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salvation possible. However great the sacrifices demanded,
whatever terrible events may precede and accompany this
reconstruction, there is no other way of salvation, and all that
will compel such renewal of life we ought to welcome gladly.
No change of outward form can deliver us; the very
principles of life must be radically altered.
“As to the nature of this change, since the causes of this
fatal class separation are moral—greed, lust of power, vanity,
love of pleasure—so the true remedies must be sought in the
moral sphere. The life of the upper classes in general, not
only of the openly reckless and licentious, but of those who
are regarded as orderly and pious, must be pronounced
immoral when tried by the standard of Christian ethics.
How can it be anything else than immoral to live in luxury
and affluence while my fellow-man is perishing of want and
misery?”
The doctor, who was pacing up and down the room,
here interjected that luxury was necessary to the State
besides being pleasant to the individual; that it was a
spur to social development, and gave work to a great many
people.
“You must pardon me for not taking you seriously,” said
Kudrin, “for every educated man knows now, or ought to
know, that those are fallacies long since exploded. Emile de
Laveleye and M. Say, not to mention other prominent
economists, have amply proved the immoral and inhuman
character of luxury, i.e., of everything made to excite and feed
artificial wants and tastes at the cost of much labour. When
about 40,000,000 of our countrymen are in want of the bare
necessaries of life, how can it be moral and useful to spend vast
amounts of capital and labour in producing articles of luxury,
that are not simply useless, but frequently directly harmful
and productive of great moral evils? Where is the good sense
of talking of providing them with work to satisfy your lusts,
when you have first of all robbed them of the right of
producing necessaries for themselves?”
“But,” said the doctor, “the poor are contented and happy
in their misery. Besides, they live according to Tolstoi’s ideal
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