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A Confession - Leo Tolstoy · Non-Fiction Library

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Speaker 1: Chapter one of a confession by Leo Tolstoy. Chapter one.
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Speaker 1: I was baptized and brought up in the Orthodox Christian faith.
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Speaker 1: I was taught it in childhood and throughout my boyhood
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Speaker 1: and youth. But when I abandoned the second course of
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Speaker 1: the university at the age of eighteen, I no longer
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Speaker 1: believed any of the things I had been taught. Judging
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Speaker 1: by certain memories, I never seriously believed them, but it
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Speaker 1: merely relied on what I was taught and on what
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Speaker 1: was professed by grown up people around me, and that
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Speaker 1: reliance was very unstable. I remember that before I was eleven,
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Speaker 1: a grammar school pupil, Vladimir Miljuden, long since dead, visited
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Speaker 1: us one Sunday and announced it the latest novelty a
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Speaker 1: discovery made at his school. This discovery was that there
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Speaker 1: is no God and that all we were taught about
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Speaker 1: him is a mere invention. This was in eighteen thirty eight.
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Speaker 1: I remember how interested my elder brothers were in this information.
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Speaker 1: They called me to their council, and we all, I
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Speaker 1: remember it became very animated and accepted it as something
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Speaker 1: very interesting and quite possible. I remember also that when
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Speaker 1: my elder brother Dmitri, who was by then at the university, suddenly,
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Speaker 1: in the passionate way natural to him, devoted himself to
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Speaker 1: religion and began to attend all the church services, to
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Speaker 1: fast and to lead a pure and moral life. We all,
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Speaker 1: even our elders, unceasingly held him up to ridicule, and
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Speaker 1: for some unknown reason called him Noah. I remember that
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Speaker 1: Mushin Pushkin, then the curator of Kazan University, when inviting
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Speaker 1: us to dance at his home, ironically persuaded my brother,
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Speaker 1: who was declining the invitation, by the argument that even
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Speaker 1: David danced before the ark. I sympathized with these jokes
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Speaker 1: made by my elders and drew from them the conclusion
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Speaker 1: that though it is necessary to learn the Catechism and
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Speaker 1: go to church, one must not take these things too seriously.
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Speaker 1: I remember also that I read Voltaire when I was
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Speaker 1: very young, and that his raillery, far from shocking me,
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Speaker 1: amused me very much. My lapse from faith occurred, as
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Speaker 1: is usual among people on our level of education. In
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Speaker 1: most cases, I think it happens to us. A man
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Speaker 1: lives like everybody else on the basis of principles, not
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Speaker 1: merely having nothing in common with the religious doctrine, but
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Speaker 1: generally opposed to it. Religious doctrine does not play a
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Speaker 1: part in life and intercourse with others. It is never encountered,
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Speaker 1: and in man's own life he never has to reckon
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Speaker 1: with it. Religious doctrine is professed far away from life
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Speaker 1: and independently of it. If it is encountered, it is
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Speaker 1: only as an external phenomenon, disconnected from life. Then, as
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Speaker 1: now it was and is quite impossible to judge by
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Speaker 1: a man's life and conduct whether he is a believer
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Speaker 1: or not. If there be a difference between a man
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Speaker 1: who publicly profess Orthodoxy and one who denies it, the
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Speaker 1: difference is not in favor of the former, then is
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Speaker 1: now the public profession and confession of Orthodoxy was chiefly
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Speaker 1: met among people who are dull and cruel, and who
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Speaker 1: consider themselves very important. Ability, honesty, reliability, good nature, and
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Speaker 1: moral conduct were more often met among non believers. The
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Speaker 1: schools teach the Catechism and send the pupils to church,
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Speaker 1: and government officials must produce certificates of having received communion.
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Speaker 1: But a man of our circle who has finished his
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Speaker 1: education and is not in the government service may even now,
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Speaker 1: and formerly it was still easier for him to do so,
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Speaker 1: live for ten or twenty years without once remembering that
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Speaker 1: he is living among Christians, and he is himself reckoned,
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Speaker 1: a member of the Orthodox Christian Church. So that now
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Speaker 1: as formerly religious doctrine, accepted on trust and supported by
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Speaker 1: external pressure, falls away gradually under the influence of knowledge
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Speaker 1: and experience of life which conflicts with it, and a
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Speaker 1: man very often lives imagining that he still holds intact
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Speaker 1: their religious doctrine and powered to him in childhood, whereas
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Speaker 1: in fact not a trace of it remains. S a
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Speaker 1: clever and truthful man once told me a story of
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Speaker 1: how he ceased to believe. Once, on a hunting expedition,
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Speaker 1: when he was already twenty six, he at the place
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Speaker 1: where they had put up for the night, knelt down
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Speaker 1: in the evening to pray, a habit retained from childhood.
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Speaker 1: His elder brother, who was at the hunt with him,
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Speaker 1: was lying on some hay and watching him. When S
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Speaker 1: had finished and was settling down for the night, his
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Speaker 1: brother said to him, so you still do that. They
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Speaker 1: said nothing more to each other, but from that day
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Speaker 1: S ceased to say his prayers are to go to church,
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Speaker 1: and now he has not prayed, received communion, are gone
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Speaker 1: to church for thirty years. And this is not because
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Speaker 1: he knows his brother's convictions and has joined him in them,
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Speaker 1: nor because he has decided anything in his own soul,
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Speaker 1: but simply because the word spoken by his brother was
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Speaker 1: like the push of a finger onto a wall that
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Speaker 1: was ready to fall by its own weight. The word
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Speaker 1: only showed that where he had thought there was faith,
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Speaker 1: in reality there had long since been an empty space,
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Speaker 1: and that therefore the utterances of words and the making
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Speaker 1: of the signs of the cross and genuflections while praying
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Speaker 1: were quite senseless actions. Becoming conscious of their senselessness, he
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Speaker 1: could not continue them. So it has been and is,
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Speaker 1: I think, with the great majority of people. I am
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Speaker 1: speaking of people of our educational level who are sincere
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Speaker 1: with themselves, and not of those who make the profession
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Speaker 1: of faith a means of attaining worldly Such people are
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Speaker 1: the most fundamental infidels, For if faith is for them
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Speaker 1: a means of attaining any worldly aims, then certainly it
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Speaker 1: is not faith. These people of our education are so
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Speaker 1: placed that the light of knowledge in life has caused
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Speaker 1: an artificial direction to melt away, and they have either
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Speaker 1: already noticed this and swept its place clear, or they
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Speaker 1: have not yet noticed it. Their religious doctrine taught me
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Speaker 1: from childhood disappeared in me as in other's, but with
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Speaker 1: this difference that as from the age of fifteen I
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Speaker 1: began to read philosophical works, my rejection of the doctrine
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Speaker 1: became a conscious one at a very early age. From
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Speaker 1: the time I was sixteen, I ceased to say my
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Speaker 1: prayers and ceased to go to churchill to fasten my
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Speaker 1: own volition. I did not believe what had been taught
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Speaker 1: to me in childhood, but I believed in something. What
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Speaker 1: it was I believed in, I could not have said
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Speaker 1: I believed in a God, or rather, I did not
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Speaker 1: deny God, but I could not have said what sort
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Speaker 1: of God. Neither did I deny Christ in his teachings,
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Speaker 1: But what his teachings consisted in, I again could not
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Speaker 1: have said. Looking back on that time, I now see
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Speaker 1: that clearly my faith, my only real faith, that which,
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Speaker 1: apart from my animal instincts, gave me an impulse in life,
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Speaker 1: was a belief in perfecting myself. But in what this
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Speaker 1: perfection consisted of, and what its object was I could
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Speaker 1: not have said. I tried to perfect myself. I studied
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Speaker 1: everything I could, anything life threw my way. I tried
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Speaker 1: to perfect my will. I drew up rules I tried
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Speaker 1: to follow. I perfected myself physically, cultivating my strength and
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Speaker 1: agility by all sorts of exercises, and accustoming myself to
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Speaker 1: endurance and patience by all sorts of privations. And all
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Speaker 1: this I considered to be the pursuit of perfection. The
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Speaker 1: beginning of it all was, of course, moral perfection, but
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Speaker 1: that was soon replaced by perfection in general, by the
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Speaker 1: desire to be better, not my own eyes or those
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Speaker 1: of God, but in the eyes of other people. And
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Speaker 1: very soon this effort again changed into a desire to
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Speaker 1: be stronger than others, to be more famous, more important,
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Speaker 1: and richer than others. End of chapter one, Chapter two
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Speaker 1: of a confession by Leo Tolstoy. Someday I will narrate
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Speaker 1: the touching and instructive history of my life during those
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Speaker 1: ten years of my youth, I think very many people
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Speaker 1: have had a like experience. With all my soul. I
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Speaker 1: wished to be good, but I was young, passionate, and alone,
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Speaker 1: completely alone. When I sought goodness. Every time I tried
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Speaker 1: to express my most sincere desire, which was to be
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Speaker 1: morally good, I met with contempt and ridicule. But as
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Speaker 1: soon as I yielded to low passions, I was praised
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Speaker 1: and encouraged. Ambition, love of power, covetousness, lasciviousness, pride, anger,
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Speaker 1: and revenge were all respected. Yielding to those passions, I
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Speaker 1: became like the grown up folk and felt that they
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Speaker 1: approved of me. The kind aunt with whom I lived herself,
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Speaker 1: the purest of beings, always told me that there was
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Speaker 1: nothing she so desired for me as that I should
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Speaker 1: have relations with a married woman. Ryenniform u hune home
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Speaker 1: kom una liaison eviis unfem komen of foe. Another happiness
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Speaker 1: she desired for me was that I should become an
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Speaker 1: aide de camp, and, if possible, aide de camp to
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Speaker 1: the Emperor. But the greatest happiness of all would be
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Speaker 1: that I should marry a very rich girl and so
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Speaker 1: become possessed of as many serves as possible. I cannot
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Speaker 1: think of those years without horror, loathing, and heartache. I
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Speaker 1: killed men in war and challenge men to duels in
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Speaker 1: order to kill them. I lost at cards, consumed the
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Speaker 1: labor of the peasants, sentenced them to punishments, live loosely
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Speaker 1: and deceived people, lying, robbery, adultery of all kinds, drunkenness, violence, murder.
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Speaker 1: There was no crime I did not commit. And in
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Speaker 1: spite of that, people praised my conduct, and my contemporaries
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Speaker 1: considered and consider me to be a comparatively moral man.
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Speaker 1: So I lived for ten years. During that time I
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Speaker 1: began to write from vanity, covetousness, and pride. In my writings,
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Speaker 1: I did the same as in my life, to get
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Speaker 1: fame and money. For the sake of which I wrote,
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Speaker 1: it was necessary to hide the good and to despoy
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Speaker 1: the evil, and I did so. How often in my
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Speaker 1: writings I contrived to hide under the guise of indifference
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Speaker 1: or even of banter, those strivings of mind towards goodness
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Speaker 1: which gave meaning to my life. And I succeeded in
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Speaker 1: this and was praised. At twenty six years of age,
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Speaker 1: I returned to Petersburg after the war, and my the writers,
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Speaker 1: they received me as one of themselves and flattered me.
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Speaker 1: And before I had time to look round, I had
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Speaker 1: adopted the views on life of the set of authors
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Speaker 1: I had come among, and these views completely obliterated all
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Speaker 1: my former strivings to improve. They furnished a theory that
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Speaker 1: justified the dissoluteness of my life. The view of life
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Speaker 1: of these people, my comrades, and authorship consisted in this
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Speaker 1: that life in general goes on developing, and in this
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Speaker 1: development we men of thought have the chief part. And
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Speaker 1: among men of thought it is we artists and poets
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Speaker 1: who have the greatest influence. Our vocation is to teach mankind,
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Speaker 1: and lest a simple question should suggest itself, what do
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Speaker 1: I know and what can I teach? It was explained
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Speaker 1: that in this theory it need not be known that
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Speaker 1: the artists and the poet teach unconsciously. I was considered
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Speaker 1: an admirable artist and poet, and therefore it was very
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Speaker 1: natural for me to adopt this theory. I artist and
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Speaker 1: poet wrote and taught without myself knowing what for this.
