RECIPROCITY
OR
THE GOLDEN RULE
THE ONLY MEANS
º
LEO TOLSTOY
August ſoon
roºrººoºr and a c. Frºnºid
PUBLISHED
BY
VIOLA IMIZELL, KIMMIEL
Kimmel sanitarium and Health School
CREIGHT ON NIEBRASKA
A U-UST 1021












The Only Means
“All things, therefore, whatso-
ever ye would that men should do
unto you, even so do ye also unto
them: for this is the law and the
prophets.”–Matt. vii. 12.
I.
There are more than a milliard
or a thousand millions of working
men in the world. All the bread,
all the goods of the whole world, all
where with people live and are rich,
all this is produced by the working
man. But it is not he who profits
by the things he produces, but the
Government and the rich,-where-
as the working population lives in
continual need, ignorance, and in
the contempt of those very people
whom they clothe, feed, house, and
Serve.
The land is taken from the lab-
ourer and regarded as the property
of those who do not work it, so that
in order to be fed by the land the
man who works it must do every-
thing the owners demand. If the
labourer leaves the land, enters ser-


vice, or mills or factories, he falls
into bondage to other wealthy peo-
ple, for whom during the whole of
his life he has to work ten, twelve,
fourteen or more hours a day, at
alien, monotonous, tedious work, of
ten pernicious to health and life. If
he is able to settle on the land or to
procure work so as to feed himself
without want, then he is not left
alone, but taxes are demanded of
him, and in addition he himself is
taken for three, four, five years in-
to military service, or is forced to
pay taxes for military purposes. If
he desires to use the land without
payment, or to arrange strikes, or
to hinder other workmen from oc-
cupying his place, or if he refuses
to pay his taxes, then troops are
sent against him, he is wounded,
killed, compelled by force to work
and pay just as before.
SO THAT THE WORKING
MEN ALL OVER THE WORLD
LIVE NOT LIKE MEN BUT LIKE
BEASTS OF BURDEN, WHO
ARE COMPELLED ALL THEIR
LIFE TO DO NOT WHAT IS
NECESSARY TO THEM, BIT
TO THEIR OPPRESSORS, RE-
CEIVING IN "TURN ONLY



JUST SO MUCH TOOD, CLOTH-
ING AND REST AS ENABLES
THEM TO GO. ON WORKING
UNCEASINGLY. Whereas that
small group of people who dominate
the labourers, profiting by all they
produce, live in idleness and insane
luxury, uselessly and immorally
squandering the labour of millions.
And thus the majority of the pop-
ulation of the whole world lives,
not in Russia only, but also in
France, and in Germany, and in
England, and in China, and in In-
dia, and in Africa: everywhere.
Whose fault is this? And how shall
this be put right? Some say that it
is the fault of those who possess
the land without working it, and
that it is necessary to give the land
to the workers; others say that it is
the fault of the rich who own the
instruments of labour, that is, fac-
tories and mills, and that it is neces-
sary that the factories and mills
shall become the property of the
workmen. Others again say that
the whole organisation of life is to
blame, and that it is necessary to
change this organisation altogeth-
el".
Is this true?

II.
About five years ago, during the
coronation of Nicholas II. at Mos-
cow, the people were offered a free
supply of beer, brandy, and buns.
When the crowd proceeded to the
place where these things were be-
ing distributed, a crush ensued.
Those in front were knocked off
their feet by those behind, and these
were crushed by those yet further
back; and no one seeing what was
happening in front, they all kept
pushing and pressing each other on.
The weak were overthrown by the
strong, and then the strong ones
themselves, suffocated by the crush
and want of air, also fell to the
ground and were trampled by those
who were pushed from behind and
could not halt. And thus several
thousand people, old and young,
men and women, were crushed to
death.
When it was all over, people be-
gan to argue as to who was to
blame for it. Some said it was the
police; others the organisers; oth-
ers that the fault was the Czar's
who had initiated the silly device
of such an entertainment. People
accused everyon: except them-

selves. And yet it would appear
clear that only those were to blame
who, in order to obtain a handful
of cake and a pot of beer before
their neighbours, rushed forward
without paying attention to the
others, and hustled and trampled
them.
Is not the same thing taking
place with the working people?
They are exhausted, crushed, en-
slaved, only because for some mis-
erable advantage they themselves
ruin their own lives, and those of
their brothers.
The labourers complain of the
landlords, of the Governments, of
the factory owners, of the military.
But the landlords exploit land, the
Governments collect taxes, factory
owners dispose of the workmen,
and the troops suppress strikes,
only because the labourers them-
selves not only help the landlords,
the government, the factory own-
ers, the troops, but they themselves
do all those things of which they
complain. Why, if a landlord can
profit by thousands of acres of land
without cultivating it himself, it is
only because the workmen, for their
own profit, go to York for him, and

