A Confession by Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy (best way to read e books TXT) 📖
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leisured people to which I belonged formed the whole of humanity, and that
those milliards of others who have lived and are living were cattle of some
sort — not real people.
Strange, incredibly incomprehensible as it now seems to me that I could,
while reasoning about life, overlook the whole life of mankind that
surrounded me on all sides; that I could to such a degree blunder so
absurdly as to think that my life, and Solomon’s and Schopenhauer’s, is the
real, normal life, and that the life of the milliards is a circumstance
undeserving of attention — strange as this now is to me, I see that so it
was. In the delusion of my pride of intellect it seemed to me so indubitable
that I and Solomon and Schopenhauer had stated the question so truly and
exactly that nothing else was possible — so indubitable did it seem that all
those milliards consisted of men who had not yet arrived at an apprehension
of all the profundity of the question — that I sought for the meaning of my
life without it once occurring to me to ask: “But what meaning is and has
been given to their lives by all the milliards of common folk who live and
have lived in the world?”
I long lived in this state of lunacy, which, in fact if not in words, is
particularly characteristic of us very liberal and learned people. But
thanks either to the strange physical affection I have for the real
labouring people, which compelled me to understand them and to see that they
are not so stupid as we suppose, or thanks to the sincerity of my conviction
that I could know nothing beyond the fact that the best I could do was to
hang myself, at any rate I instinctively felt that if I wished to live and
understand the meaning of life, I must seek this meaning not among those who
have lost it and wish to kill themselves, but among those milliards of the
past and the present who make life and who support the burden of their own
lives and of ours also. And I considered the enormous masses of those
simple, unlearned, and poor people who have lived and are living and I saw
something quite different. I saw that, with rare exceptions, all those
milliards who have lived and are living do not fit into my divisions, and
that I could not class them as not understanding the question, for they
themselves state it and reply to it with extraordinary clearness. Nor could
I consider them epicureans, for their life consists more of privations and
sufferings than of enjoyments. Still less could I consider them as
irrationally dragging on a meaningless existence, for every act of their
life, as well as death itself, is explained by them. To kill themselves they
consider the greatest evil. It appeared that all mankind had a knowledge,
unacknowledged and despised by me, of the meaning of life. It appeared that
reasonable knowledge does not give the meaning of life, but excludes life:
while the meaning attributed to life by milliards of people, by all
humanity, rests on some despised pseudo-knowledge.
Rational knowledge presented by the learned and wise, denies the meaning of
life, but the enormous masses of men, the whole of mankind receive that
meaning in irrational knowledge. And that irrational knowledge is faith,
that very thing which I could not but reject. It is God, One in Three; the
creation in six days; the devils and angels, and all the rest that I cannot
accept as long as I retain my reason.
My position was terrible. I knew I could find nothing along the path of
reasonable knowledge except a denial of life; and there — in faith — was
nothing but a denial of reason, which was yet more impossible for me than a
denial of life. From rational knowledge it appeared that life is an evil,
people know this and it is in their power to end life; yet they lived and
still live, and I myself live, though I have long known that life is
senseless and an evil. By faith it appears that in order to understand the
meaning of life I must renounce my reason, the very thing for which alone a
meaning is required.
IXA contradiction arose from which there were two exits. Either that which I
called reason was not so rational as I supposed, or that which seemed to me
irrational was not so irrational as I supposed. And I began to verify the
line of argument of my rational knowledge.
Verifying the line of argument of rational knowledge I found it quite
correct. The conclusion that life is nothing was inevitable; but I noticed a
mistake. The mistake lay in this, that my reasoning was not in accord with
the question I had put. The question was: “Why should I live, that is to
say, what real, permanent result will come out of my illusory transitory
life — what meaning has my finite existence in this infinite world?” And to
reply to that question I had studied life.
The solution of all the possible questions of life could evidently not
satisfy me, for my question, simple as it at first appeared, included a
demand for an explanation of the finite in terms of the infinite, and vice
versa.
I asked: “What is the meaning of my life, beyond time, cause, and space?”
And I replied to quite another question: “What is the meaning of my life
within time, cause, and space?” With the result that, after long efforts of
thought, the answer I reached was: “None.”