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Speaker 1: I was paid money. I had excellent food, lodging, women
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Speaker 1: and society, and I had fame, which showed that what
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Speaker 1: I taught was very good. This faith in the meaning
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Speaker 1: of poetry and in the development of life was a religion,
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Speaker 1: and I was one of its priests. To be its
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Speaker 1: priest was very pleasant and profitable, and I lived a
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Speaker 1: considerable time in this faith without doubting its validity. But
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Speaker 1: in the second and still more third year of this life,
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Speaker 1: I began to doubt the infallibility of this religion and
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Speaker 1: to examine it. My first cause of doubt was that
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Speaker 1: I began to notice that the priests of this religion
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Speaker 1: were not at all in a court amongst themselves. Some said,
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Speaker 1: we are the best and most useful teachers. We teach
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Speaker 1: what was needed, but the others teach wrongly. Others said, no,
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Speaker 1: we are the real teachers, and you teach wrongly. And
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Speaker 1: they disputed, quarreled, abused, cheated, and tricked one another. There
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Speaker 1: were also many among us who did not care who
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Speaker 1: was right and who was wrong, but were simply bent
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Speaker 1: on attaining their covetous aims by means of this activity
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Speaker 1: of ours. All this obliged me to doubt the validity
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Speaker 1: of our creed. Moreover, having begun to doubt the truth
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Speaker 1: of the authors as create itself, I also began to
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Speaker 1: observe its priests more attentively, and I became convinced that
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Speaker 1: almost all the priests of that religion, the writers were
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Speaker 1: immoral and for the most part meant of bad, worthless character,
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Speaker 1: much inferior to those whom I had met in my
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Speaker 1: former dissipated and military life. But they were self confident
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Speaker 1: and self satisfied, as only they can be who are
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Speaker 1: quite holy, or who do not know what holiness is.
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Speaker 1: These people revolted me. I became revolting to myself, and
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Speaker 1: I realized that that faith was a fraud. But strange
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Speaker 1: to say, though I understood this fraud and renounced it,
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Speaker 1: yet I did not renounce the rank these people gave me,
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Speaker 1: the rank of artist, poet and teacher, and naively imagined
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Speaker 1: that I was a poet and artist and could teach
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Speaker 1: everybody without myself knowing what I was teaching, and acted accordingly.
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Speaker 1: From my intimacy with these men, I acquired a new vice,
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Speaker 1: abnormally developed pride, in an insane assurance that it was
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Speaker 1: my vocation to teach men without knowing what To remember
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Speaker 1: that time in my own state of mind, and that
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Speaker 1: of those men there are thousands like them today is
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Speaker 1: sad and terrible and ludicrous, and arouses exactly the feeling
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Speaker 1: one experience is in a lunatic asylum. We were all
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Speaker 1: then convinced that it was necessary for us to speak, write,
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Speaker 1: and print as quickly as possible, and as much as possible,
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Speaker 1: and that it was all wanted for the good of humanity.
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Speaker 1: And thousands of us, contradicting and abusing one another, all
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Speaker 1: printed and wrote, teaching others, and without noticing that we
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Speaker 1: knew nothing, and that to the simplest of life's questions,
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Speaker 1: what is good and what is evil, we did not
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Speaker 1: know how to reply. We all talked at the same time,
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Speaker 1: not listening to one another, sometimes seconding and praising one
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Speaker 1: another in order to be seconded and praised, and turned
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Speaker 1: sometimes getting angry with one another, just like an a
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Speaker 1: lunatic asylum. Thousands of workmen labored to the extreme limit
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Speaker 1: of their strength, day and night, setting the type and
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Speaker 1: printing millions of words, which the post carried all over Russia.
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Speaker 1: And still we went on teaching, and could in no
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Speaker 1: way find time to teach enough. We were always angry
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Speaker 1: that sufficient attention was not paid to us. It was
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Speaker 1: terribly strange, but now it is quite comprehensible. Our real,
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Speaker 1: innermost concern was to get as much money and praise
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Speaker 1: as possible. To gain that end, we could do nothing
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Speaker 1: except write books and papers. So we did that. But
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Speaker 1: in nor to get such useless work, and to feel
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Speaker 1: assured that we were very important people, we required a
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Speaker 1: theory justifying our activity, and so among us this theory
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Speaker 1: was devised. All that exists as reasonable, all that exists develops,
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Speaker 1: and it all develops by the means of culture, and
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Speaker 1: culture is measured by the circulation of books and newspapers.
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Speaker 1: And we are paid money and are respected because we
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Speaker 1: write books and newspapers, and therefore we are the most
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Speaker 1: useful in the best of men. This theory would have
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Speaker 1: all been very well if we had been unanimous. But
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Speaker 1: as every thought expressed by one of us was always
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Speaker 1: meant by diametrically opposite thought expressed by another, we ought
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Speaker 1: to have been driven to reflection, but we ignored this.
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Speaker 1: People paid us money, and those on our side praised us,
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Speaker 1: so each of us considered himself justified. It is now
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Speaker 1: clear to me that this was just as in a
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Speaker 1: lunatic asylum. But then I only dimly suspected this, and,
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Speaker 1: like all lunatics, simply called all men lunatics except myself.
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Speaker 1: End of chapter two, chapter three of a confession by
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Speaker 1: Leo Tolstoy. So I lived abandoning myself to this insanity
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Speaker 1: for another six years till my marriage. During that time
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Speaker 1: I went abroad life in Europe, and my acquaintance with
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Speaker 1: leading and learned Europeans confirmed me yet more in the
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Speaker 1: faith of striving after perfection in which I believed. For
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Speaker 1: I found the same faith among them. That faith took
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Speaker 1: with me the common form it assumes with the majority
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Speaker 1: of educated people of our day. It was expressed by
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Speaker 1: the word progress. It then appeared to me that this
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Speaker 1: word meant something I did not as yet understand that,
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Speaker 1: being tormented, like every vital man, by the question of
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Speaker 1: how it is best for me to live in my answer,
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Speaker 1: live in conformity with progress. I was like a man
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Speaker 1: in a boat, who, when carried along by wind and waves,
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Speaker 1: should reply to what for him is the chief and
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Speaker 1: only question, whether to steer, by saying we are being
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Speaker 1: carried somewhere. I did not then notice this only occasionally,
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Speaker 1: not by reason, but by instinct. I revolted against this
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Speaker 1: superstition so common in our day, by which people hide
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Speaker 1: from themselves their lack of understanding of life. So For instance,
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Speaker 1: during my stay in Paris, the sight of an execution
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Speaker 1: revealed to me the instability of my superstitious belief in progress.
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Speaker 1: When I saw the head part from the body, and
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Speaker 1: how they thumped separately into the box, I understood not
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Speaker 1: with my mind, but with my whole being, that no
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Speaker 1: theory of the reasonableness of our present progress could justify
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Speaker 1: this deed, and that though everybody from the creation of
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Speaker 1: the world had held it to be necessary on whatever theory,
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Speaker 1: I knew it to be unnecessary in bad And therefore
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Speaker 1: the arbiter of what is good and evil is not
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Speaker 1: the people who say and do, nor is it progress,
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Speaker 1: but is my heart and I. Another instance of a
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Speaker 1: realization that the superstitious belief in progress is insufficient as
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Speaker 1: an guided of life was my brother's death. Wise good, serious.
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Speaker 1: He fell ill while still a young man, suffered for
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Speaker 1: more than a year, and died painfully, not understanding why
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Speaker 1: he had lived, and still less why he had to die.
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Speaker 1: No theories could give me or him any reply to
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Speaker 1: these questions during his slow and painful dying. But these
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Speaker 1: were only rare instances of doubt, and I actually continued
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Speaker 1: to live, professing of faith only in progress, everything evolves,
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Speaker 1: and I evolved with it. And why it is that
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Speaker 1: I evolved with all things will be known some day,
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Speaker 1: so I ought to have formulated my faith at the time.
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Speaker 1: On returning from abroad, I settled in the country and
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Speaker 1: chanced to occupy myself with peasant schools. This work was
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Speaker 1: particularly to my taste, because in it I had not
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Speaker 1: to face the falsity which had been obvious to me
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Speaker 1: and had stared me in the face when I tried
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Speaker 1: to teach the people by literary means. Here also I
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Speaker 1: acted in the name of progress, But I already regarded
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Speaker 1: progress itself critically. I said to myself, in some of
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Speaker 1: its developments, ggress has proceeded wrongly, And with primitive peasant children,
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Speaker 1: one must deal in a spirit of perfect freedom, letting
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Speaker 1: them choose what path of progress they please. In reality,
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Speaker 1: I was ever revolving round one and the same and
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Speaker 1: solvable problem, which was how to teach without knowing what
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Speaker 1: to teach? In the higher spheres of literary activity, I
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Speaker 1: had realized that one could not teach without knowing what,
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Speaker 1: For I saw that people all taught differently, and by
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Speaker 1: quarreling among themselves. Only succeeded in hiding their ignorance from
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Speaker 1: one another. But here with peasant children, I thought to
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Speaker 1: evade this difficulty by letting them learn what they liked.
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Speaker 1: It amuses me now when I remember how I shuffled
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Speaker 1: in trying to satisfy my desire to teach. While in
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Speaker 1: the depth of my soul, I knew very well that
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Speaker 1: I could not teach anything needful, for I did not
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Speaker 1: know what was needful. After spending a year at school work,
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Speaker 1: I went abroad a second time to discover how to
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Speaker 1: teach others while myself knowing nothing. And it seemed to
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Speaker 1: me that I had learned this abroad, And in the
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Speaker 1: year of the peasants's emancipation eighteen sixty one, I returned
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Speaker 1: to Russish, armed with all this wisdom, and having become
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Speaker 1: an arbiter, I began to teach both the uneducated peasants
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Speaker 1: in schools and the educated classes through a magazine I published.
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Speaker 1: Things appeared to be going well, but I felt I
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Speaker 1: was not quite sound mentally, and that matters could not
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Speaker 1: long continue in that way. I should perhaps then have
18:17
Speaker 1: come to the state of despair I reached fifteen years later,
18:20
Speaker 1: had there not been one side of life still unexplored
18:23
Speaker 1: by me, which promised me happiness. That was my marriage.
18:27
Speaker 1: For a year, I busied myself with arbitration work, the
18:30
Speaker 1: schools and the magazine, and I became so worn out
18:33
Speaker 1: as a result, especially in my mental confusion, and so
18:36
Speaker 1: hard was my struggle as arbiter, so obscure the results
18:39
Speaker 1: of my activity in the schools, so repulsive my shuffling
18:42
Speaker 1: in the magazine, which always amounted to one and the
18:44
Speaker 1: same thing I desire to teach everybody, and to hide
18:47
Speaker 1: the fact that I did not know what to teach.
18:49
Speaker 1: That I felt ill mentally, rather than physically, threw up
18:52
Speaker 1: everything and went away to the bashkirs and the steps
18:55
Speaker 1: to breathe fresh air, drink kumis, and live a merely
18:58
Speaker 1: animal life. Returning from there I married. The new conditions
19:02
Speaker 1: of happy family life completely diverted me from all search
19:05
Speaker 1: for the general meaning of life. My whole life was
19:08
Speaker 1: centered at that time in my family, wife and children.
19:11
Speaker 1: And therefore, in care to increase our means of livelihood,
19:15
Speaker 1: my striving after self perfection, for which I had already
19:18
Speaker 1: substituted as striving for perfection in general, I e. Progress,
19:22
Speaker 1: was now again replaced by the effort simply to secure
19:24
Speaker 1: the best possible conditions for myself and my family. So
19:28
Speaker 1: another fifteen years passed in spite of the fact that
19:32
Speaker 1: I now regarded authorship as of no importance, the temptation
19:35
Speaker 1: of immense monetary rewards and the applause for my insignificant work,
19:39
Speaker 1: and I devoted myself to it as a means of
19:41
Speaker 1: improving my material position, or of stifling in my soul
19:44
Speaker 1: all questions as to the meaning of my own life
19:47
Speaker 1: or life in general. I wrote, teaching what was for
19:50
Speaker 1: me the only truth, namely that one should live so
19:53
Speaker 1: as to have the best for oneself in one's family.
19:56
Speaker 1: So I lived. But five years ago something very strange
19:59
Speaker 1: began to happen to me. At first, I experienced moments
20:02
Speaker 1: of perplexity and the rest of life as though I
20:05
Speaker 1: did not know what to do or how to live,
20:07
Speaker 1: and I felt lost and became dejected. But this passed,
20:10
Speaker 1: and I went on living as before. Then, these moments
20:13
Speaker 1: of perplexity began to recur, oftener and oftener, and always
20:17
Speaker 1: in the same form. They were always expressed by the
20:20
Speaker 1: questions what is it for? What does it lead to?
20:23
Speaker 1: At first, it seemed to me that these were aimless
20:25
Speaker 1: and irrelevant questions. I thought that it was all well
20:28
Speaker 1: known that if I should ever wish to deal with
20:31
Speaker 1: the solution, it would not cost me much effort. Just
20:33
Speaker 1: at present I had no time for it. But when
20:36
Speaker 1: I wanted to, I should be able to find the answer.
20:39
Speaker 1: The questions, however, began to repeat themselves more frequently, and
20:42
Speaker 1: to demand replies more and more insistently, and like drops
20:46
Speaker 1: of ink always falling on one place, they ran together
20:48
Speaker 1: into one black blot. Then occurred what happens to everyone
20:52
Speaker 1: sickening with immortal internal disease. At first, trivial signs of
20:56
Speaker 1: indisposition appeared, to which the sick man pays no attention.