serve him as watchmen, keepers,
foremen. So also the Government
collects taxes from the workmen
only because they themselves, at-
tracted by the wages collected from
themselves, become village and dis-
trict elders, tax collectors, police-
men, excise and custom officials;
that is, help the Government to do
those things of which they com-
plain. The workmen also complain
that the factory owners reduce
their pay and compel them to work
more and more hours; but this also
is done only because the workmen
themselves lower the wages by
competition, and also hire them-
selves to the factory owners as
warehousemen, overseers, watch-
men and foremen; and search, fine,
and in every way oppress their
comrades in the interests of their
masters.
Lastly, the workmen complain that
troops are sent against them if they
wish to appropriate the land which
they regard as their own, or if they
refrain from paying taxes, or or-
ganise strikes; but the troops are
Russian official functions performed by
peasants elected for the purpose by the peas-
ants themselves.-Trans.

composed of soldiers, and soldiers
are those same workmen, who for
personal advantage or from fear of
punishment have entered the mili-
tary service, and, contrary both to
their conscience and to the law of
God they acknowledge, have taken
an oath that they will kill all whom
the authorities order them to kill.
So that all the calamities of the
workmen are produced by them-
selves.
They need only cease to help the
rich and the Governments, and all
their sufferings would cease of
themselves.
Why then do they continue doing
that which ruins them?
III.
Two thousand years ago a law of
God became known to men, the law
of reciprocity, that one should act
unto others as one wishes others to
act to oneself, or, as it is expressed
by the Chinese teacher Confucius,
“Do not do unto others that which
you do not wish others to do unto
you.”
This law is simple, comprehensi-
ble to every one, and obviously
gives the greatest welfare possible
to man. And therefore it would
9.

seem that as soon as men had learn-
ed this law they ought immediately,
as far as possible, to fulfil it them-
selves, and to use all their powers
to teach this law and its fulfilment
to the rising generations.
It would seem that long ago all
men ought to have acted thus, as
this law was expressed almost sum-
ultaneously by Confucius and Bud-
dha and the Jewish teacher Hillel
and by Jesus.
Especially it would seem that the
men of our Christian world ought
to act thus, recognizing as they do,
as the chief divine revelation, that
Gospel in which it is explicitly
taught that in this law “is all the
law and the prophets”: that is, all
the teaching necessary to man.
And yet almost two thousand
years have elapsed and men not
only refrain from fulfilling this law
and from teaching it to their child-
ren, but in most cases they do not
themselves even know it, or if they
do they regard it either as unneces-
sary or as impractical.
At first this seems strange, but
when one thinks of how people liv-
ed before the discovery of this law,
and how long º lived so, and of

how the law disagrees with the life
of humanity as it has developed,
then one begins to understand why
it happened that the law was not
fulfilled.
It happened because while men
did not know the law that for the
welfare of all each should do unto
others that which he would have
others do unto him (the law of reci-
procity), every man endeavoured,
for his own profit, to appropriate
as much power as possible over oth-
el" 111011.
And having appropriated such
power, he had in his turn, in order
to profit by it unhindered, to sub-
ordinate himself to those who were
stronger than he, and to help them.
These stronger ones in turn had to
submit to those who were stronger
than they, and to help them.
So that in societies which did not
know the law of reciprocity, of act-
ing with others as one wishes oth-
ers to act with oneself, always a
small number of men dominated all
the rest.
And therefore it is comprehensi-
ble that when this law was reveal-
ed to men, the small number of those
who dominated 1. the rest not ony

were averse to accepting it for
themselves, but also could not de-
sire that those dominated by them
should learn and accept it.
The small number of dominating
people knew and know very well
that their power was and is founded
only on the fact that those they
dominate are continually fighting
among themselves, endeavouring to
subjugate each other. And there-
fore they have used and are always
using all the means in their power
to conceal this law from their sub-
ordinates.
They conceal the law, not by
denying it, which is impossible as it
is clear and simple—but by putting
forward hundreds, thousands of
other laws which they assert are
more important and obligatory than
the law of reciprocity.
Some of these men, priests, teach
hundreds of ecclesiastical dogmas,
rites, offerings, liturgies, which
have nothing in common with the
law of reciprocity, and announce
them as the most important laws of
God, the neglect of which involves
eternal ruin.
Others, the rulers, having appro-
priated the *ing invented by

the priests, institute, on the strength
of this, State regulations which are
directly contrary to the law of reci-
procity, and under threat of punish-
ment demand from all their fulfill-
ment.
Others again, learned and rich
men, acknowledging neither God
nor any obligatory divine law,
teach that there is only science and
its laws, which they, the learned,
discover, and the rich know, and
that in order that it should be well
for all, it is necessary that people
should cultivate the same idle life
led by the learned and the rich,
through the medium of schools, lec-
tures, theatres, concerts, picture
galleries, meetings, and then, they
affirm, all the evil from which the
workmen suffer will destroy itself.
None of these classes repudiate
the law itself, but they put forward
side by side with it such a number
of all kinds of theological, state
and scientific laws, that amidst
them all that simple, clear, and un-
iversally accessible law of God, the
fulfilment of which undoubtedly
delivers the majority of men from
their sufferings, not only becomes
imperceptible bººmpletely disap-
1.

