No More Learning

MR. Z. Pardon me. We are coming to business
presently. Soyoumaintainthatatanyratekilling, that is taking somebody's life, is absolute evil, don't
you?
PRINCE. Undoubtedly.
MR. Z. But to be killed is this absolute evil or
not?
PRINCE. From the Hottentot standpoint, of course
it is. But we have been discussing moral evil, and this can exist only in the actions of an intelligent
being, controlled by itself, and not in what happens to that being independently of its will. It follows that to be killed is the same as to die from cholera or influenza. Not only is it not absolute evil it is not evil at all. Socrates and the stoics have already taught us this.
MR. Z. Well, I cannot answer for people so ancientasthose. Astoyourmoralappreciationof
simple
you !
The only thing you lose sight of is that
" kind Every
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murder, this seems to limp somewhat. According to you it follows that absolute evil consists in causing a person something which is not evil at all. Think what you like, but there is something lame here. However, we will leave this lameness alone lest we
really land in casuistry. To sum up, in killing, the evil is not in the physical fact of a life being taken,
but in the moral cause of this fact, namely, in the evil will of the one who kills. Do you agree ?
PRINCE. Itisso,ofcourse. Forwithoutthisevil will there is no murder, but only misfortune or in- advertence.
MR. Z. That is clear, when there is no will what-
ever to murder, as, for instance, in the case of an
unsuccessful operation. It is possible, however, to
imagine a position altogether different : when the
will, though not setting itself as an object the taking away of a human life, yet before the fact gives its
consent to a murder, regarding it as an extreme and unavoidablemeasure. Wouldsuchamurderalsobe an absolute evil in your opinion?
PRINCE. Decidedly so, when once the will has agreed to a murder.
MR. Z. You will admit, however, that there are cases in which the will, though agreeing to a murder, is at the same time not an evil will. The murder is consequently not an absolute evil in that case, even when looked at from this subjective side ?
PRINCE. Oh, dear me ! This is something quite
unintelligible.
However, I think I guess what you c2
? 20 SOLOVIEV
mean : you refer to that famous case in which a
father sees in a lonely place a blackguardly ruffian trying to assault his innocent (and, to enhance the
effect, it is added his "little") daughter. The father, unable to protect her in any other way, kills theoffender. Ihaveheardthisargumentatleasta thousand times.
MR. Z. What is really remarkable is not that you have heard it a thousand times, but the fact that nobody has ever had from any one of those holding your view a sensible, or even only plausible, answer to this simple argument.
PRINCE. And what is there in it to answer?
MR. Z. Well, if you don't like to argue against it, will you then prove by some direct and positive method that in all cases without exception, and con-
sequently in the case we are discussing, it is indisput- ably better to abstain from resisting evil by means
of force, than it is to use violence, though one risk
the possibility of killing a wicked and dangerous man.
PRINCE. It is funny to ask for a special proof for
a single case. Once you recognise that murdering generally is evil in the moral sense, it is clear that it will be evil in every single case as well.
LADY. This sounds weak, Prince, to be sure.
MR. Z. Very weak indeed, I should say. That it is generally better not to kill anybody than to kill is a truth which is not subject to argument and is accepted by everybody. It is just the single cases
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"
don't kill," unreservedly absolute and, therefore, admitting of no exception whatever, in no single case and in no circumstances; or is it such as to admit of even one exception, and, therefore, is not
absolute ?
PRINCE. I cannot agree to such a formal way of
approaching the problem. I don't see the use of
it. Suppose I admit that in your exceptional case, purposely invented for argument's sake . . .
Is the general and undisputable rule,
LADY (reprovingly). Prince ! this I hear? . . .
Prince !
What is
GENERAL(ironically}. Ho-ho-ho,Prince!
PRINCE (taking no notice}. Let us admit that in
your imaginary case to kill is better than not to kill
(in point of fact, of course, I refuse to admit it), but let us take it for the moment that you are right. We may even take it that your case is not imaginary,
but quite real, though, as you will agree, it is ex-
tremely rare, exceptional. . . .
dealing with war with something that is general, universal. YouwillnotsayyourselvesthatNapoleon, or Moltke, on Skobelev were in the position in any
way resembling that of a father compelled to defend his innocent little daughter from the assaults of a
question.
monster.