21:00
Speaker 1: Then these signs reappear more and more often and merge
21:03
Speaker 1: into one uninterrupted period of suffering. The suffering increases, and
21:07
Speaker 1: before the sick man can look round, what he took
21:10
Speaker 1: for a mere indisposition has already become more important to
21:13
Speaker 1: him than anything else in the world. It is death,
21:16
Speaker 1: that is what happened to me. I understood that it
21:19
Speaker 1: was no casual indisposition, but something very important, and that
21:23
Speaker 1: if these questions constantly repeated themselves, they would have to
21:26
Speaker 1: be answered, and I tried to answer them. The question
21:29
Speaker 1: seemed such stupid, simple, childish ones. But as soon as
21:32
Speaker 1: I touched them and tried to solve them, I at
21:35
Speaker 1: once became convinced, first that they are not childish and stupid,
21:38
Speaker 1: but the most important and profound of life's questions. And
21:41
Speaker 1: secondly that occupying myself with my Samara estate, the education
21:46
Speaker 1: of my son, or the writing of a book, I
21:48
Speaker 1: had to know why I was doing it. As long
21:50
Speaker 1: as I did not know why, I could do nothing
21:52
Speaker 1: and could not live amid the thoughts of a state management,
21:56
Speaker 1: which greatly occupied me at that time, the question would
21:59
Speaker 1: suddenly occur, well, you will have six thousand distangyatinas of
22:03
Speaker 1: land in the Samara government and three hundred horses and what? Then?
22:07
Speaker 1: I was quite disconcerted and did not know what to think.
22:10
Speaker 1: Or when considering plans for the education of my children,
22:13
Speaker 1: I would ask myself what for? Or when considering how
22:17
Speaker 1: the peasants might become prosperous, I would suddenly say to myself,
22:20
Speaker 1: but what does it matter to me? Or when thinking
22:23
Speaker 1: of the fame my works would bring me, I would
22:25
Speaker 1: say to myself, very well, you will be more famous
22:28
Speaker 1: than Gogo or Pushkin, or Shakespeare, Molaire, or than all
22:31
Speaker 1: the writers in the world, and what of it? And
22:33
Speaker 1: I could find no reply at all. The questions would
22:36
Speaker 1: not wait. They had to be answered at once, and
22:39
Speaker 1: if I did not answer them, it was impossible to live.
22:42
Speaker 1: But there was no answer. I felt that what I
22:44
Speaker 1: had been standing on had collapsed, and that I had
22:47
Speaker 1: nothing left under my feet. What I had lived on
22:50
Speaker 1: no longer existed, and there was nothing left end of
22:54
Speaker 1: chapter three, chapter four of a confession by Leo Tolstoy.
23:05
Speaker 1: My life came to a standstill. I could breathe, eat, drink,
23:09
Speaker 1: and sleep, and I could not help doing these things.
23:11
Speaker 1: But there was no life, for there were no wishes
23:13
Speaker 1: the fulfillment of which I could consider reasonable. If I
23:16
Speaker 1: desired anything, I knew in advance that whether I satisfied
23:19
Speaker 1: my desire or not, nothing would come of it. Had
23:22
Speaker 1: a very common offer to fulfill my desires, I should
23:25
Speaker 1: not have known what to ask if, in moments of
23:28
Speaker 1: intoxication I felt something which, though not a wish, was
23:31
Speaker 1: a habit left by former wishes. In sober moments, I
23:34
Speaker 1: knew this to be a delusion, and that there was
23:36
Speaker 1: really nothing to wish, for I could not even wish
23:39
Speaker 1: to know the truth, for I guessed of what it consisted.
23:42
Speaker 1: The truth was that life is meaningless. I had, as
23:45
Speaker 1: it were, lived, lived and walked, walked till I had
23:48
Speaker 1: come to the precipice and seen clearly that there was
23:50
Speaker 1: nothing ahead of me but destruction. It was impossible to stop,
23:54
Speaker 1: impossible to go back, and impossible to close my eyes
23:57
Speaker 1: or avoid seeing that there was nothing ahead but so
24:00
Speaker 1: and real death, complete annihilation. It had come to this
24:04
Speaker 1: that I, a healthy, fortunate man, felt I could no
24:07
Speaker 1: longer live. Some irresistible power impelled me to rid myself,
24:11
Speaker 1: one way or the other of life. I cannot say
24:13
Speaker 1: I wished to kill myself. The power which drew me
24:16
Speaker 1: away from life was stronger, fuller, and more widespread than
24:19
Speaker 1: any mere wish. It was a force similar to the
24:22
Speaker 1: former striving to live, only in a contrary direction. All
24:26
Speaker 1: my strength drew me away from life. The thought of
24:29
Speaker 1: self destruction now came to me as naturally as thoughts
24:32
Speaker 1: of how to improve my life had come formerly. And
24:34
Speaker 1: it was seductive that I had to be cutting with
24:36
Speaker 1: myself lest I should carry it out too. Hastily. I
24:39
Speaker 1: did not wish to hurry, because I wanted to use
24:42
Speaker 1: all efforts to disentangle the matter. If I cannot unravel matters,
24:45
Speaker 1: there will always be time. And it was then that I,
24:48
Speaker 1: a man favored by fortune, hit a chord for myself.
24:51
Speaker 1: Lest I should hang myself from the cross piece of
24:53
Speaker 1: the partition in my room where I undressed alone every evening,
24:56
Speaker 1: and I ceased to go out shooting with a gun,
24:59
Speaker 1: lest I should be tempted by so easy a way
25:01
Speaker 1: of ending my life. I did not myself know what
25:04
Speaker 1: I wanted. I feared life, desired to escape from it,
25:07
Speaker 1: and yet still hoped something of it. And all this
25:10
Speaker 1: befell me at a time when all around me I
25:12
Speaker 1: had what is considered complete good fortune. I was not
25:15
Speaker 1: yet fifty. I had a good wife who loved me
25:17
Speaker 1: and whom I loved, good children, and a large estate, which,
25:20
Speaker 1: without much effort on my part, improved and increased. I
25:23
Speaker 1: was respected by my relations and acquaintances more than at
25:26
Speaker 1: any previous time. I was praised by others, and without
25:29
Speaker 1: much self deception, could consider that my name was famous,
25:33
Speaker 1: and far from being insane or mentally diseased, I enjoyed,
25:36
Speaker 1: on the contrary, a strength of mind and body such
25:39
Speaker 1: as I had seldom met among men of my kind. Physically,
25:42
Speaker 1: I could keep up with the peasants at mowing, and
25:44
Speaker 1: mentally I could work for eight and ten hours at
25:46
Speaker 1: a stretch without experiencing any ill results from such exertion.
25:50
Speaker 1: And in this situation I came to this that I
25:53
Speaker 1: could not live, and, fearing death, had to employ cunning
25:55
Speaker 1: with myself to avoid taking my own life. My mental
25:59
Speaker 1: condition presented itself to me in this way. My life
26:02
Speaker 1: is a stupid and spiteful joke someone has played on me.
26:05
Speaker 1: Though I did not acknowledge a someone who created me,
26:08
Speaker 1: Yet such a presentation that someone had played an evil
26:11
Speaker 1: and stupid joke on me by placing me in this
26:14
Speaker 1: world was the form of expression that suggested itself most
26:17
Speaker 1: naturally to me. Involuntarily. It appeared to me that there
26:21
Speaker 1: somewhere was someone who amused himself by watching how I
26:23
Speaker 1: lived for thirty or forty years, learning, developing, maturing in
26:27
Speaker 1: body and mind, and now having with matured mental powers,
26:31
Speaker 1: reached the summit of life from which it all lay
26:33
Speaker 1: before me. I stood on that summit like an arch fool,
26:36
Speaker 1: seeing clearly that there was nothing in life, and that
26:39
Speaker 1: there has been and will be nothing. And he was amused.
26:43
Speaker 1: But whether that someone laughing at me existed or not,
26:46
Speaker 1: I was none the better off. I could give no
26:48
Speaker 1: reasonable meaning to any single action, or to my whole life.
26:52
Speaker 1: I was only surprised that I could have avoided understanding
26:54
Speaker 1: this from the very beginning. It had been so long
26:57
Speaker 1: known to all. Today or tomorrow, sickness and death will come.
27:01
Speaker 1: They had come already to those I love or to me.
27:04
Speaker 1: Nothing will remain but stench and worms. Sooner or later
27:07
Speaker 1: my affairs, whatever they may be, will be forgotten, and
27:11
Speaker 1: I shall not exist. Then why go on making any effort?
27:14
Speaker 1: How can man fail to see this? And how to
27:17
Speaker 1: go on living? That is what is surprising. One can
27:21
Speaker 1: only live while one is intoxicated with life. As soon
27:24
Speaker 1: as one is sober, it is impossible not to see
27:26
Speaker 1: that it is all mere fraud, and a stupid fraud.
27:29
Speaker 1: That is precisely what it is. There is nothing either
27:32
Speaker 1: amusing or witty about it. It is simply cruel and stupid.
27:36
Speaker 1: There is an Eastern fable told long ago of a
27:39
Speaker 1: traveler overtaken on a plane by an enraged beast. Escaping
27:42
Speaker 1: from the beast, he gets into a dry well, but
27:45
Speaker 1: sees at the bottom of the well a dragon that
27:47
Speaker 1: has opened his jaws to swallow him, And the unfortunate man,
27:51
Speaker 1: not daring to climb out lest he should be destroyed
27:53
Speaker 1: by the enraged beast, and not daring to leap to
27:55
Speaker 1: the bottom of the well lest he should be eaten
27:57
Speaker 1: by the dragon, seizes a twig growing in the wall
28:00
Speaker 1: and clings to it. His hands are growing weaker, and
28:03
Speaker 1: he feels that he will soon have to resign himself
28:05
Speaker 1: to the destruction that awaits him above or below, but
28:08
Speaker 1: still he clings on. Then he sees that two mice,
28:12
Speaker 1: a black one and a white one, go regularly around
28:15
Speaker 1: and round the stem of the twig to which he
28:17
Speaker 1: is clinging and gnaw at it, and as soon as
28:19
Speaker 1: the twig itself will snap, he will fall into the
28:21
Speaker 1: dragon's jaws. The traveler sees this and knows that he
28:25
Speaker 1: will inevitably perish, But while still hanging on, he looks around,
28:28
Speaker 1: sees some drop of honey on the leaves of the twig,
28:31
Speaker 1: reaches to them with his tongue and licks them. So
28:34
Speaker 1: I too, clung to the twig of life, knowing that
28:37
Speaker 1: the dragon of death was inevitably awaiting me, ready to
28:40
Speaker 1: tear me to pieces. And I could not understand why
28:42
Speaker 1: I had fallen into such torment. I tried to lick
28:45
Speaker 1: the honey, which formally consoled me, but the honey no
28:48
Speaker 1: longer gave me pleasure, and the white and black mice
28:50
Speaker 1: of day and night gnawed at the branch by which
28:53
Speaker 1: I hung. I saw the dragon clearly, and the honey
28:56
Speaker 1: no longer tasted sweet. I only saw the inescapable dragon
29:00
Speaker 1: and the mice, and I could not tear my gaze
29:02
Speaker 1: from them. And this is not a fable, but the real,
29:05
Speaker 1: unanswerable truth, intelligible to all. The deception of the joys
29:09
Speaker 1: of life, which formerly allayed my terror of the dragon,
29:12
Speaker 1: now no longer deceived me, no matter how often I
29:15
Speaker 1: may be told, you cannot understand the meaning of life,
29:18
Speaker 1: so do not think about it, but live. I can
29:20
Speaker 1: no longer do it. I have already done it too long.
29:24
Speaker 1: I cannot now help seeing day and night going round
29:27
Speaker 1: and bringing me to death. That is all I see,
29:30
Speaker 1: For that alone is true. All else is false. The
29:34
Speaker 1: two drops of honey which diverted my eyes from the
29:36
Speaker 1: cruel truth longer than the rest. My love of family
29:39
Speaker 1: and of writing art, as I called it, were no
29:42
Speaker 1: longer sweet to me. Family, I said to myself. But
29:45
Speaker 1: my family, wife and children are also human. They are
29:49
Speaker 1: placed just as I am. They must either live in
29:51
Speaker 1: a lie or see the terrible truth. Why should they live?
29:55
Speaker 1: Why should I love them, guard them, bring them up,
29:57
Speaker 1: or watch them that they may come to the dis
30:00
Speaker 1: fear that I feel, or else be stupid loving them?
30:03
Speaker 1: I cannot hide the truth from them. Each step in
30:05
Speaker 1: knowledge leads them to the truth, and the truth is death.
30:09
Speaker 1: Art poetry, under the influence of success and the praise
30:13
Speaker 1: of men. I had long assured myself that this was
30:16
Speaker 1: the thing one could do, though death was drawing near death,
30:19
Speaker 1: which destroys all things, including my work and its remembrance.
30:22
Speaker 1: But soon I saw that it too was a fraud.