pears.
It is from this cause the wonder-
ful fact has arisen and still arises,
that working men, crushed by the
Government and the wealthy, con-
tinue, generation after generation,
to ruin their lives and the lives of
their brothers; to resort for the al-
leviation of their position to the
most complicated, cunning, or diffi-
cult means, such as prayers, offer-
ings, meek fulfilment of State de-
mands, meetings, associations, trade
unions, strikes, revolutions; but do
not resort to the only means: the
fulfilment of the law of God, which
most certainly would liberate them
from their *
I
“But is it possible that in so sim-
ple and short an utterance, that peo-
ple should act with others as they
desire others to act with them, the
whole law of God and the entire
guidance of man’s life consists?”
those will say who are accustomed
to the complication and intricacy of
theological, state, and scientific ar-
guments.
Such people imagine that the law
of God and the guidance of man’s
life must be ºssed in diffuse,

complicated theories, and therefore
cannot be expressed in so short and
simple a statement.
It is true that this law of reciproc-
ity is very short and simple, but it
is precisely this shortness and sim-
plicity which demonstrates that it
is a true, indubitable, eternal and
righteous law; a law of God elabo-
rated by thousands of years of the
life of all humanity, and not the pro-
duction of one man or of one group
of men calling themselves the
Church, the State, or Science. Theo-
logical discussions about the fall of
a first man, his redemption, and
the second advent; or State and
scientific discussions about parlia-
ments, supreme authority, the theo-
fy of punishments, property, val-
ue, classification of science, natur-
al selection, and so forth, may be
very witty and profund, but are
always accessible only to a small
number of men. WHEREAS THE
LAW OF ACTING WITH OTH-
ERS AS ONE WISHES THEY
WOULD ACT WITH ONE'S SELF
IS ACCESSIBLE TO ALL MEN,
WITHOUT DISTINCTION OF
RACE, RELIGION, EDUCATION,
OR EVEN AGº.

Besides this, theological, State
or scientific arguments, which are
accepted as true at one place and
at one time, are regarded as untrue
at another time; whereas this law
of reciprocity, wherever known, is
universally regarded as true; and
cannot cease to be true for those
who have once comprehended it.
BUT THE CHIEF DISTINCT-
ION BETWEEN THIS LAW AND
ALL OTHERS, AND ITS PRINCI-
PAL ADVANTAGE, IS THAT
ALL THEOLOGICAL, STATE,
SCIENTIFIC LAWS, NOT ONLY
FAIL TO PACIFY MEN AND TO
GIVE THEM WELFARE, BUT
OF TEN IT IS PRECISELY
THESE LAWS WHICH PRO-
DUCE THE GREATEST ENMI-
TY AND SUFFERING.
The law of doing unto others as
thou wishest others to do to thee,
or of not doing to others as thou
dost not wish to be treated, if only
it were recognized by thee, could
not produce anything but concord
and welfare. And therefore the
consequences of this law are infi-
nitely beneficial and diverse, de-
termining all possible mutual rela-
tions of men, * everywhere sub-

stituting concord and service for
discord and strife. WERE MEN
ONLY TO LIBERATE THEM-
SELVES FROM THE FRAUDS
WHICH CONCEAL THIS LAW
FROM THEM, TO RECOGNISE
ITS IMPERATIVENESS, AND
TO CULTIVATE IT'S ADAPTA-
TION TO LIFE, A SCIENCE,
NON EXISTENT AT PRESENT,
WOULD APPEAR, COMMON TO
ALL, MEN AND THE MOST IM-
PORTANT IN THE WORLD, A
SCIENCE TEACHING. HOW, ON
THE BASIS OF THIS LAW, ALL
COLLISIONS COULD BEAVOID-
ED, BOTH BETWEEN SEPAR-
ATE INDIVIDUALS AND BE-
TWEEN INDIVIDUALS AND SO-
CIETY. AND IF THIS AS YET
N O N - E XI S T E N T SCIENCE
WERE ESTABLISHED AND
CULTIVATED, AND TAUGHT
TO ALL ADULTS AND CHILD-
REN AS PERNICIOUS SUPER-
STITIONS AND OF TEN USE-
LESS OR HARM FUL SCIENCES
ARE NOW TAUGHT, THEN THE
WHOLE LIFE OF MAN WOULI)
CHANGE, AND WITH IT THOSE
OPPRESSIVE CONDITIONS IN
WHICH THE |NORMOUS MA-