LADY. That's better !
MR. Z. A clever way, indeed, to avoid a difficult
Bravo, mon prince \
You will allow, me, however, to establish
But then we are
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the connection, logical as well as historical, that exists between these two facts the single murder and the war. For this let us take again your example, only we will strip it of the details which seem to increase, though actually they only diminish, itsimportance. Weneednottroubleourselvesabout a father, or a little daughter, for with them the
problem at once loses its pure ethical meaning, being transferred from the sphere of intellectual and moral
consciousness into that of natural moral feelings : parental love will obviously make the father kill the villain on the spot, without any further consideration as to whether he must, or has the right to do so in the light of the higher moral ideal. So let us take not a father, but a childless moralist, before whose eyes some feeble being, strange and unfamiliar to
him, is being fiercely assaulted by a cowardly villain. Would you suggest that the moralist should fold his
arms and preach the glory of virtue while the fiendish
beast is torturing his victim? Do you think the
moralist will not feel a moral impulse to stop that
beast by force, however great the possibility, or even
the probability, of killing him may appear? And should he instead permit the dastardly deed to take
place to the accompaniment of his high-sounding phrases, don't you think that he would find no rest
from his conscience, and would feel ashamed of himself to the verge of repulsion ?
PRINCE. Perhaps all that you are saying will be felt by a moralist who does not believe in the reality
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of the moral order, or who may have forgotten that God is not in might, but in right.
LADY. Verywellsaid,Prince. Now,Mr. Z. ,what will you answer to this ?
MR. Z. I will answer, that I wish it was even better said I mean more frankly, more simply, and more closely to the actual facts. You wanted to say, did you not, that a moralist who really believes in
the justice of God must, without forcibly interfering with the villain, raise his prayers to God that He
should prevent the evil deed being carried out : either by a moral miracle, by suddenly turning the villain to the path of truth; or by a physical miracle, by an instantaneous paralysis, say, or
LADY. No special need for a paralysis; the mis-
creant can be frightened by something, or in some other way prevented from carrying on his nefarious
work.
MR. Z. Oh, well, that makes no difference. The
miracle lies, you understand, not so much in the fact itself as in the connection of that fact be it a bodily
paralysis
or some mental excitement with the
prayeranditsmoralobject. Atanyrate,themethod
suggested by the Prince is nothing else but a prayer
for a miracle.
PRINCE. But. . . really. . . whyaprayer. . .
and a miracle?
MR. Z. What else is it then?
PRINCE. Well, if I believe that the world is
governed by a beneficent and intelligent living
? 24 SOLOVIEV
Power, I cannot but also believe that whatever takes place in the world is in accord with that Power, that is, with the will of God.
MR. Z. Pardonme. Howoldareyou?
PRINCE. Whatever do you mean by this question ? MR. Z. Nothing offensive, I can assure you. I
presume you are not less than thirty, are you ? PRINCE. Guess higher !
MR. Z. So you must have assuredly had some occasion to see, or if not to see then to hear, or if not to hear then at least to read in the papers, that malicious and immoral things do happen in this world.
PRINCE. Well?
MR. Z. How is it then? Does it not prove that
"the moral order/' or the will of God, obviously does not manifest itself in the world by its own
power ?
POLITICIAN. Now we are at last getting to busi-
ness. If evil exists, the gods, it follows, either cannot or will not suppress it, and in both cases the gods, as omnipotent and beneficent powers, do not exist at all. Tis old but true !
LADY. Oh, what awful things you are saying ! GENERAL. Talking does lead one to great dis-
coveries. Only begin philosophising, and your feeble brain reels.
PRINCE. A poor philosophy this ! good and evil.
As if the will of God were bound up with our ideas of what is
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MR. Z. With some of our ideas it is not, but with
the true notion of good it is bound up most firmly.
Otherwise, if God is generally indifferent to good
and evil, you then utterly refute your own argument. PRINCE. How is that, I should like to know?
MR. Z. Well, if you hold that God is not con-
cerned when a powerful blackguard, swayed by his brute passions, crushes a poor feeble creature, then
God is even more likely to have no objection if any one of us, actuated by human sympathy, crushes
the blackguard. You will surely not attempt to defend the absurdity that only killing a weak and
inoffensive being is not evil before the eyes of God, whereas killing a strong and wicked beast is evil.
