then I said in
my heart, that this also is vanity. For there is no remembrance of
the wise more than of the fool for ever; seeing that which now is
in the days to come shall all be forgotten. And how dieth the wise
man? as the fool. Therefore I hated life; because the work that is
wrought under the sun is grievous unto me: for all is vanity and
vexation of spirit. Yea, I hated all my labour which I had taken
under the sun: seeing that I must leave it unto the man that shall
be after me.... For what hath man of all his labour, and of the
vexation of his heart, wherein he hath laboured under the sun? For
all his days are sorrows, and his travail grief; yea, even in the
night his heart taketh no rest. this is also vanity. Man is not
blessed with security that he should eat and drink and cheer his
soul from his own labour.... All things come alike to all: there is
one event to the righteous and to the wicked; to the good and to
the evil; to the clean and to the unclean; to him that sacrificeth
and to him that sacrificeth not; as is the good, so is the sinner;
and he that sweareth, as he that feareth an oath. This is an evil
in all that is done under the sun, that there is one event unto
all; yea, also the heart of the sons of men is full of evil, and
madness is in their heart while they live, and after that they go
to the dead. For him that is among the living there is hope: for
a living dog is better than a dead lion. For the living know that
they shall die: but the dead know not any thing, neither have they
any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten. also their
love, and their hatred, and their envy, is now perished; neither
have they any more a portion for ever in any thing that is done
under the sun."
So said Solomon, or whoever wrote those words. [Footnote:
tolstoy's version differs slightly in a few places from our own
Authorized or Revised version. I have followed his text, for in a
letter to Fet, quoted on p. 18, vol. ii, of my "Life of Tolstoy,"
he says that "The Authorized English version [of Ecclesiastes] is
bad." -- A.M.]
And this is what the Indian wisdom tells:
Sakya Muni, a young, happy prince, from whom the existence of
sickness, old age, and death had been hidden, went out to drive and
saw a terrible old man, toothless and slobbering. the prince, from
whom till then old age had been concealed, was amazed, and asked
his driver what it was, and how that man had come to such a
wretched and disgusting condition, and when he learnt that this was
the common fate of all men, that the same thing inevitably awaited
him -- the young prince -- he could not continue his drive, but
gave orders to go home, that he might consider this fact. So he
shut himself up alone and considered it. and he probably devised
some consolation for himself, for he subsequently again went out to
drive, feeling merry and happy. But this time he saw a sick man.
He saw an emaciated, livid, trembling man with dim eyes. The
prince, from whom sickness had been concealed, stopped and asked
what this was. And when he learnt that this was sickness, to which
all men are liable, and that he himself -- a healthy and happy
prince -- might himself fall ill tomorrow, he again was in no mood
to enjoy himself but gave orders to drive home, and again sought
some solace, and probably found it, for he drove out a third time
for pleasure. But this third time he saw another new sight: he saw
men carrying something. 'What is that?' 'A dead man.' 'What does
dead mean?' asked the prince. He was told that to become dead
means to become like that man. The prince approached the corpse,
uncovered it, and looked at it. 'What will happen to him now?'
asked the prince. He was told that the corpse would be buried in
the ground. 'Why?' 'Because he will certainly not return to life,
and will only produce a stench and worms.' 'And is that the fate
of all men? Will the same thing happen to me? Will they bury me,
and shall I cause a stench and be eaten by worms?' 'Yes.' 'Home!
I shall not drive out for pleasure, and never will so drive out
again!'
And Sakya Muni could find no consolation in life, and decided
that life is the greatest of evils; and he devoted all the strength
of his soul to free himself from it, and to free others; and to do
this so that, even after death, life shall not be renewed any more
but be completely destroyed at its very roots. So speaks all the
wisdom of India.
These are the direct replies that human wisdom gives when it
replies to life's question.
"The life of the body is an evil and a lie. Therefore the
destruction of the life of the body is a blessing, and we should
desire it," says Socrates.
"Life is that which should not be -- an evil; and the passage
into Nothingness is the only good in life," says Schopenhauer.
"All that is in the world -- folly and wisdom and riches and
poverty and mirth and grief -- is vanity and emptiness. Man dies
and nothing is left of him. And that is stupid," says Solomon.
"To life in the consciousness of the inevitability of
suffering, of becoming enfeebled, of old age and of death, is
impossible -- we must free ourselves from life, from all possible
life," says Buddha.
And what these strong minds said has been said and thought and
felt by millions upon millions of people like them. And I have
thought it and felt it.
So my wandering among the sciences, far from freeing me from
my despair, only strengthened it. One kind of knowledge did not
reply to life's question, the other kind replied directly
confirming my despair, indicating not that the result at which I
had arrived was the fruit of error or of a diseased state of my
mind, but on the contrary that I had thought correctly, and that my
thoughts coincided with the conclusions of the most powerful of
human minds.
