Page:Tolstoy - Pamphlets.djvu/118

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CARTHARGO DELENDA EST
21

clear. And then, in order to free people from these miseries, we—instead of pointing out to them the temptations to which they are subjected, the fact that they are sure to lose, and the immorality of gambling, which is based on the expectation of other people's misfortunes—assemble with grave faces at meetings, and discuss how to arrange that the keepers of gambling-houses should, of their own accord, shut up their establishments; we write books about it, and we put questions to ourselves as to whether history, law, and progress require the existence of gambling-houses, and as to what are the economical, intellectual, moral, and other consequences of roulette.

If a man is given to drink, and I tell him that he himself can leave off drinking and that he must do so, there is a hope that he will listen to me; but if I tell him that his drunkenness is a complicated and difficult problem which we learned men are trying to solve at our meetings, then in all probability he will, while awaiting the solution of this problem, continue to drink. Thus also with these false and refined external, scientific means of abolishing war, such as international tribunals, arbitration, and similar absurdities, while all the time carefully omitting to mention the most simple, essential, and self-evident method of causing war to cease—a method plain for all to see. In order that people who do not want war should not fight, it is not necessary to have either international law, arbi-