PRINCE. It appears to you as an absurdity only because you look at it from the wrong point of view.
From the moral standpoint the real importance attaches not to one who is killed, but to one who
kills. Just now you yourself called the blackguard
a beast, that is, a being lacking in intelligence and conscience. If so, what evil can there be in his
actions ?
LADY. But don't you see that it is not a beast in
the literal sense of the word as used here? As if
I were to say to my daughter :
" What nonsense
you
are talking, my angel," and you were to get up and
:
begin shouting at me " How ridiculous a thing to
How can
all the arguments ! . . .
talk nonsense ?
"
say !
angels
Well, of PRINCE. I crave your forgiveness. I understand
? 26 SOLOV1EV
perfectly well that the villain is called a beast only in a metaphorical sense, and that this beast has neither tail nor hoofs.
But it is evident that the lack of intelligence and conscience is referred to here in its literal meaning; for it would be impos- sible for a man with intelligence and conscience to commit such acts.
MR. Z. Yet another play on words ! Naturally, a man acting as a beast loses his intelligence and conscience in the sense that he is no longer moved by them. But that intelligence and conscience do not speak within him at all you still have to prove. In the meanwhile, I continue to think that a bestial man differs from me and you not by the absence of
intelligence and conscience, but only by his willing- ness to act against them, and in accord with the im-
pulseofthebeastwithinhim. Withineveryoneof
us lurks the beast, but we usually keep him tightly chained; whilsttheothermanloosensthechain,only to be dragged along at the tail of the beast. He has the chain, but fails to make proper use of it.
GENERAL. Precisely. And if the Prince still dis- agrees with you he is hoist with his own petard ! "The villain," the Prince says, "is only a beast withoutintelligenceandconscience. " Thenkilling
him is the same as killing a wolf, or a tiger spring-
ing at a man. Why, this sort of thing is permitted even by the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals !
PRINCE. But you forget again that whatever the
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state of mind of that man may be, whether it be
completely devoid of intelligence and conscience, or whether it be consciously and wilfully immoral, if such is possible, it is not he who really matters, but you; your intelligence and conscience are not
destroyed and you do not want consciously to go against their demands well then, you would not
kill that man, whatever he might have been.
MR. Z. Naturally, I would not kill him, should
my intelligence and conscience absolutely forbid
my doing so. Imagine, however, that intelligence and conscience tell me something entirely different
something which seems to be more sensible and morally correct.
Let us hear it. MR. Z. We may assume first of all that intelli- gence and conscience know how to count, at least,
uptothree. . .
GENERAL. Go on, go on !
MR. Z. Therefore intelligence and conscience, if they do not wish to lie to me, will not keep on telling me "two" when the actual number is "three" . . .
GENERAL (impatiently). Well?
PRINCE. I can't see what he is driving at !
MR. Z. Well, don't you assert that intelligence and conscience speak to me only about myself and the villain? The whole matter, according to your argument, is that I should not lay a finger on him. But in point of fact there is present also a third
PRINCE. This sounds interesting !
? 28 SOLOVIEV
person whoisactuallythemostimportantofall the victim of the wicked assault, who requires my
help. You wilfully neglect her, but conscience speaks of her too, and of her even in preference to the others. And if the will of God is involved here at all, it is only in the sense that I should save the
victim, sparing the villain as much as possible. But help her I must at any cost and in any case by
persuasion, if it be possible ; if not by force. And should my hands be tied, then and only then can I
call to my aid that supreme resource which was sug-
gested by you too prematurely and then too lightly cast aside the supreme resource of Prayer, that is,
by an appeal to the Divine Intelligence, which, I am sure, can really perform miracles when they arenecessary. Whichofthesemeansofhelpshould be used depends entirely on the internal and external conditionsoftheincident. Theonlyabsolutething here is, that I must help those who are wronged. This is what my conscience says.
GENERAL. The enemy's centre is broken through ! Hurrah !