It is no good deceiving oneself. It is all -- vanity! Happy
is he who has not been born: death is better than life, and one
must free oneself from life.
VII
Not finding an explanation in science I began to seek for it
in life, hoping to find it among the people around me. And I began
to observe how the people around me -- people like myself -- lived,
and what their attitude was to this question which had brought me
to despair.
And this is what I found among people who were in the same
position as myself as regards education and manner of life.
I found that for people of my circle there were four ways out
of the terrible position in which we are all placed.
The first was that of ignorance. It consists in not knowing,
not understanding, that life is an evil and an absurdity. People
of this sort -- chiefly women, or very young or very dull people --
have not yet understood that question of life which presented
itself to Schopenhauer, Solomon, and Buddha. They see neither the
dragon that awaits them nor the mice gnawing the shrub by which
they are hanging, and they lick the drops of honey. but they lick
those drops of honey only for a while: something will turn their
attention to the dragon and the mice, and there will be an end to
their licking. From them I had nothing to learn -- one cannot
cease to know what one does know.
The second way out is epicureanism. It consists, while
knowing the hopelessness of life, in making use meanwhile of the
advantages one has, disregarding the dragon and the mice, and
licking the honey in the best way, especially if there is much of
it within reach. Solomon expresses this way out thus: "Then I
commended mirth, because a man hath no better thing under the sun,
than to eat, and to drink, and to be merry: and that this should
accompany him in his labour the days of his life, which God giveth
him under the sun.
"Therefore eat thy bread with joy and drink thy wine with a
merry heart.... Live joyfully with the wife whom thou lovest all
the days of the life of thy vanity...for this is thy portion in
life and in thy labours which thou takest under the sun....
Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might, for there
is not work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave,
whither thou goest."
That is the way in which the majority of people of our circle
make life possible for themselves. Their circumstances furnish
them with more of welfare than of hardship, and their moral
dullness makes it possible for them to forget that the advantage of
their position is accidental, and that not everyone can have a
thousand wives and palaces like Solomon, that for everyone who has
a thousand wives there are a thousand without a wife, and that for
each palace there are a thousand people who have to build it in the
sweat of their brows; and that the accident that has today made me
a Solomon may tomorrow make me a Solomon's slave. The dullness of
these people's imagination enables them to forget the things that
gave Buddha no peace -- the inevitability of sickness, old age, and
death, which today or tomorrow will destroy all these pleasures.
So think and feel the majority of people of our day and our
manner of life. The fact that some of these people declare the
dullness of their thoughts and imaginations to be a philosophy,
which they call Positive, does not remove them, in my opinion, from
the ranks of those who, to avoid seeing the question, lick the
honey. I could not imitate these people; not having their dullness
of imagination I could not artificially produce it in myself. I
could not tear my eyes from the mice and the dragon, as no vital
man can after he has once seen them.
The third escape is that of strength and energy. It consists
in destroying life, when one has understood that it is an evil and
an absurdity. A few exceptionally strong and consistent people act
so. Having understood the stupidity of the joke that has been
played on them, and having understood that it is better to be dead
than to be alive, and that it is best of all not to exist, they act
accordingly and promptly end this stupid joke, since there are
means: a rope round one's neck, water, a knife to stick into one's
heart, or the trains on the railways; and the number of those of
our circle who act in this way becomes greater and greater, and for
the most part they act so at the best time of their life, when the
strength of their mind is in full bloom and few habits degrading to
the mind have as yet been acquired.
I saw that this was the worthiest way of escape and I wished
to adopt it.
The fourth way out is that of weakness. It consists in seeing
the truth of the situation and yet clinging to life, knowing in
advance that nothing can come of it. People of this kind know that
death is better than life, but not having the strength to act
rationally -- to end the deception quickly and kill themselves --
they seem to wait for something. This is the escape of weakness,
for if I know what is best and it is within my power, why not yield
to what is best? ... I found myself in that category.
So people of my class evade the terrible contradiction in four
ways. Strain my attention as I would, I saw no way except those
four. One way was not to understand that life is senseless,
vanity, and an evil, and that it is better not to live. I could
not help knowing this, and when I once knew it could not shut my
eyes to it. the second way was to use life such as it is without
thinking of the future. And I could not do that. I, like Sakya
Muni, could not ride out hunting when I knew that old age,
suffering, and death exist. My imagination was too vivid. Nor
could I rejoice in the momentary accidents that for an instant
threw pleasure to my lot. The third way, having under stood that
life is evil and stupid, was to end it by killing oneself. I
understood that, but somehow still did not kill myself. The fourth
way was to live like Solomon and Schopenhauer -- knowing that life
is a stupid joke played upon us, and still to go on living, washing
oneself, dressing, dining, talking, and even writing books. This
was to me repulsive and tormenting, but I remained in that
position.
