For the greatest and most important changes to take place in the life of humanity, no exploits are needed,—neither the armament of millions of soldiers, nor the construction of new roads and machines, nor the establishment of exhibitions, nor the establishment of labour-unions, nor revolutions, nor barricades, nor explosions, nor the invention of aerial motion, and so forth, but only a change in public opinion. But for public opinion to change, no efforts of the mind are needed, nor the rejection of anything existing, nor the invention of anything unusual and new; all that is needed is, that every separate man should say what he actually thinks and feels, or at least should not say what he does not think. Let men, even a small number of them, do so, and the obsolete public opinion will fall of its own accord and there will be manifested the youthful, live, present public opinion. And let public opinion change, and the inner structure of men's life, which torments and pains them, will be changed without any effort. It is really a shame to think how little is needed for all men to be freed from all those calamities which now oppress them; they need only stop lying. Let men only not succumb to that lie which is inculcated on them, let them not say what they do not think or feel, and immediately a revolution will take place in the whole structure of our life, such as the revolutionists will not accomplish in centuries, even if all the power were in their hands.
If men only believed that the strength is not in strength, but in the truth, and if they boldly expressed it, or at least did not depart from it in words and deeds,—if they did not say what they do not think, and did not do what they consider bad and stupid.
"What harm is there in crying 'Vive la France!' or 'Hurrah!' to some emperor, king, victor, or in going in a uniform, with the chamberlain's key, to wait for him in the antechamber, to bow, and to address him by strange titles, and then to impress all young and uncultured men with the fact that this is very praiseworthy?" Or, "What harm is there in writing an article in defence of the Franco-Russian alliance or the Customs War, or in condemnation of the Germans, Russians, Frenchmen, Englishmen?" Or, "What harm is there in attending some patriotic celebration and eulogizing men whom you do not care for and have nothing to do with, and drinking their health?" Or even, "What harm is there in recognizing, in a conversation, the benefit and usefulness of treaties, or alliances, or even in keeping silent, when your nation and state is praised in your presence, and other nationalities are cursed and blackened, or when Catholicism, Orthodoxy, Lutheranism are praised, or when some war hero or ruler, like Napoleon, Peter, or the contemporary Boulanger or Skóbelev, are praised?"
All that seems so unimportant, and yet in these seemingly unimportant acts, in our aloofness from them, in our readiness to point out, according to our strength, the irrationality of what is obviously irrational,—in this does our great, invincible power consist, the power which composes that insuperable force which forms the real, actual, public opinion, which, moving itself, moves the whole of humanity. The governments know this, and tremble before this force, and with all the means at their command try to counteract it and to get possession of it.
They know that the force is not in force, but in thought and in its clear enunciation, and so they are more afraid of the expression of independent thought than of armies, and establish censorships, bribe newspapers, take possession of the management of religion and of schools. But the spiritual force which moves the world slips away from them: it is not even in a book, a newspaper,—it is intangible and always free,—it is in the depth of men's consciousness. The most powerful, intangible, freest force is the one which is manifested in man's soul, when he by himself reflects on the phenomena of the world, and then involuntarily expresses his thoughts to his wife, brother, friend, to all those men with whom he comes together, and from whom he considers it a sin to conceal what he regards as the truth. No milliards of roubles, millions of soldiers, no institutions, nor wars, nor revolutions will produce what will be produced by the simple expression of a free man as to what he considers just, independently of what exists and what is inculcated upon him.
One free man will truthfully say what he thinks and feels, amidst thousands of men, who by their acts and words affirm the very opposite. It would seem that the man who frankly expressed his thought would remain alone, while in reality it happens that all those men, or the majority of them, have long been thinking and feeling the same, but have not expressed their thought. And what yesterday was the new opinion of one man, to-day becomes the common opinion of all men. And as soon as this opinion has established itself, men's acts begin to change imperceptibly, slowly, but irresistibly.
For, as it is, every free man says to himself: "What can I do against all this sea of evil and deceit, which inundates me? Why should I give expression to my thought? Why even give form to it? It is better not to think of these obscure and intricate questions. Maybe these contradictions form an inevitable condition of all the phenomena of life. And why should I alone struggle against all this evil of the world? Would it not be better if I abandoned myself to the current which sweeps me along? If anything can be done, it can be done only in conjunction with other men."
And, abandoning that powerful instrument of thought and its expression, which moves the world, this man takes up the instrument of public activity, without noticing that all public activity is based on the very principles against which he has to struggle, that in entering upon any public activity which exists amidst our world, he must at least partially depart from the truth, make such concessions as will destroy the whole force of that powerful instrument of the struggle which is given to him. It is as though a man, into whose hands an unusually sharp dagger is given, one that cuts everything, should drive in nails with the blade.
We all deplore the senseless order of life which contradicts all our existence, and yet not only fail to make use of the one most powerful tool, which is in our hands,—the recognition of the truth and its expression,—but, on the contrary, under the pretext of struggling with evil, destroy this tool and sacrifice it to the imaginary struggle against this order.
One man does not tell the truth which he knows, because he feels himself under obligation to the men with whom he is connected; another,—because the truth might deprive him of the advantageous position by means of which he is supporting his family; a third,—because he wants to attain glory and power, to use them later in the service of men; a fourth,—because he does not wish to violate the ancient sacred traditions; a fifth,—because the expression of the truth will provoke persecution and will impair that good public activity to which he is devoting himself, or intends to devote himself.