PRINCE. My conscience has progressed beyond
this elementary stage. My conscience tells me in
a case like this something more definite and concise :
""
and that is all. However, I can't see even now that we have moved any farther
in our argument. Suppose I agree with your proposi- tion that everybody, even a morally cultured and truly conscientious man, could permit himself to
Don't kill
!
it
says,
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commit a murder, acting under the influence of sym- pathy and having no time to consider the moral character of his action even admitting all this, I am still utterly unable to see what could follow from this admission that would enlighten us with regard
toourprincipalproblem. Letmeaskyouagain:
"
Did Tamerlane, or Alexander the Great, or Lord Kitchener kill and make others kill people in order to protect weak, defenceless beings from the vil-
"
lainous assaults that were threatening them ?
MR. Z. The juxtaposition of Tamerlane and Alexander the Great augurs ill for our historical accuracy, but as this is the second time that you have appealed to historical facts, allow me to quote from history an illustration which will really help us to
compare the question of the defence of a person with that of the defence of a State. The affair hap-
pened in the twelfth century, at Kiev. The feuda- tory princes, who as early as that seemed to hold your ideas on war and believed that one may quarrel
"
and fight only
the field against the Polovtziens, saying that they were reluctant to subject their people to the horrors of war. To this the great Prince Vladimir Mono-
: machansweredinthefollowingwords "Youpity
the serf, but you forget that when spring comes the serf will go out to the field. " . . .
LADY. Please don't use bad words !
MR. Z. But this is from a chronicle.
LADY. That makes no difference. I am sure you
chez soi," would not agree to take
? 30 SOLOVIEV
don't remember the chronicle by heart, so may just as well put it in your own words. It sounds so
absurd. Onehears" willcome"and Spring
expects "the flowers will blossom and the nightingales will
"l sing," but instead all of a sudden comes serf. "
MR. Z. As you please, madam. " The spring will come, the peasant will go out into the field withhishorsetotilltheland. ThePolovtzienwill come, will kill the peasant, will take away his horse. Then a formidable band of Polovtziens will make an inroad, will slaughter all the men, capture their wives and children, drive away their cattle, and burn out their homes. Can't you find it in your heart to pity the peasants for this ? I do pity them, and for that reason I call upon you to take up arms against the Polovtziens. " The princes, ashamed of themselves, listened to his words, and the country
enjoyed peace throughout the reign of Vladimir Monomach. Afterwards, however, they turned back
to their "peaceful professions," which urged them to evade war with foreign enemies in order that they
could carry on in comfort their miserable quarrels in their own homes. The end of it all for Russia was the Mongolian yoke, and for the descendants of these princes that rich feast of experience which
history provided them in the person of Ivan the Terrible.
PRINCE. Your argument is absolutely beyond me !
1 The Russian word "smerd" equivalent
(serf, slave, &c. ) suggests something stinking. (Translator. )
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At one moment you describe an incident which has
never happened to any one of us, and will certainly neveroccurinthefuture. Atanothermomentyou remind us of some Vladimir Monomach, who per- haps never existed, and who, at any rate, has absolutely nothing to do with us. . . .
LADY. Paries pour vous, monsieur!
MR. Z. Tell me, Prince, are you a descendant of Rurik?
PRINCE. People say so. But do you suggest that I should for this reason take special interest in
Rurik, Sineus, and Truvor? 1
LADY. I think when one does not know one's
ancestors one is little better than the little boys and girls who believe that they were found in the garden
under a cabbage-leaf.
PRINCE. And what are those poor devils to do
who have no ancestors?
MR. Z. Everybody has at least two great ances-
tors, who have bequeathed to posterity their circum- stantial and highly instructive records : the history of one's country and that of the world.
PRINCE. But these records cannot decide for us how we should live now, and what we should now do. Let it be granted that Vladimir Monomach actually existed, that he was not merely the creation of the imagination of the monk Laurentius, or the monk Hypathius. He may even have been an
1 The legendary founders of the Russian State. (Trans- lator. )
? 32 SOLOVIEV
exceptionally good man, and may have sincerely
"
serf. " In such case he was right in righting the Polovtziens, because in those barbaric times the moral consciousness had not yet risen
above the crude Byzantine notion of Christianity, and actually approved of man-killing when it was
for a good purpose, real or imaginary. But how can we do so, when we have once understood that
murder is an evil thing, opposed to the will of God and forbidden since the days of Moses by God's commandment ? Under no guise and under no name can killing ever become permissible for us. Still less can it cease to be evil when, instead of one man, thousands of people are slaug itered under the name of war. The whole thing is, in the first instance, a question of personal conscience.