30:25
Speaker 1: It was plain to me that art is an adornment
30:27
Speaker 1: of life, in a worment to life. But life had
30:30
Speaker 1: lost its attraction for me. So how could I attract others?
30:33
Speaker 1: As long as I was not living my own life
30:36
Speaker 1: but was born on the waves of some other life.
30:38
Speaker 1: As long as I believed that life had a meaning,
30:40
Speaker 1: Though one I could not express the reflection of life,
30:43
Speaker 1: and poetry and art of all kinds afforded me pleasure.
30:46
Speaker 1: It was pleasant to look at life in the mirror
30:48
Speaker 1: of art. But when I began to seek the meaning
30:51
Speaker 1: of life and felt the necessity of living my own life,
30:53
Speaker 1: that mirror became for me unnecessary, superfluous, ridiculous, or painful.
30:58
Speaker 1: I could no longer soothe myself with what I now
31:00
Speaker 1: saw in the mirror, namely that my position was stupid
31:03
Speaker 1: and desperate. It was all very well to enjoy the sight,
31:06
Speaker 1: when in the depth of my soul I believed that
31:08
Speaker 1: my life had a meaning. Then the play of lights, comic, tragic, touching,
31:13
Speaker 1: beautiful and terrible in life amused me. No sweetness of
31:17
Speaker 1: honey could be sweet to me when I saw the
31:19
Speaker 1: dragon and saw the mice gnawing away my support. Nor
31:22
Speaker 1: was that all. Had I simply understood that life had
31:25
Speaker 1: no meaning, I could have borne it quietly, knowing that
31:28
Speaker 1: that was my lot. But I could not satisfy myself
31:31
Speaker 1: with that. Had I been like a man living in
31:34
Speaker 1: a wood from which he knows there is no exit,
31:36
Speaker 1: I could have lived. But I was like when lost
31:38
Speaker 1: in a wood, who horrified at having lost his way,
31:41
Speaker 1: rushes about, wishing to find the road. He knows that
31:45
Speaker 1: each step he takes confuses him more and more, but
31:47
Speaker 1: still he cannot help rushing about. It was indeed terrible,
31:51
Speaker 1: and to rid myself with the terror, I wished to
31:54
Speaker 1: kill myself. I experienced terror at what awaited me. Knew
31:58
Speaker 1: that the terror was even worse than the position I
32:00
Speaker 1: was in. But still I could not patiently await the end.
32:04
Speaker 1: However convincing. The argument might be that in any case,
32:07
Speaker 1: some vessel in my heart would give way, or something
32:09
Speaker 1: would burst, and all would be over. I could not
32:12
Speaker 1: patiently await that end. The horror of darkness was too great,
32:16
Speaker 1: and I wished to free myself of it as quickly
32:18
Speaker 1: as possible by newser bullet. That was the feeling which
32:21
Speaker 1: drew me most strongly towards suicide. End of chapter four,
32:30
Speaker 1: Chapter five of a confession by Leo Tolstoi. But perhaps
32:34
Speaker 1: I have overlooked something or misunderstood something. I said to
32:37
Speaker 1: myself several times. It cannot be to this condition of
32:40
Speaker 1: despair as natural to man, and I sought for an
32:43
Speaker 1: explanation of these problems in all the branches of knowledge
32:46
Speaker 1: acquired by man, not from idle curiosity or listlessly, but
32:51
Speaker 1: painfully and persistently day and night. Sought as a perishing
32:54
Speaker 1: man seeks for safety, and I found nothing. I sought
32:58
Speaker 1: in all the sciences, but far from finding what I wanted,
33:02
Speaker 1: became convinced that all who, like myself, had sought knowledge
33:05
Speaker 1: for the meaning of life had found nothing. And not
33:08
Speaker 1: only had they found nothing, but they had plainly acknowledged
33:11
Speaker 1: that the very thing which made me despair, namely the
33:14
Speaker 1: senselessness of all life, is the one indubitable thing that
33:17
Speaker 1: man cannot know. I sought everywhere, and thanks to a
33:22
Speaker 1: life spent in learning, and thanks also to my relations
33:24
Speaker 1: with the scholarly world, I had access to scientists and
33:27
Speaker 1: scholars in all branches of knowledge, and they readily showed
33:31
Speaker 1: me all their knowledge, not only in books, but also
33:33
Speaker 1: in conversation, so that I had at my disposal all
33:36
Speaker 1: that science has to say on this question of life.
33:39
Speaker 1: I was long unable to believe that it gives no
33:41
Speaker 1: other reply to life's questions than that which it actually
33:44
Speaker 1: does give. It long seemed to me when I saw
33:47
Speaker 1: the important and serious air with which science announces its conclusions,
33:51
Speaker 1: which have nothing in common with the real questions of
33:53
Speaker 1: human life, that there was something I had not understood.
33:57
Speaker 1: I long was timid before science, and it seemed to
33:59
Speaker 1: me that the lack of conformity between the answers and
34:02
Speaker 1: my questions arose not by the fault of science, but
34:05
Speaker 1: for my own ignorance. But the matter was for me
34:08
Speaker 1: not a game or an amusement, but one of life
34:10
Speaker 1: and death. And I was involuntarily brought to the conviction
34:13
Speaker 1: that my questions were the only legitimate ones forming the
34:16
Speaker 1: basis of all knowledge, and that I, with my questions,
34:19
Speaker 1: was not to blame but science if it pretends to
34:22
Speaker 1: reply to those questions. My question, that which at the
34:25
Speaker 1: age of fifty brought me to the verge of suicide,
34:28
Speaker 1: was the simplest of questions, lying in the soul of
34:31
Speaker 1: every man, from the fooleest child to the wisest elder.
34:34
Speaker 1: It was a question without an answer to which one
34:36
Speaker 1: cannot live. As I had found by experience, it was
34:40
Speaker 1: what will come of what I am doing today or
34:42
Speaker 1: shall do tomorrow? What will come of my whole life?
34:46
Speaker 1: Differently expressed, the question is why should I live? Why
34:50
Speaker 1: wish for anything or do anything? It can also be expressed, thus,
34:54
Speaker 1: is there any meaning in my life that the inevitable
34:56
Speaker 1: death awaiting me does not destroy? To this one question,
35:00
Speaker 1: variously expressed, I sought an answer in science, and I
35:04
Speaker 1: found that, in relation to that question, all human knowledge
35:07
Speaker 1: is divided, as it were, into two opposite hemispheres, at
35:10
Speaker 1: the end of which there are two poles, the one
35:13
Speaker 1: the negative and the other a positive. But that neither
35:16
Speaker 1: at the one pole nor the other is the answer
35:18
Speaker 1: to life's questions. The one series of sciences seems not
35:22
Speaker 1: to recognize the question, but replies clearly and exactly to
35:26
Speaker 1: its own independent questions. This is a series of experimental sciences.
35:30
Speaker 1: At the extreme end of it stands mathematics. The other
35:33
Speaker 1: series of sciences recognizes a question but does not answer it.
35:37
Speaker 1: That is a series of abstract sciences. At the extreme
35:40
Speaker 1: end of it stands metaphysics. From early youth I had
35:44
Speaker 1: been interested in the abstract sciences, But later the mathematical
35:48
Speaker 1: and natural science has attracted me. And until I put
35:50
Speaker 1: my question definitely to myself, until that question itself had
35:54
Speaker 1: grown up within me urgently demanding a decision, I contented
35:58
Speaker 1: myself with those counterfeit answers which skiffs now in the
36:01
Speaker 1: experimental sphere, I said to myself, everything develops and differentiates itself,
36:06
Speaker 1: moving towards complexity and perfection, and there are laws directing
36:10
Speaker 1: this movement. You are part of a whole. Having learned
36:14
Speaker 1: as far as possible, the whole, and having learned the
36:16
Speaker 1: law of evolution, you will understand also your place in
36:19
Speaker 1: the whole, and will know yourself. Ashamed as I am
36:23
Speaker 1: to confess it, there was a time when I seemed
36:25
Speaker 1: satisfied with that. It was just the time when I
36:28
Speaker 1: was myself becoming more complex and was developing. My muscles
36:31
Speaker 1: were growing and strengthening, my memory was being enriched, my
36:34
Speaker 1: capacity to think and understand was increasing. I was growing
36:38
Speaker 1: and developing, and feeling this growth in myself. It was
36:41
Speaker 1: natural for me to think that such was the universal
36:43
Speaker 1: law in which I should find the solution of the
36:46
Speaker 1: question of my life. But a time came when the
36:49
Speaker 1: growth within me ceased. I felt that I was not
36:51
Speaker 1: developing but fading. My muscles were weakening, my teeth falling out,
36:56
Speaker 1: and I saw that the law not only did not
36:58
Speaker 1: explain anything to me, but that there had never been,
37:00
Speaker 1: nor could be, such a law, and that I had
37:02
Speaker 1: taken for a law what I had found in myself.
37:04
Speaker 1: At a certain period in my life, I regarded the
37:07
Speaker 1: definition of that law more strictly, and it became clear
37:10
Speaker 1: to me that there could be no law of endless development.
37:13
Speaker 1: It became clear that to say, in infinite space and time,
37:16
Speaker 1: everything develops, becomes more perfect, and more complex, is differentiated,
37:21
Speaker 1: is to say nothing at all. These are words with
37:23
Speaker 1: no meaning, for in the infinite there is neither complex
37:26
Speaker 1: nor simple, neither forward nor backward, nor better nor worse.
37:30
Speaker 1: Above all, my personal question what am I with my
37:33
Speaker 1: desires remained quite unanswered, And I understood that those sciences
37:37
Speaker 1: are very interesting and attractive, but that they are exact
37:40
Speaker 1: and queer in inverse proportion to their applicability to the
37:43
Speaker 1: question of life. The less their applicability to the question
37:46
Speaker 1: of life, the more exact and queer they are, While
37:49
Speaker 1: the more they try to reply to the question of life,
37:51
Speaker 1: the more obscure and unattractive they become. If one turns
37:54
Speaker 1: to the division of sciences which attempts to reply to
37:57
Speaker 1: the questions of life, to physiology, psychology, biology, sociology, one
38:02
Speaker 1: encounters an appalling poverty of thought. The greatest obscurity a
38:06
Speaker 1: quite unjustifiable pretension to solve irrelevant questions, and a continual
38:10
Speaker 1: contradiction of each authority by others and even by himself.
38:14
Speaker 1: If one turns to the branches of science, which are
38:17
Speaker 1: not concerned with the solution to the questions of life,
38:19
Speaker 1: but which reply to their own specific scientific questions, one
38:23
Speaker 1: is enraptured by the power of man's mind. But one
38:26
Speaker 1: knows in advance that they give no reply to life's questions.
38:29
Speaker 1: Those sciences simply ignore life's questions. They say, to the
38:33
Speaker 1: question of what you are and why you live, we
38:35
Speaker 1: have no reply and are not occupied with that. But
38:38
Speaker 1: if you want to know the laws of light, of
38:40
Speaker 1: chemical compositions, of the laws of development of organisms, if
38:44
Speaker 1: you want to know the laws of bodies in their form,
38:46
Speaker 1: and the relation of numbers and quantities, if you want
38:49
Speaker 1: to know the laws of your mind, to all of that,
38:51
Speaker 1: we have clear, exact and unquestionable replies. In general, the
38:56
Speaker 1: relation of the experimental sciences to life's question may be
39:00
Speaker 1: expressed thus question why do I live? Answer? In infinite
39:05
Speaker 1: space and infinite time, Infinitely small particles change their forms
39:09
Speaker 1: in infinite complexity, And when you have understood the laws
39:12
Speaker 1: of these mutations of form, you will understand why you
39:15
Speaker 1: live on earth. Then, in the sphere of abstract science,
39:19
Speaker 1: I said to myself, all humanity lives and develops on
39:22
Speaker 1: the basis of spiritual principles and ideals which guide it.
39:25
Speaker 1: Those ideals are expressed in religions and sciences, and arts
39:29
Speaker 1: and in forms of government. Those ideals become more and
39:32
Speaker 1: more elevated, and humanity advances to the highest welfare. I
39:37
Speaker 1: am part of humanity, and therefore my vocation is to
39:40
Speaker 1: forward the recognition and the realization of the ideals of humanity.
39:44
Speaker 1: And at the time of my weak mindedness, I was
39:46
Speaker 1: satisfied with that. But as soon as the question of
39:49
Speaker 1: life presented itself clearer to me, those theories immediately crumbled away.
39:53
Speaker 1: Not to speak of the unscrupulous obscurity with which those
39:56
Speaker 1: sciences announce conclusions formed on the study of a small
40:00
Speaker 1: all part of mankind as general conclusions, not to speak
40:03
Speaker 1: of the mutual contradictions of different adherents of this view
40:06
Speaker 1: as to what the ideals of humanity are. The strangeness,
40:10
Speaker 1: not to say stupidity, of the theory consists in the
40:12
Speaker 1: fact that, in order to reply to the question facing
40:15
Speaker 1: each man, What am I? Or why do I live?