JORITY OF MANKIND NOW
LIVE.
V
The Biblical tradition affirms
that long before this law of reci-
procity was revealed God gave
man “His law.”
In this law was included the
Commandment “Thou shalt not
kill.” THIS COMMANDMENT,
FOR ITS TIME, WAS ASIMPOR-
TANT AND FRUITFUL AS THE
LATER LAW OF RECIPROCITY,
BUT THE SAME THING HAP-
PENED WITH THE FORMER
AS WITH THE LATTER. It was
not directly repudiated by men, but
like the later law it became lost
amidst other rules and regulations,
which were recognised as equally
or even more important than the
law of the inviolability of human
life. If this injunction had existed
alone, and if Moses (according to
tradition) had brought down on
his tablets as the soie Command-
ment of God merely these words
“Thou shalt not kill,” men would
have had to recognise the unalter-
able imperativeness of this law,
admitting of no substitute. And
were men to ºise this com.

mand as the sole law of God, and
to observe it strictly as some ob-
serve the keeping of the Sabbath,
worshipping icons, the sacrament,
abstinence from pork, and so forth,
then the whole life of mankind
would change, and neither wars
nor slavery would any longer be
possible, nor the expropriation of
the land by the wealthy from the
poor, nor the possession by the
few of the product of the labour of
the many;-because all this is
founded only on the possibility or
the threat of killing.
So would it be if the command
“Thou shalt not kill,” were recog-
mised as the only law of God. But
when the commandments about the
Sabbath day, about not taking
God’s name, and others, were ac-
cepted as equally important and on
a par with this law, then naturally
yet more new priestly ordinances
arose, also recognized as equally
binding, and God's greatest com-
mandment, “Thou shalt not kill,”
which altered man's whole life,
was drowned among them, and
not only ceased to be always obli-
gatory, cases were even found
when one could act in complete con-
19
tradiction to it; so that to this day
this law has not received its proper
significance.
The same thing happened also
with the law of reciprocity.
So that the chief evil from which
men suffer ceased long ago to con-
sist in their ignorance of the true
law of God, but in people to whom
the knowledge and observance of
the true law is disadvantageous,
but who are unable to destroy or
refute it, inventing “precept upon
precept” and “line upon line,” as
Isaiah says, and giving them out as
equally binding or yet more obli-
gatory than the true laws of God.
AND THEREFORE ALL THAT
IS NOW NECESSARY FOR THE
DELIVERANCE OF MEN FROM
THEIR SUFFERINGS IS THAT
THEY SHOULD EMANCIPATE
THEMSELVES FROM ALL THE-
OLOGICAL, STATE AND SCIEN-
TIFIC SUPERSTITUTIONS,
PROPOUNDED AS OBLIGATO-
RY LAWS OF LIFE, AND HAV-
ING THUS LIBERATED THEM-
SELVES, SHOULD NATURALLY
RECOGNISE AS MORE BINDING
FOR THEMSELVES THAN ALL
OTHER REGATIONS AND


LAWS THAT TRUE, ETERNAL
LAW OF GOD ALREADY
KNOWN, WHICH GIVES NOT
TO SOME ONLY BUT TO ALL
MEN EVERY WHERE THE
GREATEST POSSIBLE WEL-
FARE IN SOCIAL LIFE.
VI.
“But,” some will say, “however
just this law of ‘not doing to others’
may be, it cannot be adapted by it-
self to every circumstance of life.
IF MEN WERE TO RECOGNISE
THIS LAW AS ALWAYS OBLI-
GATORY, WITHOUT EXCEPT.
TION, THEY WOULD HAVE TO
ACKNOWLEDGE THE USE OF
ANY KIND OF VIOLENCE BE-
TWEEN MEN AS UNLAWFUL,
FOR NO MAN DESIRES TO UN-
DERGO VIOLENCE HIMSELF.
And without the exercise of vio-
lence on some people the safety of
the individual cannot be assured,
property cannot be protected, one’s
country cannot be defended, the
existing order cannot be maintain-
ed.”
GOD SAYS TO MEN: “IN OR-
DER THAT IT SHOULD BE
WELL FOR ALL OF YOU,
EVERYWHERE AND ALWAYS,










