join it. By refusing to share in the exploitation of humanity. By renouncing wealth and ownership of the soil,[1] and by refusing to serve the State.
But this is not sufficient. One “must not lie,” nor be afraid of the truth. One “must repent,” and uproot the pride that is implanted by education. Finally, one must work with one’s hands. “Thou shalt win thy bread in the sweat of thy brow” is the first commandment and the most essential.[2] And Tolstoy, replying in advance to the ridicule of the elect, maintains that physical labour does not in any way decrease the energy of the intellect; but that, on the contrary, it increases it, and that it responds to the normal demand of nature. Health can only
- ↑ “The pivot of the evil is property. Property is merely the means of enjoying the labour of others.” Property, he says again, is that which is not ours: it represents other people. “Man calls his wife, his children, his slaves, his goods his property, but reality shows him his error; and he must renounce his property or suffer and cause others to suffer.”
Tolstoy was already urging the Russian revolution: “For three or four years now men have cursed us on the highway and called us sluggards and skulkers. The hatred and contempt of the downtrodden people are becoming more intense.” (What shall we do?)
- ↑ The peasant-revolutionist Bondarev would have had this law recognised as a universal obligation. Tolstoy was then subject to his influence, as also to that of another peasant, Sutayev.—“During the whole of my life two Russian thinkers have had a great moral influence over me, have enriched my mind, and have elucidated for me my own conception of the world. They were two peasants, Sutayev and Bondarev.”(What shall we do?)
In the same book Tolstoy gives us a portrait of Sutayev, and records a conversation with him.
