some heat. “ Ever since your earliest youth you have lived for your own gratification. Why, then, should you wish to torment your children and family ? Let them grow up in peace, and then they will do as they themselves are inclined ; but don’t you coerce them.”
The married man held his peace, but an elderly man who was present took up the cudgels in his defense :
“ Let us admit,” said he, “it is impossible for a married man who has accustomed his family to a certain degree of luxury, suddenly to deprive them of it all. It is true that if you have begun to educate your children, you had better carry out your plans than break them off. All the more, because the children, when they are grown up, will themselves choose the path which they think best. I admit that it is difficult, if not impossible, for a family man to change his life without working injury. But to us old men God has given this as a command. I will say of myself, I am living now without any responsibili- ties. I am living, to tell the truth, merely for my belly. I eat, I drink, I take my ease, and it is disgusting and repulsive to my nature.
“ So then it is time for me to give up this life, to dis- tribute my property, and to live the rest of my days as God has commanded a Christian to live.”
The rest did not agree with the old man. His niece and goddaughter was present, all of whose children he had stood as sponsor for, always providing them with holiday gifts; and so was his son. All protested against his views.
“ No,” said his son, “you have worked hard in your day, you deserve to rest ; and you have no right to tor- ment yourself. You have lived sixty years in your own habits; it would be impossible for you to change them. You would only torment yourself for nothing.”
“Yes, yes,” exclaimed his niece, in confirmation of this, “ you would be in want, you would be out of sorts, you would grumble, and you would commit worse sin. But God is merciful and pardons all sinners much more such a good kind uncle as you are ! “
“Yes, and why should we?” asked another old man, a contemporary of the old uncle. “ You and I may not have two days longer to live. So what is the use of beginning ? “
“What a marvelous thing!” exclaimed one of the guests he had not spoken before “ What a marvel- ous thing ! All of us confess that it is good to live a godly life, and that we live ill and suffer in soul and body ; but as soon as it comes to the point, then it seems that it is impossible to break in the children, but they must be educated, not in the godlike way, but in the old- fashioned way. It is impossible for a young man to es- cape from his parents’ will, but he must live, not in the godlike way, but in the old way. A married man can- not restrain his wife and children, but must live the ungodlike life, in the old way. The old men cannot begin, they are not accustomed to it ; and besides this, they may not live two days longer. So the upshot is that it is impossible for any one to live well, but only to talk about it.”
PARABLE THE THIRD
TRAVELERS were making a journey. And they happened to lose their way, so that they found themselves proceeding, not on a smooth road, but across a bog, among clumps of bushes, briers, and fallen trees, which blocked their progress, and even to move grew more and more difficult.
Then the travelers divided into two parties ; one decided not to stop, but to keep going in the direction that they had been going, assuring themselves and the others that they had not wandered from the right road, and were sure to reach their journey’s end.
The other party decided that, as the direction in which they were now going was evidently not the right one otherwise they would long ago have reached the journey’s end it was necessary to find the road, and in order to find it, it was requisite that without delay they should move as rapidly as possible in all directions. All the travelers were divided between these two opinions : some decided to keep going straight ahead, the others decided to make trials in all directions ; but there was one man who, without sharing either opinion, declared that before continuing in the direction in which they had been going, or beginning to move rapidly in all directions, hoping that by this means they might find the right way, it was necessary first of all to pause and deliberate on their situation, and then after due deliberation to decide on one thing or the other.
But the travelers were so excited by the disturbance, were so alarmed at their situation, they were so desirous of flattering themselves with the hope that they had not lost their way, but had only temporarily wandered from the road, and would soon find it again, and, above all, they had such a desire to forget their terror by moving about, that this opinion was met with universal indignation, with reproaches, and with the ridicule of those of both parties.
“ It is the advice of weakness, cowardice, sloth,” they said.
“ It is a fine way to reach the end of our journey, sitting down and not moving from the place ! “ cried others.
“ For this are we men, and for this is strength given us, to struggle and labor, conquering obstacles, and not pusillanimously giving in to them,” exclaimed still others.
And in spite of what was said by the man that differed from the rest, “ how if we proceeded in a wrong direction without changing it, we should never attain our goal, but go farther from it, and how we should never attain it either if we kept flying from one direction to another, and how the only means of attaining our goal was by taking observation from the sun or the stars and thus finding what direction we must take to reach it, and having chosen it to stick to it and how to do this it was necessary first of all to halt, and to halt not for the purpose of stopping, but to find the right way and then unfalteringly to go in it, and how for either case it was necessary to stop and consider” in spite of all this argument, they refused to heed him.
And the first division of the travelers went off in the direction in which they had been going, and the second division kept changing their course ; but neither division succeeded in attaining their journey’s end, but up to the present time, moreover, they have not yet escaped from the bushes and the briers, but are still lost.
Exactly the same thing happened to me when I attempted to express my doubts as to whether the road which we have taken through the dark forest of the labor question and through the all-swallowing bog of the endless armament of the nations is exactly the right route by which we ought to go, that it is very possible that we have lost our way, and that, therefore, it might be well for us for a time to stop moving in that direction which is evidently wrong, and first of all to consider, by means of the universal and eternal laws of truth revealed to us, what the direction is by which we intend to go.
No one replied to this, not a person said, “ We are not mistaken in our direction and we are not gone astray ; we are sure of this for this reason and for that.”
Not a person said, “ Possibly we are mistaken, but we have an infallible means of correcting our error without ceasing to move.”
No one said either the one thing or the other. But all were indignant, took offense, and hastened to quench my solitary voice with a simultaneous outburst.
“ We are so indolent and backward ! And this is the advice of indolence, sluggishness, inefficiency ! “
Some even went so far as to add :
“ It ‘s all nonsense ! Don’t listen to him. Follow us.”
And they shouted like those that reckon that salvation is to be found in unchangedly traveling a once selected road, whatever it may have been ; like those also that expect to find salvation in flying about in all directions.
“Why wait? Why consider? Push forward! Everything will come out of itself ! “
Men have lost their way and are suffering in consequence. It would seem that the first main application of energy which should be put forth ought to be directed, not to the confirmation of the movement that has seduced us into the false position where we are, but to the cessation of it. It would seem clear that as soon as we stopped we might, in a measure, comprehend our situation, and discover the direction in which we ought to go in order to attain true happiness, not for one man, not for one class of men, but that general good of humanity toward which all men are striving and every human heart by itself. But how is it ? Men invent everything possible, but do not hit upon the one thing that might prove their salvation, or if it did not do that, might at least ameliorate their condition ; I mean, that they should pause for a moment and not go on increasing their misfortunes by their fallacious activity. Men are conscious of the wretchedness of their condition, and are doing all they can to avoid it, but the one thing that would assuredly ameliorate it they are unwilling to do, and the advice given them to do it, more than anything else, rouses their indignation.
If there were any possibility of doubting the fact that we have gone astray, then this treatment of the advice to “ think it over “ proves more distinctly than anything else how hopelessly astray we have gone and how great is our despair.
↑ “The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles.”