I see now that if I did not kill myself it was due to some dim
consciousness of the invalidity of my thoughts. However convincing
and indubitable appeared to me the sequence of my thoughts and of
those of the wise that have brought us to the admission of the
senselessness of life, there remained in me a vague doubt of the
justice of my conclusion.
It was like this: I, my reason, have acknowledged that life
is senseless. If there is nothing higher than reason (and there is
not: nothing can prove that there is), then reason is the creator
of life for me. If reason did not exist there would be for me no
life. How can reason deny life when it is the creator of life? Or
to put it the other way: were there no life, my reason would not
exist; therefore reason is life's son. Life is all. Reason is its
fruit yet reason rejects life itself! I felt that there was
something wrong here.
Life is a senseless evil, that is certain, said I to myself.
Yet I have lived and am still living, and all mankind lived and
lives. How is that? Why does it live, when it is possible not to
live? Is it that only I and Schopenhauer are wise enough to
understand the senselessness and evil of life?
The reasoning showing the vanity of life is not so difficult,
and has long been familiar to the very simplest folk; yet they have
lived and still live. How is it they all live and never think of
doubting the reasonableness of life?
My knowledge, confirmed by the wisdom of the sages, has shown
me that everything on earth -- organic and inorganic -- is all most
cleverly arranged -- only my own position is stupid. and those
fools -- the enormous masses of people -- know nothing about how
everything organic and inorganic in the world is arranged; but they
live, and it seems to them that their life is very wisely arranged!
...
And it struck me: "But what if there is something I do not
yet know? Ignorance behaves just in that way. Ignorance always
says just what I am saying. When it does not know something, it
says that what it does not know is stupid. Indeed, it appears that
there is a whole humanity that lived and lives as if it understood
the meaning of its life, for without understanding it could not
live; but I say that all this life is senseless and that I cannot
live.
"Nothing prevents our denying life by suicide. well then,
kill yourself, and you won't discuss. If life displeases you, kill
yourself! You live, and cannot understand the meaning of life --
then finish it, and do not fool about in life, saying and writing
that you do not understand it. You have come into good company
where people are contented and know what they are doing; if you
find it dull and repulsive -- go away!"
Indeed, what are we who are convinced of the necessity of
suicide yet do not decide to commit it, but the weakest, most
inconsistent, and to put it plainly, the stupidest of men, fussing
about with our own stupidity as a fool fusses about with a painted
hussy? For our wisdom, however indubitable it may be, has not
given us the knowledge of the meaning of our life. But all mankind
who sustain life -- millions of them -- do not doubt the meaning of
life.
Indeed, from the most distant time of which I know anything,
when life began, people have lived knowing the argument about the
vanity of life which has shown me its senselessness, and yet they
lived attributing some meaning to it.
From the time when any life began among men they had that
meaning of life, and they led that life which has descended to me.
All that is in me and around me, all, corporeal and incorporeal, is
the fruit of their knowledge of life. Those very instruments of
thought with which I consider this life and condemn it were all
devised not be me but by them. I myself was born, taught, and
brought up thanks to them. They dug out the iron, taught us to cut
down the forests, tamed the cows and horses, taught us to sow corn
and to live together, organized our life, and taught me to think
and speak. And I, their product, fed, supplied with drink, taught
by them, thinking with their thoughts and words, have argued that
they are an absurdity! "There is something wrong," said I to
myself. "I have blundered somewhere." But it was a long time
before I could find out where the mistake was.
VIII
All these doubts, which I am now able to express more or less
systematically, I could not then have expressed. I then only felt
that however logically inevitable were my conclusions concerning
the vanity of life, confirmed as they were by the greatest
thinkers, there was something not right about them. Whether it was
in the reasoning itself or in the statement of the question I did
not know -- I only felt that the conclusion was rationally
convincing, but that that was insufficient. All these conclusions
could not so convince me as to make me do what followed from my
reasoning, that is to say, kill myself. And I should have told an
untruth had I, without killing myself, said that reason had brought
me to the point I had reached. Reason worked, but something else
was also working which I can only call a consciousness of life. A
force was working which compelled me to turn my attention to this
and not to that; and it was this force which extricated me from my
desperate situation and turned my mind in quite another direction.
This force compelled me to turn my attention to the fact that I and
a few hundred similar people are not the whole of mankind, and that
I did not yet know the life of mankind.
Looking at the narrow circle of my equals, I saw only people
who had not understood the question, or who had understood it and
drowned it in life's intoxication, or had understood it and ended
their lives, or had understood it and yet from weakness were living
out their desperate life. And I saw no others. It seemed to me
that that narrow circle of rich, learned, and 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.
IX
A 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 o equals o. 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: o equals o, 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 o equals o, and was much
astonished at that conclusion, though nothing else could have
resulted.
What was I doing when I sought an answer in the experimental
sciences? I 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.