In my reasonings I constantly compared (nor could I do otherwise) the finite
with the finite, and the infinite with the infinite; but for that reason I
reached the inevitable result: force is force, matter is matter, will is
will, the infinite is the infinite, nothing is nothing — and that was all
that could result.
It was something like what happens in mathematics, when thinking to solve an
equation, we find we are working on an identity. the line of reasoning is
correct, but results in the answer that a equals a, or x equals x, or �
equals �. the same thing happened with my reasoning in relation to the
question of the meaning of my life. The replies given by all science to that
question only result in — identity.
And really, strictly scientific knowledge — that knowledge which begins, as
Descartes’s did, with complete doubt about everything — rejects all
knowledge admitted on faith and builds everything afresh on the laws of
reason and experience, and cannot give any other reply to the question of
life than that which I obtained: an indefinite reply. Only at first had it
seemed to me that knowledge had given a positive reply — the reply of
Schopenhauer: that life has no meaning and is an evil. But on examining the
matter I understood that the reply is not positive, it was only my feeling
that so expressed it. Strictly expressed, as it is by the Brahmins and by
Solomon and Schopenhauer, the reply is merely indefinite, or an identity: �
equals �, life is nothing. So that philosophic knowledge denies nothing, but
only replies that the question cannot be solved by it — that for it the
solution remains indefinite.
Having understood this, I understood that it was not possible to seek in
rational knowledge for a reply to my question, and that the reply given by
rational knowledge is a mere indication that a reply can only be obtained by
a different statement of the question and only when the relation of the
finite to the infinite is included in the question. And I understood that,
however irrational and distorted might be the replies given by faith, they
have this advantage, that they introduce into every answer a relation
between the finite and the infinite, without which there can be no solution.
In whatever way I stated the question, that relation appeared in the answer.
How am I to live? — According to the law of God. What real result will come
of my life? — Eternal torment or eternal bliss. What meaning has life that
death does not destroy? — Union with the eternal God: heaven.
So that besides rational knowledge, which had seemed to me the only
knowledge, I was inevitably brought to acknowledge that all live humanity
has another irrational knowledge — faith which makes it possible to live.
Faith still remained to me as irrational as it was before, but I could not
but admit that it alone gives mankind a reply to the questions of life, and
that consequently it makes life possible. Reasonable knowledge had brought
me to acknowledge that life is senseless — my life had come to a halt and I
wished to destroy myself. Looking around on the whole of mankind I saw that
people live and declare that they know the meaning of life. I looked at
myself — I had lived as long as I knew a meaning of life and had made life
possible.
Looking again at people of other lands, at my contemporaries and at their
predecessors, I saw the same thing. Where there is life, there since man
began faith has made life possible for him, and the chief outline of that
faith is everywhere and always identical.
Whatever the faith may be, and whatever answers it may give, and to
whomsoever it gives them, every such answer gives to the finite existence of
man an infinite meaning, a meaning not destroyed by sufferings,
deprivations, or death. This means that only in faith can we find for life a
meaning and a possibility. What, then, is this faith? And I understood that
faith is not merely “the evidence of things not seen”, etc., and is not a
revelation (that defines only one of the indications of faith, is not the
relation of man to God (one has first to define faith and then God, and not
define faith through God); it not only agreement with what has been told one
(as faith is most usually supposed to be), but faith is a knowledge of the
meaning of human life in consequence of which man does not destroy himself
but lives. Faith is the strength of life. If a man lives he believes in
something. If he did not believe that one must live for something, he would
not live. If he does not see and recognize the illusory nature of the
finite, he believes in the finite; if he understands the illusory nature of
the finite, he must believe in the infinite. Without faith he cannot live.
And I recalled the whole course of my mental labour and was horrified. It
was now clear to me that for man to be able to live he must either not see
the infinite, or have such an explanation of the meaning of life as will
connect the finite with the infinite. Such an explanation I had had; but as
long as I believed in the finite I did not need the explanation, and I began
to verify it by reason. And in the light of reason the whole of my former
explanation flew to atoms. But a time came when I ceased to believe in the
finite. And then I began to build up on rational foundations, out of what I
knew, an explanation which would give a meaning to life; but nothing could I
build. Together with the best human intellects I reached the result that �
equals �, and was much astonished at that conclusion, though nothing else
could have resulted.
What was I doing
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