OBSERVE MY LAW OF NOT
DOING TO OTHERS WHAT
YOU DO NOT WISH THEM TO
DO TO YOU...”
But men, who have organised a
certain system, in the year 1901, in
England, Germany, France, Russia,
say:- Perhaps things may become
worse if we fulfil this law of God
given us for our welfare.”
WE ACCEPT A LAW INVENT.
ED BY A GROUP OF MEN, HOW-
EVER STRANGE IT MAY BE
AND HOWEVER BAD MAY BE
THE MEN WHO INVENTED IT,
AND WE ARE NOT AFRAID OF
FULFILLING IT. BUT A LAW IN
ACCORDANCE NOT ONLY WITH
REASON AND CONSCIENCE
BUT EXPLICITLY EXPRESSED
IN A BOOK WHICH WE RE-
GARD AS THE REVELATION
OF GOD, WE ARE AFRAID OF
FULFILLING, FOR FEAR, EVIL
MAY COME OF IT OR DISORDER.
ENSUE.
IS IT NOT EVIDENT THAT
PEOPLE WHO SPEAK AND
THINKS THUS, SPEAR NOT OF
ORDER BUT OF DISORDER, IN
WHICH THEY LIVE AND FIND
PROFITABLE TO THEM2









22

ORDER, ACCORDING TO
THEIR IDEA, IS A POSITION
WHICH ENABLES THEM TO
DEVOUR THE LIVES OF OTH-
ER MEN, WHILE DISORDER
OCCURS WHEN THOSE DE-
VOURED DESIRE THAT THEIR
DESTROYERS SHALL CEASE
TO DEVOUR THEM.
Such arguments only demon-
strate that the dominating minori-
ty feel, in most cases unconscious-
ly, that the recognition of the law
of reciprocity not only destroys
their advantageous social position
but reveals all their immorality
and cruelty.
These men cannot argue other-
wise. -
But for the workmen turned off
the land, crushed by taxes, forced
into the penal labour of factories,
transformed into slaves, into sol-
diers who torment themselves and
their brothers, for them it is time
they understood that only faith in
the law of God and its observance
will deliver them from their suffer.
ings. -
The non-observance of this law,
and consequently their continually
increasing * propel them
2

towards this. IT IS TIME THE
LABOURERS SHOULD FEEL
THAT THEIR SALVATION IS IN
THIS ALONE: THAT THEY
NEED ONLY BEGIN TO OB-
SERVE THIS LAW OF RECI-
PROCITY FOR THEIR POSITION
TO IMPROVE IMMEDIATELY__
TO IMPROVE JUST IN THE DE-
GREE IN WEHICH THE NUMBER
OF MEN INCREASE WHO ACT
WITH OTHERS AS THEY DE-
SIRE OTHERS TO ACT WITH
THEM.
And these are not mere words,
not an abstraction like the Church,
State, Socialistic, Scientific theo-
ries, but an effective means of de-
liverance.
Theological, State and Scientific
theories and promises offer welfare
to the workmen, some in the next
world, some in this, but always in
a distant future, when the bones of
those who live and suffer now are
rotten;–whereas the law of reci-
procity improves the position of
the workers at the present moment
and without doubt.
If even all workers did not clear-
ly see that by working on the
lands and in thºſºetories of capi-
2

talists they afford them the possi-
bility of profiting by the product
of the labour of their own brothers,
and that therefore by thus working
they break the law of reciprocity;
—or if, seeing this, they, owing to
their wants, had not the power of
refusing such work, still the absti-
mence from such work even of only
a few would, by rendering the posi-
tion of the capitalists more diffi-
cult, immediately ameliorate the
position of the rest. And the absti-
nence from direct participation in
the activities of capital and govern-
ment in the capacities of overseers,
clerks, tax collectors, custom offi-
cials, &c., (obviously contrary to
the law of reciprocity), would
still more ameliorate the position
of the workmen, even if not all were
capable of refraining from such ac-
tivities. And further still, the re-
fusal of the workmen to participate
in the army, (which has murder
for its object, the act most contrary
to the law of reciprocity, )—which
latterly is oftener and oftener di-
rected against the workmen—would
altogether alter for the better the
position of the Wºº.
2.