40:17
Speaker 1: Or what must I do? One must first decide the
40:20
Speaker 1: question what is the life of the whole, which is
40:23
Speaker 1: to him unknown, and of which he is acquainted with
40:25
Speaker 1: one tiny part in one minute of time. To understand
40:29
Speaker 1: what he is, one man must first understand all this
40:31
Speaker 1: mysterious humanity consisting of people such as himself, who do
40:35
Speaker 1: not understand one another. I have to confess that there
40:39
Speaker 1: was a time when I believed this. It was the
40:42
Speaker 1: time when I had my own favorite ideals justifying my
40:44
Speaker 1: own caprices, and I was trying to devise a theory
40:47
Speaker 1: which would allow one to consider my caprices as the
40:50
Speaker 1: laws of humanity. But as soon as the question of
40:53
Speaker 1: life arose in my soul in full clearness, that reply
40:56
Speaker 1: at once fell to dust, and I understood that, as
40:59
Speaker 1: in the ex experimental sciences, there are real sciences and
41:02
Speaker 1: semi sciences which try to give answers to questions beyond
41:05
Speaker 1: their competence. So in this sphere there is a whole
41:08
Speaker 1: series of the most diffuse sciences which try to apply
41:11
Speaker 1: to irrelevant questions semi sciences of that kind. The judicial
41:16
Speaker 1: and social historical endeavor to solve the questions of man's
41:19
Speaker 1: life by pretending to decide each in its own way,
41:22
Speaker 1: the questions of the life of all humanity. But as
41:26
Speaker 1: in the sphere of man's experimental knowledge, one who sincerely
41:29
Speaker 1: enquires how he is to live cannot be satisfied with
41:32
Speaker 1: the reply. Study an endless space, the mutations infinite in
41:36
Speaker 1: time and incomplexity of innumerable atoms, and then you will
41:39
Speaker 1: understand your life. So also a sincere man can't be
41:43
Speaker 1: satisfied with the reply. Study the whole life of humanity,
41:46
Speaker 1: which we cannot either know the beginning or the end,
41:49
Speaker 1: or which we shall not even know a small part,
41:51
Speaker 1: and then you will understand your own life. Unlike the
41:54
Speaker 1: experimental semi sciences, So these other semi sciences are the
41:58
Speaker 1: more filled with obscurities in exactitudes, stupidities, and contradictions, the
42:03
Speaker 1: further they diverge from the real problems. The problem of
42:06
Speaker 1: experimental science is the sequence of cause and effect in
42:09
Speaker 1: material phenomena. It is only necessary for experimental science to
42:13
Speaker 1: introduce the question of a final cause for it to
42:15
Speaker 1: become nonsensical. The problem of abstract science is the recognition
42:20
Speaker 1: of the primordial essence of life. It is only necessary
42:23
Speaker 1: to introduce the investigation of consequential phenomena such as the
42:27
Speaker 1: social and historical phenomena, and it also becomes nonsensical. Experimental
42:32
Speaker 1: science only then gives positive knowledge and displays the greatness
42:36
Speaker 1: of the human mind when it does not introduce into
42:38
Speaker 1: its investigations the questions of the ultimate cause. And on
42:42
Speaker 1: the contrary, abstract science is only then science and displays
42:46
Speaker 1: the greatness of the human mind when it can put
42:48
Speaker 1: quite aside the questions relating to the consequential causes of
42:51
Speaker 1: phenomena and regards man's solely in relation to the ultimate cause.
42:56
Speaker 1: Such in this realm of science, forming the pole of
42:59
Speaker 1: the sphere is metaphysics or philosophy that science states the
43:03
Speaker 1: question clearly, what am I? And what is the universe?
43:06
Speaker 1: And why do I exist? And why does the universe exist?
43:10
Speaker 1: And since it has existed? It is always replied in
43:12
Speaker 1: the same way. Whether the philosopher calls the essence of
43:16
Speaker 1: life existing within me and all that exists by the
43:18
Speaker 1: name of idea or substance or spirit or will, he
43:22
Speaker 1: says one and the same thing, that this essence exists,
43:25
Speaker 1: and that I am of the same essence. But why
43:27
Speaker 1: it is he does not know and does not say.
43:30
Speaker 1: If he's an exact thinker, I ask why should this
43:33
Speaker 1: essence exist? What results from the fact that it is
43:36
Speaker 1: and will be? And philosophy not merely does not reply,
43:39
Speaker 1: but is itself only asking that question? And if it
43:42
Speaker 1: is real philosophy all its labor lies and merely trying
43:45
Speaker 1: to put that question clearly, And if it keeps firmly
43:49
Speaker 1: to its task, it cannot reply to that question. Otherwise
43:52
Speaker 1: than thus what am I? And what is the universe?
43:55
Speaker 1: All in all nothing? And to the question why by
43:58
Speaker 1: I don't know? So that, however I may turn these
44:01
Speaker 1: replies of philosophy, I can never obtain anything like an answer,
44:05
Speaker 1: and not because, as in the clear experimental sphere, the
44:08
Speaker 1: reply does not relate to my question, but because here,
44:11
Speaker 1: though all the mental work is directed just to my question,
44:14
Speaker 1: there is no answer. But instead of an answer, one
44:17
Speaker 1: gets the same question only in a complex form. End
44:21
Speaker 1: of chapter five, chapter six of a confession by Leo Tolstoy.
44:32
Speaker 1: In My search for Answers to Life's questions, I experience
44:35
Speaker 1: just what is felt by a man lost in a forest.
44:38
Speaker 1: He reaches a glade, climbs a tree, and clearly sees
44:41
Speaker 1: the limitless distance, but sees that his home is not
44:44
Speaker 1: and cannot be there. And he goes into the dark
44:46
Speaker 1: wood and sees darkness, but there also his home is not.
44:50
Speaker 1: So I wandered in that wood of human knowledge, amid
44:53
Speaker 1: the gleams of mathematical and experimental science, which showed me
44:56
Speaker 1: clear horizons, but in a direction where there could be
44:58
Speaker 1: no home, also amid the darkness of abstract sciences, where
45:03
Speaker 1: I was immersed in a deeper gloom. The further I went,
45:05
Speaker 1: and where I finally convinced myself that there was and
45:07
Speaker 1: could be no exit, yielding myself to the bright side
45:10
Speaker 1: of knowledge, I understood that I was only diverting my
45:13
Speaker 1: gaze from the question, however alluringly clear those horizons which
45:17
Speaker 1: opened before me might be, however alluring it might be
45:20
Speaker 1: to immerse oneself in the limitless expanse of those sciences.
45:23
Speaker 1: I also understood that the clearer they were, the less
45:25
Speaker 1: they meant my need, and the less they applied to
45:27
Speaker 1: my question. I know, I said to myself, what science
45:31
Speaker 1: so persistently tries to discover? And along that road there
45:35
Speaker 1: is no reply to the question as to the meaning
45:37
Speaker 1: of my life. In the abstract sphere. I understood that,
45:40
Speaker 1: notwithstanding the fact, or just because of the fact, that
45:42
Speaker 1: the direct aim of science is to reply to my question,
45:45
Speaker 1: there is no reply but that which I myself had
45:47
Speaker 1: been given. What is the meaning of my life? There
45:50
Speaker 1: is none? Or what will come of my life? Nothing?
45:53
Speaker 1: Or why does everything exist? That exists? And why do
45:56
Speaker 1: I exist? Because it exists? For one region of human knowledge,
46:01
Speaker 1: I received an innumerable quantity of exact replies concerning matters
46:05
Speaker 1: about which I had not asked, About the chemical constituents
46:08
Speaker 1: of the stars, about the movements of the sun towards
46:10
Speaker 1: the constellation hercules, about the origin of species and of man,
46:14
Speaker 1: about the forms of infinitely minute, imponderable particles of ether.
46:18
Speaker 1: But in this sphere of knowledge, the only answer to
46:20
Speaker 1: my question what is the meaning of my life? Was?
46:23
Speaker 1: You are what you call your life. You are a transitory,
46:26
Speaker 1: casual cohesion of particles. The mutual interactions and changes of
46:30
Speaker 1: these particles produce in you what you call your life.
46:33
Speaker 1: That cohesion will last some time. Afterwards, the interaction of
46:36
Speaker 1: these particles will cease, and what you call life will cease,
46:39
Speaker 1: and so will all your questions. You are an accidentally
46:42
Speaker 1: united little lump of something that little lump ferments. The
46:45
Speaker 1: little lump calls that fermenting its life, the lump will disintegrate,
46:49
Speaker 1: and there will be an end to the fermenting and
46:51
Speaker 1: of all the questions. So answers the queer side of science,
46:54
Speaker 1: and cannot answer otherwise if it strictly follows its principles.
46:58
Speaker 1: From such a reply, once that the reply does not
47:01
Speaker 1: answer the question I want to know the meaning of
47:04
Speaker 1: my life, but that it is a fragment of the infinite,
47:06
Speaker 1: far from giving a meaning, destroys every possible meaning. The
47:10
Speaker 1: obscure compromises which that side of the experimental, exact science
47:13
Speaker 1: makes with the abstract science when it says that the
47:16
Speaker 1: meaning of life consists in development and cooperation with development,
47:19
Speaker 1: owing to their inexactness and obscurity, cannot be considered as
47:22
Speaker 1: replies the other side of science, the abstract side, when
47:26
Speaker 1: it holds strictly to its principles, replying directly to the
47:29
Speaker 1: question and in all ages, has replied in one in
47:31
Speaker 1: the same way, the world is something infinite, an incomprehensible
47:35
Speaker 1: part of that incomprehensible. All Again, I exclude all those
47:39
Speaker 1: compromises between abstract and experimental sciences, which supply the whole
47:43
Speaker 1: ballast of the semi science is called judicial, political, and historical.
47:48
Speaker 1: In those semi sciences, the conception of development and progress
47:52
Speaker 1: is again wrongly introduced, only with this difference, that there
47:55
Speaker 1: it was the development of everything, while here it is
47:58
Speaker 1: a development of the life of mankind. The error is there,
48:01
Speaker 1: as before development and progress in infinity can have no
48:05
Speaker 1: aim or direction, and as far as my question is concerned,
48:08
Speaker 1: no answer is given in truly abstract science, namely in
48:12
Speaker 1: genuine philosophy, not that which Sopenhauer calls professional philosophy, which
48:17
Speaker 1: serves only to classify all existing phenomena in new philosophic
48:20
Speaker 1: categories and to call them by new names. Where the
48:23
Speaker 1: philosopher does not lose sight of the essential question, the
48:26
Speaker 1: reply is always one and the same, the reply given
48:29
Speaker 1: by Socrates, Schopenhauer, Solomon, and Buddha. We approach truth only
48:34
Speaker 1: inasmuch as we depart from life, said Socrates, when preparing
48:37
Speaker 1: for death. For what do we who love truth strive
48:40
Speaker 1: after in life? To free ourselves from the body and
48:43
Speaker 1: from all evil that is caused by life of the body.
48:46
Speaker 1: If so, then how can we fail to be glad
48:47
Speaker 1: when death comes to us. The wise man seeks death
48:50
Speaker 1: all his life, and therefore death is not terrible to him.
48:53
Speaker 1: And Schopenhauer says, having recognized the innermost essence of the
48:57
Speaker 1: world as will and all its phenomena, from the unconscious
49:01
Speaker 1: working of the obscure forces of nature up to the
49:03
Speaker 1: completely conscious action of man, as only the objectivity of
49:07
Speaker 1: the will, we shall in no way avoid the conclusion that,
49:09
Speaker 1: together with voluntary renunciation and self destruction of the will,
49:13
Speaker 1: all those phenomena also disappear. That constant striving an effort
49:17
Speaker 1: without aim or rest on all the stages of objectivity,
49:20
Speaker 1: and which and through which the world exists, the diversity
49:23
Speaker 1: of successive forms will disappear, and together with the form,
49:26
Speaker 1: all the manifestations of the will, with its most universal forms,
49:30
Speaker 1: space and time, and finally the most fundamental form, subject
49:34
Speaker 1: and object. Without will, there is no concept in no
49:37
Speaker 1: world before us. Certainly nothing remains. But what resists this
49:41
Speaker 1: transition into annihilation our nature is only the same wish
49:45
Speaker 1: to live will zoomlibum, which forms ourselves as well as
49:48
Speaker 1: our world, that we are so afraid of annihilation. Or
49:51
Speaker 1: what is the same thing that we so wish to
49:53
Speaker 1: live merely means that we are ourselves nothing but this
49:56
Speaker 1: desire to live, and know nothing but it, and what
50:00
Speaker 1: remains after the complete annihilation of the will. For us,
50:03
Speaker 1: who are so full of the will, is of course nothing.
