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.

                            X



 I 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 [Footnote: this passage is noteworthy as being one

of the few references made by Tolstoy at this period to the

revolutionary or "Back-to-the-People" movement, in which many young

men and women were risking and sacrificing home, property, and life

itself from motives which had much in common with his own

perception that the upper layers of Society are parasitic and prey

on the vitals of the people who support them. -- A.M.] 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

new light. I understood that it is all merely self-indulgence, and

the to find a meaning in it is impossible; while the life of the

whole labouring people, the whole of mankind who produce life,

appeared to me in its true significance. I understood that that

is life itself, and that the meaning given to that life is true:

and I accepted it.

                           XI



 And remembering how those very beliefs had repelled me and had

seemed meaningless when professed by people whose lives conflicted

with them, and how these same beliefs attracted me and seemed

reasonable when I saw that people lived in accord with them, I

understood why I had then rejected those beliefs and found them

meaningless, yet now accepted them and found them full of meaning.

I understood that I had erred, and why I erred. I had erred not so

much because I thought incorrectly as because I lived badly. I

understood that it was not an error in my thought that had hid

truth from me as much as my life itself in the exceptional

conditions of epicurean gratification of desires in which I passed

it. I understood that my question as to what my life is, and the

answer -- and evil -- was quite correct. The only mistake was that

the answer referred only to my life, while I had referred it to

life in general. I asked myself what my life is, and got the

reply: An evil and an absurdity. and really my life -- a life of

indulgence of desires -- was senseless and evil, and therefore the

reply, "Life is evil and an absurdity", referred only to my life,

but not to human life in general. I understood the truth which I

afterwards found in the Gospels, "that men loved darkness rather

than the light, for their works were evil. For everyone that doeth

ill hateth the light, and cometh not to the light, lest his works

should be reproved." I perceived that to understand the meaning of

life it is necessary first that life should not be meaningless and

evil, then we can apply reason to explain it. I understood why I

had so long wandered round so evident a truth, and that if one is

to think and speak of the life of mankind, one must think and speak

of that life and not of the life of some of life's parasites. That

truth was always as true as that two and two are four, but I had

not acknowledged it, because on admitting two and two to be four I

had also to admit that I was bad; and to feel myself to be good was

for me more important and necessary than for two and two to be

four. I came to love good people, hated myself, and confessed the

truth. Now all became clear to me.

 What if an executioner passing his whole life in torturing

people and cutting off their heads, or a hopeless drunkard, or a

madman settled for life in a dark room which he has fouled and

imagines that he would perish if he left -- what if he asked

himself: "What is life?" Evidently he could not other reply to

that question than that life is the greatest evil, and the madman's

answer would be perfectly correct, but only as applied to himself.

What if I am such a madman? What if all we rich and leisured

people are such madmen? and I understood that we really are such

madmen. I at any rate was certainly such.

 And indeed a bird is so made that it must fly, collect food,

and build a nest, and when I see that a bird does this I have

pleasure in its joy. A goat, a hare, and a wolf are so made that

they must feed themselves, and must breed and feed their family,

and when they do so I feel firmly assured that they are happy and

that their life is a reasonable one. then what should a man do?

He too should produce his living as the animals do, but with this

difference, that he will perish if he does it alone; he must obtain

it not for himself but for all. And when he does that, I have a

firm assurance that he is happy and that his life is reasonable.

But what had I done during the whole thirty years of my responsible

life? Far from producing sustenance for all, I did not even

produce it for myself. I lived as a parasite, and on asking

myself, what is the use of my life? I got the reply: "No use." If

the meaning of human life lies in supporting it, how could I -- who

for thirty years had been engaged not on supporting life but on

destroying it in myself and in others -- how could I obtain any

other answer than that my life was senseless and an evil? ... It

was both senseless and evil.

 The life of the world endures by someone's will -- by the life

of the whole world and by our lives someone fulfills his purpose.

To hope to understand the meaning of that will one must first

perform it by doing what is wanted of us. But if I will not do

what is wanted of me, I shall never understand what is wanted of

me, and still less what is wanted of us all and of the whole world.

 If a naked, hungry beggar has been taken from the cross-roads,

brought into a building belonging to a beautiful establishment,

fed, supplied with drink, and obliged to move a handle up and down,

evidently, before discussing why he was taken, why he should move

the handle, and whether the whole establishment is reasonably

arranged -- the begger should first of all move the handle. If he

moves the handle he will understand that it works a pump, that the

pump draws water and that the water irrigates the garden beds; then

he will be taken from the pumping station to another place where he

will gather fruits and will enter into the joy of his master, and,

passing from lower to higher work, will understand more and more of

the arrangements of the establishment, and taking part in it will

never think of asking why he is there, and will certainly not

reproach the master.