VII.
The Law of God is the Law of
God not because, as the priests al-
ways affirm about their laws, it
has been communicated in a mirac.
ulous way by God himself, but be-
cause it unmistakably and obvious-
ly directs men to that way advanc-
ing along which they unquestion-
ably are delivered from their suf-
ferings, and unquestionably obtain
the greatest inner (spiritual) and
external (physical) welfare, and
that not some particular chosen
men, but all men without exception.
Such is the law of God about act-
ing towards others as one wishes
that others should act towards one-
self. It shows that men fulfilling it
unquestionably obtain inner spiri-
tual welfare, in the consciousness of
their harmony with the will of God,
and of the increase of love in them-
selves and in others; and that at
the same time they obtain in social
life the greatest possible welfare
accessible to them. Whereas diver-
gence from this law entails aggra-
vation of their position:
And, as a matter of fact, to any-
one who does not participate in the
mutual struggle "tween men but
-
-

observes life from without, it is evi-
dent that the struggling parties act
exactly in the same way as gam-
blers, who surrender a certain
though meagre property for the
very doubtful possibility of in-
creasing it.
Whether a workman who has low-
ered the price of his comrades’ lab-
our or has accepted the service of
the wealthy or has entered the army
will better his position, is as doubt-
ful as the success of the gambler.
There may be a thousand events
owing to which his position will re-
main the same or become even
worse than before. THIS FACT,
HOWEVER, IS CERTAIN, THAT
HIS CONSENT TO WORK
CHEAPER OR TO SERVE THE
CAPITALISTS AND THE GOV-
ERNMENT WILL AGGRAVATE,
TO SOME EXTENT AT ALL
EVENTS, THE POSITION OF
ALL THE WORKERS, AND
HIS OWN TOGETHER WITH
THEIRS; AS CERTAIN AS THE
FACT THAT THE GAMBLER
LOSES CONTROL OVER THE
SUM HE STAKES.
To him who does not participate
in the struggle º observes life, it

is evident that as in games of haz-
ard, lotteries, Stock Exchange op-
erations, only the owners of the
gambling houses, lotteries, stock-
broker's offices, make their for-
tunes, whereas all those who gam-
ble are ruined. So also in life: it is
only the Governments, the wealthy,
ingeneral the oppressors, who stand
to win; whereas those workers who
in hope of improving their position
diverge from the law of reciprocity,
only to aggravate the position of
all workers, and therefore also their
OWII.
THE LAW OF GOD IS THE
LAW OF GOD FOR THIS REA-
SON, THAT IT DEFINES THE
POSITION OF MAN IN THE
WORLD, SHOWING HIM THE
“BEST’’ WHICH HE CAN DO
FOR HIS SPIRITUAL AS WELL
AS FOR HIS PHYSICAL LIFE
WHILE IN THIS POSITION.
“Be not anxious” it is said in the
Gospel, in explanation of this law:
“Be not anxious, saying What shall
we eat or what shall we drink, or
where withal shall we be clothed
- Your heavenly Father
knoweth that ye have need of all
these things. º seek ye first His

kingdom and His righteousness and
all these things shall be added unto
you.”
And these are not mere words but
the explanation of the true position
of man in the world.
IF ONLY MAN FULFILS
WHAT GOD REQUIRES OF
HIM ; IF HE OBSERVES HIS
LAW, THEN GOD ALSO WILL
DO FOR HIM THAT WHICH HE
REQUIRES, SO THAT THE
LAW OF DOING TO OTHERS
AS ONE WOULD WISH TO BE
DONE TO ONESELE' RELATES
TO GOD ALSC).
IN ORDER THAT HE SHOULD
DO FOR US WHAT WE DESIRE,
WE MUST DO FOR HIM WHAT
HE DESIRES OF US. AND HE
DESIRES OF US THAT WE
SHOULD ACT WITHOTHERS AS
WE WOULD WISH OTHERS TO
ACT WITH US. THE ONLY
DIFFERENCE IS THAT WHAT
HE DESIRES OF US IS NEED-
FUL NOT FOR HIM BUT FOR
OURSELVES, YTELDING THE
HIGHEST WELFARE ACCESSI.
BLE TO US.
VIII.
The workmen must cleanse them-
29

selves in order that the Govern-
ments and wealthy shall cease to
devour their lives. Impurity breeds
only in dirt, and it feeds on strange
bodies only while they are unclean.
AND THEREFORE FOR THE
DELIVERANCE OF THE WORK-
ERS FROM THEIR CALAMI-
TIES THERE IS ONLY ONE
MEANS THAT OF PURIFYING
THEMSELVES. AND TO PURL
FY THEMSELVES LIBERATION
FROM THEOLOGICAL, STATE,
AND SCIENTIFIC SUPERSTI-
TIONS IS NECESSARY. AND
NECESSARY ALSO IS FAITH
IN GOD AND HIS LAW.
In this lies the only means of de-
liverance.
One meets at the present time
either an educated or an ordinary
almost illiterate workman. Both
are filled with indignation against
the existing order of things. The
educated workman believes neither
in God nor His law, but he knows
Marxs, Lassalle, and follows the
activities of Bebel, Jaures in Parli-
ments, and delivers stirring ora-
tions about the injustice of the seiz
ure of the land, of the implements
of labour, of traºrence of proper-