50:06
Speaker 1: But on the other hand, for those in whom the
50:08
Speaker 1: will has turned and renounced itself, this so real world
50:11
Speaker 1: of ours, with all its sons and milky way, is nothing.
50:15
Speaker 1: Vanity of vanities, says Solomon. Vanity of vanities, all is vanity?
50:20
Speaker 1: What profit hath a man of all his labor which
50:22
Speaker 1: he taketh under the sun? One generation patheth away, and
50:26
Speaker 1: another generation cometh, But the earth abideth forever. The thing
50:30
Speaker 1: that hath been is that which shall be, And that
50:33
Speaker 1: which is done is that which shall be done. And
50:35
Speaker 1: there is no new thing under the sun. Is there
50:37
Speaker 1: anything aware of it? May be said, see this is new.
50:41
Speaker 1: It hath been already of old time which was before us.
50:44
Speaker 1: There is no remembrance of former things. Neither shall there
50:47
Speaker 1: be any remembrance of things that are to come with
50:49
Speaker 1: those that shall come after. I the Preacher, was king
50:52
Speaker 1: over Israel and Jerusalem, and I gave my heart to
50:55
Speaker 1: seek and search out by wisdom concerning all that is
50:58
Speaker 1: done under heaven. For vail hath God given to the
51:01
Speaker 1: sons of man to be exercised therewith. I have seen
51:04
Speaker 1: all the works that are done under the sun, and behold,
51:07
Speaker 1: all is vanity and vexation of spirit. I communed with
51:11
Speaker 1: my own heart, saying, Lo, I am come to great
51:13
Speaker 1: estate and have gotten more wisdom than all they that
51:16
Speaker 1: have been before me over Jerusalem. Yea, my heart hath
51:19
Speaker 1: great experience of wisdom and knowledge. And I gave my
51:22
Speaker 1: heart to know wisdom and to know madness and folly.
51:25
Speaker 1: I perceived that this also is vexation of spirit. For
51:28
Speaker 1: much wisdom is much grief. And he that increaseth knowledge
51:31
Speaker 1: increases sorrow. I said in my heart, go to now,
51:35
Speaker 1: I will provide thee with mirth, and therefore enjoy pleasure.
51:38
Speaker 1: And behold, this also is vanity. I said, of laughter,
51:42
Speaker 1: it is mad and of mirth what doeth it? I
51:44
Speaker 1: sought in my heart how to cheer my flesh with wine,
51:47
Speaker 1: And while my heart was guided by wisdom to lay
51:49
Speaker 1: hold on folly till I might see what it was
51:52
Speaker 1: good for the sons of men that they should do
51:54
Speaker 1: under heaven. The number of days of their life. I
51:56
Speaker 1: made me great works. I built me houses, I plant
51:59
Speaker 1: and me vineyards. I made me gardens and orchards, and
52:02
Speaker 1: I planted trees in them, of all kinds of fruits.
52:04
Speaker 1: I made me pools of water to water there from
52:07
Speaker 1: the forest where trees were reared. I got me servants
52:10
Speaker 1: and maidens, and had servants born in my house. Also
52:13
Speaker 1: I had great possessions of herds and flocks, above all
52:15
Speaker 1: that were before me in Jerusalem. I gathered me also
52:18
Speaker 1: silver and gold, and the peculiar treasure from kings and
52:21
Speaker 1: from the provinces. I got me men singer and women singers,
52:24
Speaker 1: and the delights of the sons of men as musical instruments,
52:27
Speaker 1: and all that of all sorts. So I was great
52:30
Speaker 1: and increased more than all that were before me in Jerusalem.
52:33
Speaker 1: Also my wisdom remained with me, and whatever mine eyes desired,
52:37
Speaker 1: I kept not from them. I withheld not my heart
52:39
Speaker 1: from any joy. Then I looked on all the works
52:42
Speaker 1: my hands had wrought, on the labor that I had
52:44
Speaker 1: labored to do, and behold, all was vanity and vexation
52:47
Speaker 1: of spirit, and there was no profit from them under
52:49
Speaker 1: the sun. And I turned myself to behold wisdom and
52:52
Speaker 1: madness and folly. But I perceived that one might even
52:54
Speaker 1: happeneth to them all. Then said I in my heart,
52:57
Speaker 1: as it happeneth to the fool, so it happeneth even
53:00
Speaker 1: to me. And why was I then? More wise? Then
53:03
Speaker 1: I said in my heart that this is also vanity,
53:05
Speaker 1: For there is no remembrance of the wise more than
53:07
Speaker 1: of the fool forever, seeing that which is in the
53:09
Speaker 1: days to come shall be all forgotten. And how dieth
53:12
Speaker 1: the wise man as the fool. Therefore I hated life,
53:15
Speaker 1: because the work that is wrought under the sun is
53:17
Speaker 1: grievous unto me. For all is vanity and vexation of spirit. Yea,
53:21
Speaker 1: I hated all my labor, which I had taken under
53:23
Speaker 1: the sun, seeing that I must leave it unto the
53:25
Speaker 1: man that shall be after me. For what hath man
53:28
Speaker 1: of all his labor and of the vexation of his heart?
53:30
Speaker 1: Wherein he hath labored under the sun, For all his
53:34
Speaker 1: days are sorrows, and his travail grief. Yea, even in
53:37
Speaker 1: the night his heart taketh no rest. This is also vanity.
53:40
Speaker 1: Man is not blessed with security that he should eat
53:42
Speaker 1: and drink and cheer his soul from his own labor.
53:45
Speaker 1: All things come alike to all. There is one event,
53:47
Speaker 1: to the righteous and to the wicked, to the good
53:49
Speaker 1: and to the evil, to the clean and to the unclean.
53:52
Speaker 1: To him that sacrificeth in him that sacrificeth not as
53:56
Speaker 1: is the good, so is the sinner, and he that sweareth,
53:59
Speaker 1: as he that feareth. And all this is an evil
54:01
Speaker 1: in all that is done under the sun. That there
54:03
Speaker 1: is one event unto all. Yea, Also the heart of
54:06
Speaker 1: the sons of men is full of evil, and madness
54:09
Speaker 1: is in their heart while they live, and after that
54:11
Speaker 1: they go to the dead. For him that is among
54:14
Speaker 1: the living, there is hope. For a living dog is
54:16
Speaker 1: better than a dead lion. For the living know that
54:18
Speaker 1: they shall die, But the dead know not anything. Neither
54:21
Speaker 1: have they any more a reward, for the memory of
54:23
Speaker 1: them is forgotten. Also their love and their hatred and
54:26
Speaker 1: their envy is now perished. Neither have they any more
54:29
Speaker 1: a portion forever and anything that is done under the sun.
54:32
Speaker 1: So said Solomon, or whoever wrote those words. And this
54:36
Speaker 1: is what the Indian wisdom tells. Sakyamuni, a young, happy
54:39
Speaker 1: prince from whom the existence of sickness, old age, and
54:42
Speaker 1: death had been hidden, went out to drive and saw
54:44
Speaker 1: a terrible old man, toothless and slobbering. The prince, from
54:48
Speaker 1: whom till then old age had been concealed, was amazed
54:51
Speaker 1: and asked his driver what it was, and how the
54:53
Speaker 1: man had come to such a wretched and disgusting condition.
54:56
Speaker 1: And when he learned that this was the common fate
54:57
Speaker 1: of all men, that the same thing that never awaited
55:00
Speaker 1: him the young prince, he could not continue his drive,
55:03
Speaker 1: but gave orders to go home that he might consider
55:05
Speaker 1: this fact. So he shut himself up alone and considered it,
55:09
Speaker 1: and he probably devised some consolation for himself, for he
55:12
Speaker 1: subsequently again went out to drive, feeling merry and happy.
55:15
Speaker 1: But this time he saw a sick man. He saw
55:17
Speaker 1: an emaciated, livid, trembling man with dim eyes. The prince,
55:21
Speaker 1: from whom sickness had been concealed, stopped and asked what
55:24
Speaker 1: this was. And when he learned that this was sickness
55:27
Speaker 1: to which all men are liable, and that he, himself,
55:29
Speaker 1: a healthy and happy prince, might himself fall ill tomorrow,
55:32
Speaker 1: he again was in no mood to enjoy himself, but
55:35
Speaker 1: gave orders to drive home and again sought some solace
55:37
Speaker 1: and probably found it, for he drove out a third
55:40
Speaker 1: time for pleasure. But this third time he saw another
55:42
Speaker 1: new sight. He saw men carrying something. What is that
55:46
Speaker 1: a dead man? What does dead mean? Asked the prince.
55:49
Speaker 1: He was told that to become dead means to become
55:51
Speaker 1: like that man. The prince approached the corpse, uncovered it,
55:55
Speaker 1: and looked at it. What will happen to him now,
55:57
Speaker 1: asked the prince. He was told that the corpse would
55:59
Speaker 1: be buried in the ground. Why because he will certainly
56:02
Speaker 1: not return to life and will only produce a stench
56:05
Speaker 1: in worms? And is that the fate of all men?
56:07
Speaker 1: Will the same thing happen to me? Will they bury me?
56:10
Speaker 1: Shall I cause a stench and be eaten by worms? Yes? Home,
56:15
Speaker 1: I shall not drive out for pleasure, and never will
56:17
Speaker 1: drive again. And Sakia Mouni could find no consolation in life,
56:21
Speaker 1: and decided that life is the greatest of evils, and
56:24
Speaker 1: he devoted all the strength of his soul to free
56:26
Speaker 1: himself from it and to free others, and to do
56:28
Speaker 1: so that even after death, life shall not be renewed. Anymore,
56:31
Speaker 1: but be completely destroyed at its very roots. So speaks
56:35
Speaker 1: all the wisdoms of India. These are the direct replies
56:38
Speaker 1: that human wisdom gives when it replies to life's question.
56:41
Speaker 1: The life of the body is an evil and a lie.
56:43
Speaker 1: Therefore the destruction of the life of the body is
56:46
Speaker 1: a blessing, and we should desire it, says Socrates. Life
56:49
Speaker 1: is that which should not be an evil, and the
56:51
Speaker 1: passage into nothingness is the only good in life, says Schopenhauer.
56:55
Speaker 1: All that is in the world, folly and wisdom and
56:58
Speaker 1: riches and poverty and mirth and grief, is vanity and emptiness.
57:02
Speaker 1: Man dies and nothing is left of him, and that
57:04
Speaker 1: is stupid, says Solomon. To live in the consciousness of
57:08
Speaker 1: the inevitability of suffering, of becoming enfeebled, of old age,
57:11
Speaker 1: and of death is impossible. We must free ourselves from life,
57:14
Speaker 1: from all possible life, says Buddha. And what these strong
57:18
Speaker 1: minds said has been said in thought and felt by
57:20
Speaker 1: millions upon millions of people like them, And I had
57:23
Speaker 1: thought and felt it. So my wandering among the sciences,
57:26
Speaker 1: far from freeing me from my despair, only strengthened it.
57:30
Speaker 1: One kind of knowledge did not reply to life's question.
57:32
Speaker 1: The other kind replied directly confirming my despair, indicating not
57:36
Speaker 1: the result at which I had arrived was the fruit
57:38
Speaker 1: of an error or of a disease state of my mind,
57:40
Speaker 1: but on the contrary, that I had thought correctly, and
57:43
Speaker 1: that my mind coincided with the conclusions of the most
57:45
Speaker 1: powerful of human minds. It is no good deceiving oneself.
57:49
Speaker 1: It is all vanity. Happy is he who has not
57:52
Speaker 1: been born? Death is better than life, and one must
57:54
Speaker 1: free oneself from life. End of chapter six, Chapter seven
58:04
Speaker 1: of a confession by Leo Tolstoyt. Not finding an explanation
58:08
Speaker 1: in science, I began to seek forward in life, hoping
58:10
Speaker 1: to find it among the people around me. And I
58:13
Speaker 1: began to observe how the people around me, people like myself,
58:16
Speaker 1: lived and what their attitude was to this question which
58:19
Speaker 1: had brought me to despair. And this is what I
58:21
Speaker 1: found among people who were in the same position as myself,
58:24
Speaker 1: as regards education and manner of life. I found that
58:27
Speaker 1: for people in my circle, there are four ways out
58:29
Speaker 1: of the terrible position in which we are all placed.
58:32
Speaker 1: The first was that of ignorance. It consists of not knowing,
58:35
Speaker 1: of not understanding that life is evil and an absurdity.
