A Confession by Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy (best way to read e books TXT) 📖
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wished to know why I live, and for this purpose studied all that is outside
me. Evidently I might learn much, but nothing of what I needed.
What was I doing when I sought an answer in philosophical knowledge? I was
studying the thoughts of those who had found themselves in the same position
as I, lacking a reply to the question “why do I live?” Evidently I could
learn nothing but what I knew myself, namely that nothing can be known.
What am I? — A part of the infinite. In those few words lies the whole
problem.
Is it possible that humanity has only put that question to itself since
yesterday? And can no one before me have set himself that question — a
question so simple, and one that springs to the tongue of every wise child?
Surely that question has been asked since man began; and naturally for the
solution of that question since man began it has been equally insufficient
to compare the finite with the finite and the infinite with the infinite,
and since man began the relation of the finite to the infinite has been
sought out and expressed.
All these conceptions in which the finite has been adjusted to the infinite
and a meaning found for life — the conception of God, of will, of goodness
— we submit to logical examination. And all those conceptions fail to stand
reason’s criticism.
Were it not so terrible it would be ludicrous with what pride and
self-satisfaction we, like children, pull the watch to pieces, take out the
spring, make a toy of it, and are then surprised that the watch does not go.
A solution of the contradiction between the finite and the infinite, and
such a reply to the question of life as will make it possible to live, is
necessary and precious. And that is the only solution which we find
everywhere, always, and among all peoples: a solution descending from times
in which we lose sight of the life of man, a solution so difficult that we
can compose nothing like it — and this solution we light-heartedly destroy
in order again to set the same question, which is natural to everyone and to
which we have no answer.
The conception of an infinite god, the divinity of the soul, the connexion
of human affairs with God, the unity and existence of the soul, man’s
conception of moral goodness and evil — are conceptions formulated in the
hidden infinity of human thought, they are those conceptions without which
neither life nor I should exist; yet rejecting all that labour of the whole
of humanity, I wished to remake it afresh myself and in my own manner.
I did not then think like that, but the germs of these thoughts were already
in me. I understood, in the first place, that my position with Schopenhauer
and Solomon, notwithstanding our wisdom, was stupid: we see that life is an
evil and yet continue to live. That is evidently stupid, for if life is
senseless and I am so fond of what is reasonable, it should be destroyed,
and then there would be no one to challenge it. Secondly, I understood that
all one’s reasonings turned in a vicious circle like a wheel out of gear
with its pinion. However much and however well we may reason we cannot
obtain a reply to the question; and o will always equal o, and therefore our
path is probably erroneous. Thirdly, I began to understand that in the
replies given by faith is stored up the deepest human wisdom and that I had
no right to deny them on the ground of reason, and that those answers are
the only ones which reply to life’s question.
XI understood this, but it made matters no better for me. I was now ready to
accept any faith if only it did not demand of me a direct denial of reason
— which would be a falsehood. And I studied Buddhism and Mohammedanism from
books, and most of all I studied Christianity both from books and from the
people around me.
Naturally I first of all turned to the orthodox of my circle, to people who
were learned: to Church theologians, monks, to theologians of the newest
shade, and even to Evangelicals who profess salvation by belief in the
Redemption. And I seized on these believers and questioned them as to their
beliefs and their understanding of the meaning of life.
But though I made all possible concessions, and avoided all disputes, I
could not accept the faith of these people. I saw that what they gave out as
their faith did not explain the meaning of life but obscured it, and that
they themselves affirm their belief not to answer that question of life
which brought me to faith, but for some other aims alien to me.
I remember the painful feeling of fear of being thrown back into my former
state of despair, after the hope I often and often experienced in my
intercourse with these people.
The more fully they explained to me their doctrines, the more clearly did I
perceive their error and realized that my hope of finding in their belief an
explanation of the meaning of life was vain.
It was not that in their doctrines they mixed many unnecessary and
unreasonable things with the Christian truths that had always been near to
me: that was not what repelled me. I was repelled by the fact that these
people’s lives were like my own, with only this difference — that such a
life did not correspond to the principles they expounded in their teachings.
