# The crossroads simplifies two demanding moral choices

Commentary on Orthodoxy by G. K. Chesterton.

On [CH03.P026](https://glosses.org/orthodoxy/pg16769-r1/CH03.P026/#char=748,805): "one hates all the roads and the other likes all the roads"

The crossroads turns the chapter's argument about choice into a symmetrical picture: rejecting everything and accepting everything prevent departure equally. Its force depends on treating Tolstoy and Nietzsche as limiting cases. Their own writings, however, supply definite standards for selecting one road over another.

In *My Religion*, Tolstoy rejects violent resistance, including violence in defence of another person. This supports the narrower objection that his teaching rules out kinds of protective action Chesterton considers necessary. But Tolstoy couples refusal with positive obligations: working for others and cultivating friendship across national divisions. His will is directed rather than simply suspended. See [*My Religion*, chapter XII, printed pp. 253–56](https://www.gutenberg.org/files/43794/43794-h/43794-h.htm). The inspected witness is Huntington Smith's translation through French, Crowell, 1885; the work's initial Russian printing was suppressed in 1884, and public translations appeared in 1885, a distinction documented by the [Tolstoy museum portal's publication history](https://www.tolstoy.ru/creativity/journalismguide/86.php).

Nietzsche's *The Antichrist*, §§2–3, distinguishes actions and human types according to whether they enhance power or express weakness. That is a provocative and potentially objectionable standard, but plainly a selective one. See the [Mencken translation, §§2–3](https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/19322/pg19322-images.html), first published in 1918 and inspected here in the Knopf pocket edition of 1923, second printing 1924; the German work first appeared in an edition dated 1895. This later translation is evidence for Nietzsche's position, not Chesterton's reading.

Thus the paragraph offers a reductio of unrestricted refusal and unrestricted affirmation; applying it to these particular thinkers requires a further argument that their actual standards cannot sustain choice. Their disagreement with Chesterton about which actions are justified does not itself establish inability to act.

## Sources

- [Leo Tolstoy, My Religion, translated from French by Huntington Smith (Crowell, 1885)](https://www.gutenberg.org/files/43794/43794-h/43794-h.htm), Title page; translator's preface; chapter XII, printed pp. 253–56
- [Irina Petrovitskaya, guide to Tolstoy's journalism: В чем моя вера? 1882–1884](https://www.tolstoy.ru/creativity/journalismguide/86.php), Publication-history paragraphs beginning 'Толстой предполагал напечатать' and 'Впервые'
- [Friedrich Nietzsche, The Antichrist, translated H. L. Mencken (1918; inspected Knopf pocket edition 1923, second printing 1924)](https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/19322/pg19322-images.html), Title and copyright pages; introduction on first publication; §§2–3

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