58:38
Speaker 1: People of this sort, chiefly women, or very young or
58:41
Speaker 1: very dull people, have not yet understood the question of
58:44
Speaker 1: life which presented itself to Schopenhauer, Solomon, and Buddha. They
58:48
Speaker 1: see neither the dragon that awaits them, nor the mice
58:50
Speaker 1: gnawing at the shrub by which they are hanging. And
58:52
Speaker 1: they licked the drops of honey. But they licked these
58:55
Speaker 1: drops of honey only for a while. Something will turn
58:57
Speaker 1: their attention to the dragon and the mice, and there
58:59
Speaker 1: will be an into their licking. From them, I had
59:01
Speaker 1: nothing to learn. One cannot cease to know what one
59:04
Speaker 1: does know. The second way out is epicureanism. It consists,
59:08
Speaker 1: while knowing of the hopelessness of life, in making use meanwhile,
59:11
Speaker 1: of the advantages one has disregarding the dragon and the mice,
59:15
Speaker 1: and looking the honey in the best way, especially if
59:17
Speaker 1: there is much of it within reach. Solomon expresses this way. Thus,
59:21
Speaker 1: then I commanded mirth, because man hath no better thing
59:24
Speaker 1: under the sun than to eat, to drink, and to
59:26
Speaker 1: be merry, and that this should accompany him in his labor.
59:30
Speaker 1: The days of his life, which God giveth him under
59:32
Speaker 1: the sun. Therefore, eat thy bread with joy, and drink
59:35
Speaker 1: thy wine with a merry heart, with joyfully with the
59:38
Speaker 1: wife whom thou lovest all the days of the life
59:40
Speaker 1: of thy vanity. For this is thy portion in life
59:43
Speaker 1: and in thy labors, which thou takest under the sun.
59:46
Speaker 1: Whatsoever thy hand fitteth to do do with thy might,
59:49
Speaker 1: For there is not work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor
59:52
Speaker 1: wisdom in the grave whither thou goest. That is the
59:55
Speaker 1: way in which the majority of people of our circle
59:57
Speaker 1: make life possible for themselves. Your circumstances furnish them with
1:00:01
Speaker 1: more welfare than of hardship, and their moral dullness makes
1:00:04
Speaker 1: it possible for them to forget that the advantage of
1:00:06
Speaker 1: their position is accidental, and that not everyone can have
1:00:09
Speaker 1: a thousand wives and palaces like Solomon, and that for
1:00:12
Speaker 1: everyone who has a thousand wives, there are a thousand
1:00:14
Speaker 1: without a wife, and that for every palace there are
1:00:17
Speaker 1: a thousand people who have to build it in the
1:00:18
Speaker 1: sweat of their brows. And that the accident that has
1:00:21
Speaker 1: today made me a Solomon may tomorrow make me solomon slave.
1:00:24
Speaker 1: The dullness of these people's imagination enables them to forget
1:00:28
Speaker 1: the things that gave boodh no peace, the inevitability of sickness,
1:00:31
Speaker 1: old age, and death, which today or tomorrow will destroy
1:00:34
Speaker 1: all these pleasures. So think and feel the majority of
1:00:37
Speaker 1: people of our day and our manner of life. The
1:00:40
Speaker 1: fact that some of these people declare the dullness of
1:00:42
Speaker 1: their thoughts and imaginations to be a philosophy which they
1:00:45
Speaker 1: call positive, does not remove them, in my opinion, from
1:00:48
Speaker 1: the ranks of those who, to avoid seeing the question
1:00:51
Speaker 1: lick the honey. I could not imitate these people, not
1:00:54
Speaker 1: having their dullness of imagination. I could not artificially produce
1:00:57
Speaker 1: it in myself. I could not tear my eyes from
1:01:00
Speaker 1: the mice in the dragon, as no vital man can
1:01:03
Speaker 1: after he has once seen them. The third escape is
1:01:06
Speaker 1: that of strength and energy. It consists in destroying life
1:01:09
Speaker 1: when one has understood that it is an evil and
1:01:11
Speaker 1: an absurdity. A few exceptionally strong and consistent people act so,
1:01:16
Speaker 1: having understood the stupidity of the joke that has been
1:01:18
Speaker 1: played on them, and having understood that it is better
1:01:20
Speaker 1: to be dead than to be alive, and that is
1:01:22
Speaker 1: best of all not to exist they act accordingly and
1:01:25
Speaker 1: promptly end this stupid joke, since there are means a
1:01:28
Speaker 1: rope round one's neck, water and a knife to stick
1:01:31
Speaker 1: in one's heart, or the trains on a railway. And
1:01:34
Speaker 1: the number of those in our circle who act this
1:01:35
Speaker 1: way becomes greater and greater. And for the most part
1:01:38
Speaker 1: they act though at the best time of their life,
1:01:40
Speaker 1: when the strength of their mind is in full bloom,
1:01:43
Speaker 1: and few habits degrading to the mind have as yet
1:01:45
Speaker 1: been acquired. I saw that this was the worthiest way
1:01:48
Speaker 1: of escape, and I wish to adopt it. The fourth
1:01:52
Speaker 1: way out is that of weakness. It consists in seeing
1:01:54
Speaker 1: the truth of the situation and yet clinging to life,
1:01:57
Speaker 1: knowing in advance that nothing can come of it. People
1:02:00
Speaker 1: of this kind know that death is better than life,
1:02:02
Speaker 1: but not having the strength to act rationally to end
1:02:05
Speaker 1: the deception quickly and kill themselves, they seem to wait
1:02:07
Speaker 1: for something. This is the escape of weakness. For if
1:02:11
Speaker 1: I know what is best, and it is within my power,
1:02:13
Speaker 1: why not yield to what is best? I found myself
1:02:16
Speaker 1: in that category. So people of my class evade the
1:02:19
Speaker 1: terrible contradiction in four ways strain my attention as I would.
1:02:22
Speaker 1: I saw no way except these four. One was not
1:02:25
Speaker 1: to understand that life is senseless, vanity and and evil,
1:02:28
Speaker 1: and that it is better not to live. I could
1:02:31
Speaker 1: not help knowing this, and when I once knew that,
1:02:33
Speaker 1: I could not shut my eyes to it. The second
1:02:35
Speaker 1: way was to use life, such as without thinking to
1:02:37
Speaker 1: the future, and I could not do that. I, like Sakiamuni,
1:02:41
Speaker 1: could not ride out hunting when I knew that old age,
1:02:43
Speaker 1: suffering and death exist. My imagination was too vivid, nor
1:02:48
Speaker 1: could I rejoice in the momentary accidents that for an
1:02:50
Speaker 1: instant throw pleasure to my lot. The third way, having
1:02:54
Speaker 1: understood that life is evil and stupid, was to end
1:02:56
Speaker 1: it by killing oneself. I understood that, but somehow still
1:03:00
Speaker 1: not kill myself. The fourth way was to live like
1:03:02
Speaker 1: Solomon and Schopenhauer, knowing that life was a stupid joke
1:03:05
Speaker 1: played upon us, and yet still go on living, washing oneself, dressing, dining, talking,
1:03:11
Speaker 1: and even writing books. This was to me repulsive and tormenting,
1:03:14
Speaker 1: but I remained in that position. I see now that
1:03:17
Speaker 1: if I did not kill myself, it was due to
1:03:19
Speaker 1: some dim consciousness of the invalidity of my thoughts. However,
1:03:23
Speaker 1: convincing an indubitable appeared to me the sequence of my
1:03:25
Speaker 1: thoughts and of those of the wise that had brought
1:03:28
Speaker 1: us to the admission of the senselessness of life. There
1:03:30
Speaker 1: remained in me a vague doubt of the justice of
1:03:32
Speaker 1: my conclusion. It was like this, I, my reason, have
1:03:36
Speaker 1: acknowledged that life is senseless. If there is nothing higher
1:03:39
Speaker 1: than reason, and there is not, nothing can prove that
1:03:41
Speaker 1: there is. Then reason is the creator of life for me.
1:03:45
Speaker 1: If reason did not exist, there would be for me
1:03:47
Speaker 1: no life. How could reason deny life when it is
1:03:49
Speaker 1: the creator of life? Or to put it in another way,
1:03:52
Speaker 1: were there no life, my reason would not exist. And
1:03:54
Speaker 1: therefore reason is life's son. Life is all Reason is
1:03:58
Speaker 1: the fruit. And yet reason would jack's life itself. I
1:04:01
Speaker 1: felt that there was something wrong here. Life is a
1:04:04
Speaker 1: senseless evil, that is certain, said I to myself. Yet
1:04:07
Speaker 1: I have lived and am still living, and all mankind
1:04:09
Speaker 1: lived and lives? How is that? Why does it live
1:04:13
Speaker 1: when it is possible not to live? Is it that
1:04:16
Speaker 1: only I, in Schopenhauer are wise enough to understand the
1:04:18
Speaker 1: senselessness and evil of life? The reasoning showing the vanity
1:04:22
Speaker 1: of life is not difficult, and it has long been
1:04:25
Speaker 1: familiar to the very simplest of folk. And yet they
1:04:27
Speaker 1: have lived and still lived. How is it that they
1:04:30
Speaker 1: all live and never think of doubting the reasonableness of life?
1:04:34
Speaker 1: My knowledge, confirmed by the wisdom of the sages, has
1:04:36
Speaker 1: shown me that everything on earth, organic and inorganic, is
1:04:40
Speaker 1: all the most cleverly arranged. Only my own position is stupid.
1:04:44
Speaker 1: And these fools, the enormous masks of people, know nothing
1:04:47
Speaker 1: about how everything organic and inorganic in the world is arranged.
1:04:51
Speaker 1: But they live, and it seems to them that their
1:04:53
Speaker 1: life is very wisely arranged. And it struck me. But
1:04:56
Speaker 1: what if there is something I do not yet know?
1:04:58
Speaker 1: Ignorance behaves just this way. Ignorance always says just what
1:05:02
Speaker 1: I am saying. When it does not know something, it
1:05:05
Speaker 1: says that what it does not know is stupid. Indeed,
1:05:08
Speaker 1: it appears that there is a whole humanity that lived
1:05:10
Speaker 1: and lives as if understanding the meaning of life, For
1:05:13
Speaker 1: without understanding it could not live. But I say that
1:05:16
Speaker 1: all life is senseless and that I cannot live. Nothing
1:05:19
Speaker 1: prevents our denying life by suicide. Well, then kill yourself
1:05:22
Speaker 1: and you won't discuss if life displeases you, kill yourself.
1:05:26
Speaker 1: You live and cannot understand the meaning of life, then
1:05:28
Speaker 1: finish it. Do not fool about in life saying and
1:05:31
Speaker 1: writing that you do not understand it. You have come
1:05:34
Speaker 1: into good company where people are contented and know what
1:05:36
Speaker 1: they are doing. If you find that dull and repulsive,
1:05:39
Speaker 1: go away. Indeed, what are we who are convinced of
1:05:42
Speaker 1: the necessity of suicide and yet do not commit it?
1:05:45
Speaker 1: But the weakest, most inconsistent, and to put it plainly,
1:05:48
Speaker 1: the stupidest of men, fussing about with our own stupidity
1:05:51
Speaker 1: as a fool fusses about with a painted hussy. For
1:05:54
Speaker 1: our wisdom, however indubitable it may be, has not given
1:05:58
Speaker 1: us the knowledge of the meaning of our life. But
1:06:00
Speaker 1: all mankind who sustain life, millions of them, do not
1:06:03
Speaker 1: doubt the meaning of life. Indeed, from the most distant
1:06:07
Speaker 1: time from which I knew anything, when life began, people
1:06:10
Speaker 1: have lived knowing the argument about the vanity of life,
1:06:12
Speaker 1: which has shown me its senselessness. And yet they have
1:06:15
Speaker 1: lived attributing some meaning to it. From the time when
1:06:18
Speaker 1: any life began among men, they had that meaning of life,
1:06:21
Speaker 1: and they led that life which descended to me, all
1:06:24
Speaker 1: that is in me and around me, all corporeal and incorporeal,
1:06:28
Speaker 1: is the fruit of their knowledge of life. Those very
1:06:31
Speaker 1: instruments of thought with which I consider this life and
1:06:33
Speaker 1: condemn it, were all devised not by me, but by them.
1:06:37
Speaker 1: I myself was born, taught, and brought up thanks to them.
1:06:40
Speaker 1: They dug out the iron, taught us to cut down
1:06:42
Speaker 1: the forest, tame the cows and the horses, taught us
1:06:45
Speaker 1: to sow corn and to live together, organized our life.
1:06:48
Speaker 1: Taught me to think and speak, and I their product
1:06:51
Speaker 1: fed supplied with drink. Taught by them, thinking with their
1:06:55
Speaker 1: thoughts and words, have argued that they are in absurdity.