 So those who do his will, the simple, unlearned working folk,

whom we regard as cattle, do not reproach the master; but we, the

wise, eat the master's food but do not do what the master wishes,

and instead of doing it sit in a circle and discuss: "Why should

that handle be moved? Isn't it stupid?" So we have decided. We

have decided that the master is stupid, or does not exist, and that

we are wise, only we feel that we are quite useless and that we

must somehow do away with ourselves.

                           XII



 The consciousness of the error in reasonable knowledge helped

me to free myself from the temptation of idle ratiocination. the

conviction that knowledge of truth can only be found by living led

me to doubt the rightness of my life; but I was saved only by the

fact that I was able to tear myself from my exclusiveness and to

see the real life of the plain working people, and to understand

that it alone is real life. I understood that if I wish to

understand life and its meaning, I must not live the life of a

parasite, but must live a real life, and -- taking the meaning

given to live by real humanity and merging myself in that life --

verify it.

 During that time this is what happened to me.  During that

whole year, when I was asking myself almost every moment whether I

should not end matters with a noose or a bullet -- all that time,

together with the course of thought and observation about which I

have spoken, my heart was oppressed with a painful feeling, which

I can only describe as a search for God.

 I say that that search for God was not reasoning, but a

feeling, because that search proceeded not from the course of my

thoughts -- it was even directly contrary to them -- but proceeded

from the heart. It was a feeling of fear, orphanage, isolation in

a strange land, and a hope of help from someone.

 Though I was quite convinced of the impossibility of proving

the existence of a Deity (Kant had shown, and I quite understood

him, that it could not be proved), I yet sought for god, hoped that

I should find Him, and from old habit addressed prayers to that

which I sought but had not found. I went over in my mind the

arguments of Kant and Schopenhauer showing the impossibility of

proving the existence of a God, and I began to verify those

arguments and to refute them. Cause, said I to myself, is not a

category of thought such as are Time and Space. If I exist, there

must be some cause for it, and a cause of causes. And that first

cause of all is what men have called "God". And I paused on that

thought, and tried with all my being to recognize the presence of

that cause. And as soon as I acknowledged that there is a force in

whose power I am, I at once felt that I could live. But I asked

myself: What is that cause, that force? How am I to think of it?

What are my relations to that which I call "God"? And only the

familiar replies occurred to me: "He is the Creator and

Preserver." This reply did not satisfy me, and I felt I was losing

within me what I needed for my life. I became terrified and began

to pray to Him whom I sought, that He should help me. But the more

I prayed the more apparent it became to me that He did not hear me,

and that there was no one to whom to address myself. And with

despair in my heart that there is no God at all, I said: "Lord,

have mercy, save me! Lord, teach me!" But no one had mercy on me,

and I felt that my life was coming to a standstill.

 But again and again, from various sides, I returned to the

same conclusion that I could not have come into the world without

any cause or reason or meaning; I could not be such a fledgling

fallen from its nest as I felt myself to be. Or, granting that I

be such, lying on my back crying in the high grass, even then I cry

because I know that a mother has borne me within her, has hatched

me, warmed me, fed me, and loved me. Where is she -- that mother?

If I have been deserted, who has deserted me? I cannot hide from

myself that someone bored me, loving me. Who was that someone?

Again "God"? He knows and sees my searching, my despair, and my

struggle."

 "He exists," said I to myself.  And I had only for an instant

to admit that, and at once life rose within me, and I felt the

possibility and joy of being. But again, from the admission of the

existence of a God I went on to seek my relation with Him; and

again I imagined that God -- our Creator in Three Persons who

sent His Son, the Saviour -- and again that God, detached from

the world and from me, melted like a block of ice, melted before my

eyes, and again nothing remained, and again the spring of life

dried up within me, and I despaired and felt that I had nothing to

do but to kill myself. And the worst of all was, that I felt I

could not do it.

 Not twice or three times, but tens and hundreds of times, I

reached those conditions, first of joy and animation, and then of

despair and consciousness of the impossibility of living.

 I remember that it was in early spring: I was alone in the

wood listening to its sounds. I listened and thought ever of the

same thing, as I had constantly done during those last three years.

I was again seeking God.

 "Very well, there is no God," said I to myself; "there is no

one who is not my imagination but a reality like my whole life.

He does not exist, and no miracles can prove His existence, because

the miracles would be my imagination, besides being irrational.

 "But my *perception* of God, of Him whom I seek," I asked

myself, "where has that perception come from?" And again at this

thought the glad waves of life rose within me. All that was around

me came to life and received a meaning. But my joy did not last

long. My mind continued its work.

 "The conception of God is not God," said I to myself.  "The

conception is what takes place within me. The conception of God is

something I can evoke or can refrain from evoking in myself. That

is not what I seek. I seek that without which there can be no

life." And again all around me and within me began to die, and

again I wished to kill myself.

