Leo Tolstoy Archive
Written: 1890
Source: From RevoltLib.com; Translated by Nathan Haskell Dole
Transcription/Markup: Andy Carloff
Online Source: RevoltLib.com; 2021
What is this demand for stupefying things,—vodka, wine, beer, hashish, opium, tobacco, and others less universally used; ether, morphine, mukhomor[1]? Why did it begin and so quickly spread, and why does it still spread among all classes of men, savage and civilized alike? What does it mean that everywhere, if there is not vodka, wine, and beer, there you find opium or hashish, mukhomor, and other things, and tobacco everywhere?
Why must people need stupefy themselves? Ask a man why he began to drink wine and still drinks it, and he will answer you, "Why, it's agreeable, every one drinks," and he will add, "for gaiety's sake."
Some who have never once given themselves the trouble of thinking whether it is right or wrong for them to drink wine, will add that wine is wholesome and gives strength; in other words, they will say what has long ago been proved to be incorrect. Ask a smoker why he began to smoke tobacco and still smokes, and he will reply in the same manner, "Why, to cure low spirits; every one smokes."
Thus also will probably reply the devotees of opium, hashish, morphine, agaricum.
"Why! to cure low spirits, for gaiety's sake, all do it."
But it is just as good as a cure for low spirits or for gaiety's sake, because all do it, to twirl one's fingers, to whistle, to sing songs, to play on the dudka, and do other things; in other words, to do anything whatever, for which it is not necessary to squander ancestral wealth or expend great physical powers, to do what does not bring manifest woe on yourself and on others. But for the production of tobacco, wine, hashish, opium, often among settlements needing land, millions and millions of better lands are occupied with crops of rye, potatoes, hemp, poppies, grapevines, and tobacco, and millions of workmen—in England one-eighth of the whole population—are engaged their whole lives long in the production of these stupefying objects.
Moreover, the use of these things is manifestly injurious, producing terrible evils, known and confessed by every one, causing the destruction of more human beings than have perished in all wars and contagious diseases together.
And men know this; so that it cannot be that this is done to keep men's spirits up, for gaiety's sake, simply because all do this.
There must be something else in it. All the time and everywhere you meet with men who love their children, are ready to make all kinds of sacrifices for their well-being, and yet squander on vodka, wine, beer, or spend on opium or hashish, or even on tobacco, enough to feed their suffering and starving children, or, at least, keep them from deprivation. Evidently if a man placed under the necessity of choosing between subjecting his family which he loves to suffering and privation, and refraining from stupefying things, nevertheless chooses the first, he is stimulated to this by something more serious than that every one does it and it is pleasant. Evidently it is not done to raise spirits, or for gaiety's sake, but there is some more important reason.
This reason, as far as I can understand it from reading about this subject and observations on other men, and especially on myself when I used to drink wine and smoke tobacco—this reason, according to my observations, is as follows:—
During the period of conscious life a man can frequently detect in himself two separate beings: one blind, physical, and the other gifted with sight, spiritual. The blind animal being eats, drinks, rests, sleeps, propagates, and moves about like a machine wound up; the seeing spiritual being, connected with the animal, itself does nothing, but only estimates the activity of the living being by coinciding with it when it approves of this activity, and by being indignant with it when it does not approve.
This seeing being may be compared to the needle of a compass, which points with one end to the north, with the other in the opposite direction, to the south; and, being protected in its whole extent by a strip, is invisible as long as the thing that carries the needle moves in its direction, but comes out and becomes visible as soon as that which carries the needle turns from the direction indicated.
In exactly the same way the seeing spiritual being, the manifestation whereof in common language we call conscience, always points with one pole toward the right, and with the other, its opposite, toward the wrong, and is not noticed by us until we turn aside from the direction given to us—that is to say, from wrong to right. But it requires to perform some action contrary to the direction of conscience for the consciousness of the spiritual being to appear, showing the deviation of the animal activity from the direction indicated by conscience. And as a sailor could not continue to work with oars, machinery, or sails, if he knew that he was going in the wrong direction, until he gave his course the direction indicated by the needle of the compass, or else hid from himself the deviation; just exactly so every man who is conscious of the duality of his conscience and his animal activity cannot continue this activity until he either brings it into accordance with his conscience, or conceals from himself the warnings of conscience about the injustice of his animal life.
The whole life of man, we may say, consists only of these two activities: (1) the bringing of one's activity into harmony with conscience; and (2) the concealing from oneself of the indications of conscience so as to be able to continue a certain course of life.
Some do the first, others do the second. For the attainment of the first there is only one means—the moral enlightenment, an increase of light in oneself, and attention to that which the light shines on; for the second—to hide from oneself the monitions of conscience—there are two methods: one external, one internal. The external method consists in occupations which draw the attention away from the monitions of conscience; the internal method consists in darkening conscience itself.
As a man may hide from his eyes any object before him in two ways, by an external turning away of his eyes to something else more striking, and by shutting his eyes; just so a man may hide from himself the monitions of his conscience by a twofold method—the external by diverting his attention with all kinds of occupations, labors, amusements, games; the internal by blinding the organ of attention itself.
For men with an obtuse, limited moral sense, it is often simply sufficient to have external diversions, so as not to perceive the monitions of conscience about their irregular lives. But for men morally keen, such a method is not generally sufficient.
The external methods do not completely divert the attention from the discordance between life and the demands of conscience; this consciousness makes it hard to live, and men in order to be able to live have recourse to an unquestionable inward method of blinding conscience itself, and this consists in poisoning the brain with stupefying things.
Life is not what it should be according to the demands of conscience. One cannot possibly turn one's life into conformity with its demands. The diversions which might distract from a consciousness of this dissonance are insufficient or they become disgusting, and so as to be in a condition to prolong existence, notwithstanding the monitions of conscience about its irregularities, men temporarily cut short its activity by poisoning that organ through which the monitions of conscience are manifested, just as a man purposely shutting his eyes would hide what he would not wish to see.