The Kingdom of God is Within You by Leo Tolstoy Chapter 4 Page 32

teaching as a rule which everyone is bound to fulfil, just as in the state principles of life everyone is bound to carry out the rule of paying taxes, supporting the law, and so on.

The misconception is based precisely on the fact that the teaching of Christ guides men differently from the way in which the precepts founded on the lower conception of life guide men.

The precepts of the state conception of life only guide men by requiring of them an exact fulfilment of rules or laws. Christ's teaching guides men by pointing them to the infinite perfection of their heavenly Father, to which every man independently and voluntarily struggles, whatever the degree of his imperfection in the present.

The misunderstanding of men who judge of the Christian