 But then I turned my gaze upon myself, on what went on within

me, and I remembered all those cessations of life and reanimations

that recurred within me hundreds of times. I remembered that I

only lived at those times when I believed in God. As it was

before, so it was now; I need only be aware of God to live; I need

only forget Him, or disbelieve Him, and I died.

 What is this animation and dying?  I do not live when I lose

belief in the existence of God. I should long ago have killed

myself had I not had a dim hope of finding Him. I live, really

live, only when I feel Him and seek Him. "What more do you seek?"

exclaimed a voice within me. "This is He. He is that without

which one cannot live. To know God and to live is one and the same

thing. God is life."

 "Live seeking God, and then you will not live without God." 

And more than ever before, all within me and around me lit up, and

the light did not again abandon me.

 And I was saved from suicide.  When and how this change

occurred I could not say. As imperceptibly and gradually the force

of life in me had been destroyed and I had reached the

impossibility of living, a cessation of life and the necessity of

suicide, so imperceptibly and gradually did that force of life

return to me. And strange to say the strength of life which

returned to me was not new, but quite old -- the same that had

borne me along in my earliest days.

 I quite returned to what belonged to my earliest childhood and

youth. I returned to the belief in that Will which produced me and

desires something of me. I returned to the belief that the chief

and only aim of my life is to be better, i.e. to live in accord

with that Will. and I returned to the belief that I can find the

expression of that Will in what humanity, in the distant past

hidden from, has produced for its guidance: that is to say, I

returned to a belief in God, in moral perfection, and in a

tradition transmitting the meaning of life. There was only this

difference, that then all this was accepted unconsciously, while

now I knew that without it I could not live.

 What happened to me was something like this:  I was put into

a boat (I do not remember when) and pushed off from an unknown

shore, shown the direction of the opposite shore, had oars put into

my unpractised hands, and was left alone. I rowed as best I could

and moved forward; but the further I advanced towards the middle of

the stream the more rapid grew the current bearing me away from my

goal and the more frequently did I encounter others, like myself,

borne away by the stream. There were a few rowers who continued to

row, there were others who had abandoned their oars; there were

large boats and immense vessels full of people. Some struggled

against the current, others yielded to it. And the further I went

the more, seeing the progress down the current of all those who

were adrift, I forgot the direction given me. In the very centre

of the stream, amid the crowd of boats and vessels which were being

borne down stream, I quite lost my direction and abandoned my oars.

Around me on all sides, with mirth and rejoicing, people with sails

and oars were borne down the stream, assuring me and each other

that no other direction was possible. And I believed them and

floated with them. And I was carried far; so far that I heard the

roar of the rapids in which I must be shattered, and I saw boats

shattered in them. And I recollected myself. I was long unable to

understand what had happened to me. I saw before me nothing but

destruction, towards which I was rushing and which I feared. I saw

no safety anywhere and did not know what to do; but, looking back,

I perceived innumerable boats which unceasingly and strenuously

pushed across the stream, and I remembered about the shore, the

oars, and the direction, and began to pull back upwards against the

stream and towards the whore.

 That shore was God; that direction was tradition; the oars

were the freedom given me to pull for the shore and unite with God.

And so the force of life was renewed in me and I again began to

live.

                          XIII



 I turned from the life of our circle, acknowledging that ours

is not life but a simulation of life -- that the conditions of

superfluity in which we live deprive us of the possibility of

understanding life, and that in order to understand life I must

understand not an exceptional life such as our who are parasites on

life, but the life of the simple labouring folk -- those who make

life -- and the meaning which they attribute to it. The simplest

labouring people around me were the Russian people, and I turned to

them and to the meaning of life which they give. That meaning, if

one can put it into words, was as follows: Every man has come into

this world by the will of God. And God has so made man that every

man can destroy his soul or save it. The aim of man in life is to

save his soul, and to save his soul he must live "godly" and to

live "godly" he must renounce all the pleasures of life, must

labour, humble himself, suffer, and be merciful. That meaning the

people obtain from the whole teaching of faith transmitted to them

by their pastors and by the traditions that live among the people.

This meaning was clear to me and near to my heart. But together

with this meaning of the popular faith of our non-sectarian folk,

among whom I live, much was inseparably bound up that revolted me

and seemed to me inexplicable: sacraments, Church services, fasts,

and the adoration of relics and icons. The people cannot separate

the one from the other, nor could I. And strange as much of what

entered into the faith of these people was to me, I accepted

everything, and attended the services, knelt morning and evening in

prayer, fasted, and prepared to receive the Eucharist: and at first

my reason did not resist anything. The very things that had

formerly seemed to me impossible did not now evoke in me any

opposition.