ty by inheritance, etc.; whereas the
uneducated workman, although he
does not know these theories and
believes in the Trinity, the Redemp-
tion, etc., is, however, equally in-
dignant with the landlords and cap-
italists, and regards the whole ex-
isting organisation as wrong. And
yet, give this workman, either the
educated or uneducated one, the
possibility of bettering his position
by producing certain articles cheap-
er than others, although it may ruin
scores, hundreds, thousands, of his
comrades, or the possibility of en-
tering the service of the capitalists
in a position which gives him a
greater salary, or of buying land,
or organising a business himself
with hired labour, and nine hun-
dred and ninety mine out of a thou-
sand will do it without scruple, and
defend their posession of the land
or their privileges as employers of:
ten even more sternously than born
landlords and capitalists.
As to their participation in mur-
der (that is, in military service, or
in taxes destined to the support of
troops), an act not only morally
wrong but most permicious to their
comrades and thºuselves the very
act which forms the basis of their
slavery—about this none of them
trouble, and all either consent to
pay the taxes for the army or be-
come soldiers themselves, regard-
ing such actions as quite normal.
Is it possible that out of such men
any society can be formed other
than the one which now exists?
THE WORKMEN LAY THE
BLAME OF THEIR POSITION
ON THE AWARICE AND CRUEL-
TY OF THE LAND OWNERS,
CAPITALISTS, COERCION ISTS,
BUT ALL OR ALMOST ALL
THE WORKMEN, WITHOUT
FAITH IN GOD AND HIS LAW,
ARE SIMILARLY, ONLY ON A.
SMALLER AND UNSUCCESS-
FUL SCALE, LAND OWNERS,
CAPITALISTS, AND COERCION-
ISTS.
A country lad in need of a liveli-
hood comes up to town to a friend
who has a place as a coachman in
the house of a wealthy merchant,
and begs him to find him a berth
at wages lower than those current.
The country lad is ready to accept
such a situation, but coming next
morning, he casually overhears in
the servants’ * the complaint

of an old man who has lost his sit-
uation and is at a loss to know how
to live. The lad is 'sorry for the
old man and he relinquishes his
berth, not wishing to act to another
man as he does not wish to be done
to. Or else a peasant with a large
family accepts the well paid posi-
tion of steward to a rich and exact-
ing landowner. The new steward
feeling his family now provided for,
is glad of the situation, but on en-
tering his duties he has immediate-
ly to enforce fines on the peasants
for horses which have strayed in
the gentlemen's fields; he has to
catch women collecting dead
branches for their fires in the land-
owner's woods; he has to reduce
the wages of the workmen and to
compel them to labour to the ut-
most verge of their strength. And
the steward feels that his conscience
does not allow him to do these
things. He refuses, and notwith-
standing the complaints and re-
proaches of his family, he gives up
his situation and occupies himself
with something else which yields
him much less. Or else again a
soldier has been brought with his
company agains wºrkmen in re-


















volt and told to fire at them. He re-
fuses to obey and for this endures
cruel suffering. All these act thus
because the evil which they are do-
ing to others is evident to them,
and their heart clearly tells them
that this which they are doing is
contrary to the law of God, that
one should not do to others as one
does not wish others to act to one-
self. But if a workman beating
down the price of certain work does
not see those whom he thereby in-
jures, the evil he thus causes to his
comrades does not therefore limin-
ish. And if a workman pass over
to the side of the employers and
neither sees nor feels the injury he
is causing his comrades, the injury
still remains. It is the same with a
man who enters the military ser-
vice and prepares to kill his broth-
ers if necessary. If he does not yet
see, when entering the service,
whom and where he will kill when
he learns to shoot and to stab, he
can at any rate understand that
shooting and stabbing will be his
work.
AND THEREFORE IN ORDER
THAT THE WORKMEN SHOULD
FREE THEMRLVDS FROM

THEIR OPPRESSION AND
BONDAGE, THEY MUST EDU-
CATE IN THEMSELVES THE
RELIGIOUS FEELING WIHICH
PROHIBITS ALL THAT AGGRA-
VATES THE GENERAL CONDI-
TION OF THEIR BROTHERS
EVEN WHEN THIS AGGRAVA-
TION IS NOT APPARENT. They
must religiously refrain (as people
now retrain from eating pork, eat-
ing meat during fasts, from work
on Sundays, and so forth), firstly,
from working for capitalists if they
can possibly get on without; second-
ly from offering their workata low-
er rate than that current; thirdly,
from improving their position by
passing over to the side of the cap-
italists and serving their interests;
and fourthly and chiefly, from par-
ticipating in Government coercion,
be it police, custom-house or mili-
tary service.
Only by such a religious attitude
toward the form of their activity
can the workmen liberate them-
selves from their oppression.
If the workman for gain or from
fear is ready to enter the ranks of
organized murderers—soldiers,
without his * rebuking
º