GENERAL. Now that you reduce it all to personal conscience,allowmetotellyouthismuch. Iama man who is in the moral sense (as in the other, of course) of the average type : neither black nor white, but grey. I have never been guilty either of any
extraordinary virtue or of any extraordinary villainy. Even when one performs good acts there is always
groundforself-suspicion. Onecanneversaywith certainty and with candour what one's real motive is. There may be a real good or only a weakness of the soul, perhaps a habit of life, or sometimes evenapersonalvanity. Besides,thisisallsopetty. In all my life there was only one incident which I could not call "petty" to begin with, but, what is
pitied the
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more important, in which I am certain I was not guided by any doubtful motive but solely by the impulse of good that overcame me. Only once in my life did I experience a complete moral satisfac- tion and even some kind of ecstasy, so that my actions were entirely free from considerations or hesitations. And this good act of mine has been to me till now, and will, of course, remain so for ever, my very best and purest memory. Well, this single good act of mine was a murder, and not a little insignificant murder at that, for in some quarter of an hour I killed over a thousand men !
LADY. Quelles blagues! And I thought you were quite serious for once !
GENERAL. And so I am. I can produce witnesses if you like. It was not with my own sinful hands that I killed, but with six pure, chaste steel guns, which poured forth a most virtuous and beneficent rain of shells.
LADY. Where was the good in that, I should like to know?
GENERAL. Though I am not only a soldier, but
in modern parlance a "militarist/' it is needless to
say that I would not call the mere annihilation of a
thousand ordinary men a good act, were they Ger-
mans, or Hungarians, or Englishmen, or Turks. Here it was quite an exceptional case. Even now
I cannot speak calmly about it, so painfully it stirred my soul.
D
? 34 SOLOVIEV
LADY. Please do not keep us on tenterhooks. Tell us all about it.
GENERAL. I mentioned guns. You will then have guessed that the affair happened in the last Russo-Turkish war. I was with the Caucasian army. After October 3rd . . .
LADY. What about October 3rd?
GENERAL. That was the day of the great battle in the Aladja mountains, when for the first time we crushed all the ribs of the "invincible" Hasi- MoukhtarPasha. SoafterOctober3rdweatonce advanced into Asiatic country. I was on the left front at the head of the advance guard engaged in
scouting. I had under me the Nijny-Novgorod dragoons, three "hundreds" of Kuban Cossacks,
and a battery of horse artillery. The country was not particularly inspiring : in the mountains it was
fairly decent, sometimes even beautiful. But down
in the valleys nothing but deserted, burnt-out vil- lagesanddowntroddenfieldsweretobeseen. One morning October the 28th, it was we were de-
scending a valley, where according to the map there was a big Armenian village. As a matter of fact
there was no village to be seen, though there had really been one there not long before, and of a decent size, too : its smoke could be seen miles away. I had my detachment well together in close formation, for reports had been received that we
might run into a strong cavalry force. I was riding with the dragoons; the Cossacks were in advance.
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There was a sharp bend in the road as we neared the village. Suddenly the Cossacks reined in their horses and stood as if they were rooted to the spot. I galloped forward. Before I could see anything I guessed by the smell of roasting flesh that the bashi-bazouks had left their "kitchen" behind. A huge caravan of Armenian refugees had not been abletoescapeintime. Thecrowdhadbeencaught by the Turks, who had "made a good job of it" in theirowninimitablefashion. Theyhadboundthe poor Armenians, some by the head, some by the feet, some by the waist, to the high cart axles, had lit fires underneath, and had slowly grilled them. Dead women lay here and there some with breasts
cut off, others with abdomens ripped open. I need not go into further particulars. But one scene will remain for ever vivid in my memory. A poor woman lay there on the ground, her head and shoulders securely bound to the cart's axle, so that she could not move her head. She bore no burns, no wounds. But on her distorted face was stamped a ghastly terror she had evidently died of sheer horror. And before her dead, staring eyes
was a high pole, firmly fixed in the ground, and to it was tied the poor little naked body
of a baby her son, most likely a blackened, scorched little corpse, with eyes that pro- truded. Near by also was a grating in which lay the dead ashes of a fire. .