Tolstoy's objection cannot be contained in a monastery
The Tolstoyans, having all the scruples of monks, simply became monks.
Tolstoy's The Kingdom of God Is Within You makes the disagreement sharper than the analogy suggests. The work was completed in 1893; the inspected witness is Project Gutenberg ebook 4602, identifying Constance Garnett's English translation and a New York 1894 title-page date. In its preface Tolstoy treats the churches' failure to teach non-resistance to force as a central corruption of Christ's teaching. Chapter I invokes Quakers who refuse weapons and military service and deny that state necessity can override Christian obligations. Preface and chapter I.
Chesterton grants the worth of non-resistance while restricting its jurisdiction: peaceful specialists must coexist with soldiers. Tolstoy's argument, by contrast, challenges the Church's permission for anyone to wage war. Calling the peaceful party monks therefore answers a question about accommodating temperaments, while Tolstoy is contesting an obligation claimed for every Christian. Chesterton's ‘club instead of ... sect’ imagines non-resistance housed within a larger religious society; it is not a historical account of the Society of Friends. The passage offers an institutional answer to Tolstoy, but does not establish that Tolstoy's universal moral claim has been refuted.
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