him, if for the increase of his wel-
fare he is ready deliberately to de-
prive his more needy comrade of
his earnings, or for the sake of sal-
ary to pass over to the side of the
oppressors helping them in their
activity, he has nothing to com-
plain of.
Whatever his position, he makes
it himself; and he himself cannot
be other than one of the oppressed
or one of the oppressors.
And this cannot be otherwise.
Without belief in God and His law
man cannot but desire to procure
for himself in his short life the
greatest amount of welfare, what-
ever consequences this may entail
for others. AND AS SOON AS
PEOPLE DESIRE, EACH ONE
FOR HIMSELF, THE GREAT-
EST POSSIBLE WELFARE, IN-
DEPENDENTLY OF THE CON-
SEQUENCES TO OTHERS, THEN
INEVITABLY. W. H. A. T E V ER
THE ORGANISATION INTRO-
DUCED, SUCH MEN WILL FORM
A HEAP WITH A POINTED
TOP, A CONE,-AT THE APEX
THE RULERS AND UNDER-
NEATH THEM THE OPPRESS-
ED.
36

IX.
It is stated in the Gospel that
Jesus pitied men for their exhaus-
tion and dispersion “like sheep
without a shepherd.”
What would he have felt and said
to-day, seeing men not only exhaus-
ted and dispersed like sheep with-
out a shepherd, but millions of men
all over the world, generation after
generation, ruining themselves in
brutish labour, stultified, unen-
lightened, in the power of vice, kill-
ing, torturing each other, notwith-
standing that the means of deliver-
ance from all these calamities was
given them two thousand years
ago? -
The key to the lock of the chain
forged around the working people
has been placed by their side, and
they need only take this key and
unlock the chain to become free.
But the working men as yet do not
do this, but either undertake moth-
ing and yield themselves to des-
pair, or else struggle and break
their bones in the hope of forcibly
sundering the unbreakable chain;
or else, which is even worse, acting
like a captive animal when it rush-
es at the one who tries to free it,
37

they attack those who indicate the
key which would open the lock on
their chain.
This key is faith in God and his
law.
Only when men throw off those
superstitions in which they are de-
liberately trained, when they be-
lieve that the law of doing to others
what one desires others to do is the
most important Divine law of our
time, believe this as firmly as some
now believe in keeping the Sabbath,
others in fasting, liturgies, sacra-
ments, and others in the repetition
of prayers, or the observance of
oaths, and so forth, and when, have
ing thus believed, they fulfil this
law in preference to all other laws
and ordinances, only then will the
slavery and distressed condition of
the workmen be abolished.
And therefore it is necessary that
the workmen themselves should
first of all, without sparing old
habits and traditions, and without
fearing external persecution from
church and state, or internal strife
with one’s relatives, boldly and
deliberately free themselves from
the false faiths in which they have
been educated, shall more and more
º

make clear to themselves and oth.
ers, and especially to the young
generations and to children, the es:
sence of faith in God and of the con-
sequent law of reciprocity, and
shall follow this law to their ut-
most strength although it involve
temporary disadvantages. Thus
should the workmen themselves
act.
As to the ruling minority who,
profiting by the labour of the work
men, have acquired all the advan.
tages of education, and therefore
can clearly discern the deceits in
which the labourers are kept—as
to these, if they do indeed desire to
serve the working people, they
should first of all both by example
and by word endeavour to free
them from those religious and state
deceitsin which they are entangled,
and not act as they now do: that is,
while sparing, supporting and even
strengthening by their example
these deceits, especially the chief
religious ones, offer ineffective and
even permicious remedies which not
only fail to liberate the workmen
from their calamities but even more
and more aggravate their position.
WHEN, WHERE, AND HOW
THIS WILL BE ACCOMPLISH
ED NO ONE CAN SAY ONE
THING ONLY IS CERTAIN
THAT THIS MEANS ALON
CAN FREE THE ENORMOUS
MAJORITY OF MANKIND-ALL
THE LABOURERS – FROM
THEIR HUMILLATIONS AND
SUFFERINGS.
THERE ARE NO OTHER
MEANS, NOR CAN THERE BE.
INO RIGHTS RESERVED.]
PRICE 15 CENTS
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VIOLA IMIZELL, KIMMEL
Is the author of the following:
Justice for All, 15c.; World Peace and How
to Get It, 10c.; When the People Rule, 15c.;
The Double Standard of Conduct, 50c.; The
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Science and a Fine Art, 50c.; would You Be
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