I clearly felt that they deceived themselves and that they, like myself
found no other meaning in life than to live while life lasts, taking all
one’s hands can seize. I saw this because if they had had a meaning which
destroyed the fear of loss, suffering, and death, they would not have feared
these things. But they, these believers of our circle, just like myself,
living in sufficiency and superfluity, tried to increase or preserve them,
feared privations, suffering, and death, and just like myself and all of us
unbelievers, lived to satisfy their desires, and lived just as badly, if not
worse, than the unbelievers.
No arguments could convince me of the truth of their faith. Only deeds which
showed that they saw a meaning in life making what was so dreadful to me —
poverty, sickness, and death — not dreadful to them, could convince me. And
such deeds I did not see among the various believers in our circle. On the
contrary, I saw such deeds done [8] by people of our circle who were the
most unbelieving, but never by our so-called believers.
And I understood that the belief of these people was not the faith I sought,
and that their faith is not a real faith but an epicurean consolation in
life.
I understood that that faith may perhaps serve, if not for a consolation at
least for some distraction for a repentant Solomon on his death-bed, but it
cannot serve for the great majority of mankind, who are called on not to
amuse themselves while consuming the labour of others but to create life.
For all humanity to be able to live, and continue to live attributing a
meaning to life, they, those milliards, must have a different, a real,
knowledge of faith. Indeed, it was not the fact that we, with Solomon and
Schopenhauer, did not kill ourselves that convinced me of the existence of
faith, but the fact that those milliards of people have lived and are
living, and have borne Solomon and us on the current of their lives.
And I began to draw near to the believers among the poor, simple, unlettered
folk: pilgrims, monks, sectarians, and peasants. The faith of these common
people was the same Christian faith as was professed by the pseudo-believers
of our circle. Among them, too, I found a great deal of superstition mixed
with the Christian truths; but the difference was that the superstitions of
the believers of our circle were quite unnecessary to them and were not in
conformity with their lives, being merely a kind of epicurean diversion; but
the superstitions of the believers among the labouring masses conformed so
with their lives that it was impossible to imagine them to oneself without
those superstitions, which were a necessary condition of their life. the
whole life of believers in our circle was a contradiction of their faith,
but the whole life of the working-folk believers was a confirmation of the
meaning of life which their faith gave them. And I began to look well into
the life and faith of these people, and the more I considered it the more I
became convinced that they have a real faith which is a necessity to them
and alone gives their life a meaning and makes it possible for them to live.
In contrast with what I had seen in our circle — where life without faith is
possible and where hardly one in a thousand acknowledges himself to be a
believer — among them there is hardly one unbeliever in a thousand. In
contrast with what I had seen in our circle, where the whole of life is
passed in idleness, amusement, and dissatisfaction, I saw that the whole
life of these people was passed in heavy labour, and that they were content
with life. In contradistinction to the way in which people of our circle
oppose fate and complain of it on account of deprivations and sufferings,
these people accepted illness and sorrow without any perplexity or
opposition, and with a quiet and firm conviction that all is good. In
contradistinction to us, who the wiser we are the less we understand the
meaning of life, and see some evil irony in the fact that we suffer and die,
these folk live and suffer, and they approach death and suffering with
tranquillity and in most cases gladly. In contrast to the fact that a
tranquil death, a death without horror and despair, is a very rare exception
in our circle, a troubled, rebellious, and unhappy death is the rarest
exception among the people. and such people, lacking all that for us and for
Solomon is the only good of life and yet experiencing the greatest
happiness, are a great multitude. I looked more widely around me. I
considered the life of the enormous mass of the people in the past and the
present. And of such people, understanding the meaning of life and able to
live and to die, I saw not two or three, or tens, but hundreds, thousands,
and millions. and they all — endlessly different in their manners, minds,
education, and position, as they were — all alike, in complete contrast to
my ignorance, knew the meaning of life and death, laboured quietly, endured
deprivations and sufferings, and lived and died seeing therein not vanity
but good.
And I learnt to love these people. The more I came to know their life, the
life of those who are living and of others who are dead of whom I read and
heard, the more I loved them and the easier it became for me to live. So I
went on for about two years, and a change took place in me which had long
been preparing and the promise of which had always been in me. It came about
that the life of our circle, the rich and learned, not merely became
distasteful to me, but lost all meaning in my eyes. All our actions,
discussions, science and art, presented itself to me in a
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