I. For love's sake, particularly on the ground of the commandment not to resist evil by force, Tolstoi rejects law; not unconditionally, indeed, but as an institution for the more highly developed peoples of our time. To be sure, he speaks only of enacted laws; but he means all law,[943] for he rejects on principle every norm based on the will of men,[944] upheld by human force,[945] especially by courts,[946] capable of deviating from the moral law,[947] of being different in different territories,[948] and of being at any time arbitrarily changed.[949]

Perhaps once upon a time law was better than its non-existence. Law is "upheld by violence";[950] on the other hand, it guards against violence of individuals to each other;[951] perhaps there was once a time when the former violence was less than the latter.[952] Now, at any rate, this time is past for us; manners have grown milder; the men of our time "acknowledge the commandments of philanthropy, of sympathy with one's neighbor, and ask only the possibility of quiet, peaceable life."[953]

Law offends against the commandment not to resist evil by force.[954] Christ declared this. The words "Judge not, that ye be not judged" (Matt. 7.1), "Condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned" (Luke 6.37), "mean not only 'do not judge your neighbor in words,' but also 'do not condemn him by act; do not judge your neighbor according to your human laws by your courts.'"[955] Christ here speaks not merely "of every individual's personal relation to the court,"[956] but rejects "the administration of law itself."[957] "He says, 'You believe that your laws better the evil; they only make it greater; there is only one way to check evil, and this consists in returning good for evil, doing good to all without discrimination.'"[958] And "my heart and my reason"[959] say to me the same as Christ says.

But this is not the only objection to be made against law. "Authority condemns in the rigid form of law only what public opinion has in most cases long since disallowed and condemned; withal, public opinion disallows and condemns all actions that are contrary to the moral law, but the law condemns and prosecutes only the actions included within certain quite definite and very narrow limits, and thereby, in a measure, justifies all similar actions that do not come within these limits. Ever since Moses's day public opinion has regarded selfishness, sensuality, and cruelty as evils and has condemned it; it has repudiated and condemned every form of selfishness, not only the appropriation of others' property by force, fraud, or guile, but exploitation altogether; it has condemned every sort of unchastity, be it with a concubine, a slave, a divorced woman, or even with one's own wife; it has condemned all cruelty, as it finds expression in the ill-treating, starving, and killing not only of men but of animals too. But the law prosecutes only particular forms of selfishness, like theft and fraud, and only particular forms of unchastity and cruelty, like marital infidelity, murder, and mayhem; therefore, in a measure, it permits all the forms of selfishness, unchastity, and cruelty that do not come under its narrow definitions inspired by a false conception."[960]

"The Jew could easily submit to his laws, for he did not doubt that they were written by God's finger; likewise the Roman, as he thought they originated from the nymph Egeria; and man in general so long as he regarded the princes who gave him laws as God's anointed, or believed that the legislating assemblies had the wish and the capacity to make the best laws."[961] But "as early as the time when Christianity made its appearance men were beginning to comprehend that human laws were written by men; that men, whatever outward splendor may enshroud them, cannot be infallible, and that erring men do not become infallible even by getting together and calling themselves 'Senate' or something else."[962] "We know how laws are made; we have all been behind the scenes; we all know that the laws are products of selfishness, deception, partisanship, that true justice does not and cannot dwell in them."[963] Therefore "the recognition of any special laws is a sign of the crassest ignorance."[964]

II. Love requires that in place of law it itself be the law for men. From this it follows that instead of law Christ's commandments should be our rule of action.[965] But this is "the Kingdom of God on earth."[966]

"When the day and the hour of the Kingdom of God appear, depends on men themselves alone."[967] "Each must only begin to do what we must do, and cease to do what we must not do, and the near future will bring the promised Kingdom of God."[968] "If only everybody would bear witness, in the measure of his strength, to the truth that he knows, or at least not defend as truth the untruth in which he lives, then in this very year 1893 there would take place such changes toward the setting up of truth on earth as we dare not dream of for centuries to come."[969] "Only a little effort more, and the Galilean has won."[970]

The Kingdom of God is "not outside in the world, but in man's soul."[971] "The Kingdom of God cometh not with outward show; neither will men say, 'Lo here!' or, 'There!' for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you (Luke 17.20)."[972] The Kingdom of God is nothing else than the following of Christ's commandments, especially the five commandments of the Sermon on the Mount,[973] which tell us how we must act in our present stage in order to correspond to the ideal of love as much as possible,[974] and which command us to keep the peace and do everything for its restoration when it is broken, to remain true to one another as man and wife, to make no vows, to forgive injury and not return evil for evil, and, finally, not to break the peace with anybody for our people's sake.[975]

But what form will outward life take in the Kingdom of God? "The disciple of Christ will be poor; that is, he will not live in the city but in the country; he will not sit at home, but work in wood and field, see the sunshine, the earth, the sky, and the beasts; he will not worry over what he is to eat to tempt his appetite, and what he can do to help his digestion, but will be hungry three times a day; he will not roll on soft cushions and think upon deliverance from insomnia, but sleep; he will be sick, suffer, and die like all men—the poor who are sick and die seem to have an easier time of it than the rich—";[976] he "will live in free fellowship with all men";[977] "the Kingdom of God on earth is the peace of men with each other; thus it appeared to the prophets, and thus it appears to every human heart."[978]