1:06:58
Speaker 1: There is something wrong, said I to myself. I have
1:07:00
Speaker 1: blundered somewhere, But it was a long time before I
1:07:03
Speaker 1: could find out what that mistake was. End of chapter seven,
1:07:13
Speaker 1: Chapter eight of a confession by Leo Tolstoy. All these doubts,
1:07:17
Speaker 1: which I am now able to express more or less systematically,
1:07:20
Speaker 1: I could not have then expressed. I then only felt that,
1:07:23
Speaker 1: however logically inevitable, were my conclusions concerning the vanity of life,
1:07:27
Speaker 1: confirmed as they were by the greatest thinkers. There was
1:07:30
Speaker 1: something not right about them. Whether it was the reasoning
1:07:33
Speaker 1: itself or in the statement of the question, I do
1:07:35
Speaker 1: not know. I only felt that the conclusion was rationally convincing,
1:07:38
Speaker 1: but that it was insufficient. All these conclusions could not
1:07:42
Speaker 1: so convince me as to make me do what followed
1:07:44
Speaker 1: for my reasoning, that is to say, kill myself. And
1:07:47
Speaker 1: I should have told an untruth, had I, without killing
1:07:50
Speaker 1: myself said that reason had brought me to the point
1:07:52
Speaker 1: that I had reached. Reason worked, But something else was
1:07:54
Speaker 1: also working, which I can only call a consciousness of life.
1:07:58
Speaker 1: A force was working which compelled me to turn my
1:08:00
Speaker 1: attention to this and not to that. And it was
1:08:02
Speaker 1: this force which extricated me from my desperate situation and
1:08:05
Speaker 1: turned my mind in quite another direction. This force compelled
1:08:09
Speaker 1: me to turn my attention to the fact that I
1:08:11
Speaker 1: and a few hundred similar people are not the whole
1:08:13
Speaker 1: of mankind, and that I did not yet know the
1:08:15
Speaker 1: life of mankind. Looking at the narrow circle of my equals,
1:08:19
Speaker 1: I saw only people who had not understood the question,
1:08:22
Speaker 1: or who had understood it and drowned it in life's intoxication,
1:08:26
Speaker 1: or had understood it and ended their lives, or had
1:08:28
Speaker 1: understood it and yet from weakness for living out their
1:08:30
Speaker 1: desperate life, and I saw no others. It seemed to
1:08:33
Speaker 1: me that the narrow circle of rich, learned and leisured
1:08:36
Speaker 1: people to which I belonged formed the whole of humanity,
1:08:39
Speaker 1: and that those millards of others who have lived in
1:08:41
Speaker 1: are living were cattle of some sort, not real people. Strange,
1:08:46
Speaker 1: incredibly incomprehensible, as it now seems to me that I could,
1:08:49
Speaker 1: while reasoning about life, overlook the whole life of mankind
1:08:52
Speaker 1: that surrounded me on all sides, that I could, to
1:08:54
Speaker 1: such a degree blunder so absolutely as to think that
1:08:57
Speaker 1: my life and Solomon's and Schopenhauer's is real normal life,
1:09:01
Speaker 1: and that the life of the millards is a circumstance
1:09:03
Speaker 1: undeserving of attention. Strange as this is now to me,
1:09:06
Speaker 1: I see that so it was in the delusion of
1:09:09
Speaker 1: my pride and of intellect. It seemed to me so
1:09:11
Speaker 1: indubitable that I, in Solomon and Schopenhauer, had stated the
1:09:15
Speaker 1: question so truly and exactly that nothing else was possible.
1:09:18
Speaker 1: So indubitable did it seem that all those millards consisted
1:09:21
Speaker 1: of men who had not yet arrived in an apprehension
1:09:24
Speaker 1: of all the profundity of the question that I sought
1:09:27
Speaker 1: for the meaning of my life without at once occurring
1:09:29
Speaker 1: me to ask, but what meaning is and has been
1:09:32
Speaker 1: given to their lives by all the millards of common
1:09:34
Speaker 1: folk who live and have lived in the world. I
1:09:37
Speaker 1: long lived in this state of lunacy, which, in fact,
1:09:39
Speaker 1: if it not in words, is particularly characteristic of us
1:09:42
Speaker 1: very liberal and worded people. But thanks either to the
1:09:45
Speaker 1: strange physical affection I have for the real laboring people,
1:09:48
Speaker 1: which compelled me to understand them and to see that
1:09:50
Speaker 1: they are not so stupid as we suppose, or thanks
1:09:53
Speaker 1: to the sincerity of my conviction that I could know
1:09:55
Speaker 1: nothing beyond the fact that the best I could do
1:09:57
Speaker 1: was to hang myself. At any rate, I instinctively felt
1:10:01
Speaker 1: that if I wished to live and understand the meaning
1:10:03
Speaker 1: of life, I must seek this meaning not among those
1:10:05
Speaker 1: who have lost it and wish to kill themselves, but
1:10:07
Speaker 1: among those millards of the past and the present who
1:10:10
Speaker 1: make life and who support the burden of their own
1:10:12
Speaker 1: lives and of ours also. And I considered the enormous
1:10:15
Speaker 1: masses of those simple, unlearned, and poor people who have
1:10:18
Speaker 1: lived in our living and I saw something quite different.
1:10:22
Speaker 1: I saw that, with rare exceptions, all those millards who
1:10:24
Speaker 1: have lived in our living do not fit any of
1:10:26
Speaker 1: my divisions. That I could not class them as not
1:10:29
Speaker 1: understanding the question, for they themselves stated and replied to
1:10:32
Speaker 1: it with extraordinary clearness. Nor could I consider them epicureans,
1:10:36
Speaker 1: for their life consists of more privations and sufferings than
1:10:38
Speaker 1: of enjoyments. Still less could I consider them as irrationally
1:10:42
Speaker 1: dragging on a meaningless existence, for every act of their life,
1:10:45
Speaker 1: as well as death, is explained by them. To kill
1:10:48
Speaker 1: themselves they considered the greatest evil. It appeared that all
1:10:51
Speaker 1: mankind had a knowledge, unacknowledged and despised by me, of
1:10:54
Speaker 1: the meaning of life. It appeared that reasonable knowledge does
1:10:58
Speaker 1: not give the meaning of life, but excludes life, while
1:11:00
Speaker 1: the meaning attributed to life by millards of people, by
1:11:03
Speaker 1: all humanity, rests on some despised pseudo knowledge. Rational knowledge
1:11:08
Speaker 1: presented by the learned and wise denies the meaning of life.
1:11:11
Speaker 1: But the enormous masses of men, the whole of mankind,
1:11:14
Speaker 1: received that meaning and irrational knowledge. And that irrational knowledge
1:11:18
Speaker 1: is faith. That very thing which I cannot but reject
1:11:21
Speaker 1: it is God. One in three, the creation in six days,
1:11:24
Speaker 1: the devils and angels, and all the rest that I
1:11:26
Speaker 1: cannot accept as long as I retain my reason. My
1:11:29
Speaker 1: position was terrible. I knew that I could find nothing
1:11:32
Speaker 1: among the path of reasonable knowledge accept the denial of life,
1:11:35
Speaker 1: and there in faith was nothing but a denial of reason,
1:11:38
Speaker 1: which was yet more impossible for me than a denial
1:11:41
Speaker 1: of life. From rational knowledge. It appeared that life is
1:11:44
Speaker 1: an evil. People know this, and it is in their
1:11:46
Speaker 1: power to end life. Yet they lived and still live,
1:11:49
Speaker 1: and I myself live, though I have long known that
1:11:51
Speaker 1: life is senseless and and evil. By faith, it appears
1:11:55
Speaker 1: that in order to understand the meaning of life, I
1:11:57
Speaker 1: must renounce my reason, the very thing for which alone
1:12:00
Speaker 1: meaning is required. End of chapter eight Chapter nine of
1:12:08
Speaker 1: a confession by will told Stoy. A contradiction arose, from
1:12:12
Speaker 1: which there were two exits. Either that which I called
1:12:14
Speaker 1: reason was not so rational as I supposed, or that
1:12:17
Speaker 1: which seemed to me irrational was not so irrational as
1:12:20
Speaker 1: I suppose. And I began to verify the line of
1:12:23
Speaker 1: argument of my rational knowledge. Verifying the line of argument
1:12:26
Speaker 1: of rational knowledge, I found it quite correct. The conclusion
1:12:29
Speaker 1: that life is nothing was inevitable. But I noticed a mistake.
1:12:33
Speaker 1: The mistake lay in this that my reasoning was not
1:12:35
Speaker 1: in accord with the question I had put. The question
1:12:38
Speaker 1: was why should I live? That is to say, what real,
1:12:41
Speaker 1: permanent result will come out of my illusory, transitory life?
1:12:44
Speaker 1: What meaning has my finite existence in this infinite world?
1:12:48
Speaker 1: And to reply to that question, I had studied life.
1:12:50
Speaker 1: The solution of all the possible questions of life could
1:12:53
Speaker 1: evidently not satisfy me. For my question, simple as it
1:12:56
Speaker 1: first appeared, included a demand for an explanation of the
1:12:59
Speaker 1: fire in terms of the infinite and vice versa. I asked,
1:13:03
Speaker 1: what is the meaning of my life beyond time, cause,
1:13:06
Speaker 1: and space? And I replied to quite another question, what
1:13:09
Speaker 1: is the meaning of my life within time, cause, and space?
1:13:12
Speaker 1: With the result that, after a long effort of thought,
1:13:15
Speaker 1: the answer I reached was none. In my reasonings, I
1:13:18
Speaker 1: constantly compared, nor could I do otherwise, the finite with
1:13:21
Speaker 1: the finite, and the infinite with the infinite. But for
1:13:24
Speaker 1: that reason I reached the inevitable result. Force's force matters matter,
1:13:28
Speaker 1: Will is will, the infinite is the infinite. Nothing is nothing,
1:13:32
Speaker 1: and that was all that could result It was something
1:13:35
Speaker 1: like what happens in mathematics. When thinking to solve an equation,
1:13:37
Speaker 1: we find we are working on an identity. The line
1:13:40
Speaker 1: of reasoning is correct, but the result is the answer
1:13:42
Speaker 1: that A equals A, or X equals x, or zero
1:13:45
Speaker 1: equals zero. The same thing happened with my reasoning and
1:13:48
Speaker 1: relation to the question of the meaning of my life.
1:13:51
Speaker 1: The reply given by all scients to the question only
1:13:53
Speaker 1: result in identity and really strictly scientific knowledge. That knowledge,
1:13:58
Speaker 1: which begins, as descart did, with complete doubt about everything,
1:14:02
Speaker 1: rejects all knowledge admitted on faith, and builds everything afresh
1:14:05
Speaker 1: on the laws of reason and experience, and cannot give
1:14:07
Speaker 1: any other reply to the question of life than that
1:14:10
Speaker 1: which I obtained, an indefinite reply. Only at first had
1:14:14
Speaker 1: it seemed to me that knowledge had given a positive reply,
1:14:16
Speaker 1: the reply of Schopenhauer that life has no meaning, it
1:14:19
Speaker 1: is an evil. But on examining the matter, I understood
1:14:22
Speaker 1: that the reply is not positive. It was only my
1:14:24
Speaker 1: feeling that so expressed it. Strictly expressed as it is
1:14:28
Speaker 1: by Brahmins and by Solomon In Schopenhauer, the reply is
1:14:31
Speaker 1: merely indefinite or an identity null equals null. Life is nothing,
1:14:36
Speaker 1: so that philosophic knowledge denies nothing, but only replies that
1:14:39
Speaker 1: the question cannot be solved by it, that for it,
1:14:42
Speaker 1: the solution remains indefinite. Having understood this, I understood that
1:14:46
Speaker 1: it was not possible to seek i rational knowledge for
1:14:48
Speaker 1: a reply to my question, and that the reply given
1:14:51
Speaker 1: by rational knowledge is a mere indication. That a reply
1:14:54
Speaker 1: can only be obtained by a different statement of the question,
1:14:56
Speaker 1: and only when the relation of the finite to the
1:14:59
Speaker 1: infinite is included in that question. And I understood that,
1:15:02
Speaker 1: however irrational and distorted, might be the replies given by faith,
1:15:05
Speaker 1: they have this advantage that they introduced into every answer
1:15:09
Speaker 1: or a relation between the finite and the infinite, without
1:15:11
Speaker 1: which there can be no solution. In whatever way I
1:15:14
Speaker 1: stated the question, that relation appeared in the answer. How
1:15:18
Speaker 1: am I to live according to the law of God?
1:15:20
Speaker 1: What real result will come of my life? Eternal torment
1:15:23
Speaker 1: or eternal bliss? What meaning has life? That death does
1:15:27
Speaker 1: not destroy union with the eternal God Heaven. So that,
1:15:31
Speaker 1: besides rational knowledge, which it seemed to me the only knowledge,
1:15:34
Speaker 1: I was inevitably brought to acknowledge that all live humanity
1:15:37
Speaker 1: has another irrational knowledge, faith, which makes it possible to live.
1:15:42
Speaker 1: Faith still remained to me as irrational as it was before,
1:15:45
Speaker 1: but I could not but admit that it alone gives
1:15:47
Speaker 1: mankind a reply to the questions of life, and that
1:15:49
Speaker 1: consequently it makes life possible. Reasonable knowledge had brought me
1:15:53
Speaker 1: to acknowledge that life is senseless, and my life had
1:15:56
Speaker 1: come to a halt, and I wish to destroy myself.
1:15:59
Speaker 1: Looking around on the whole of mankind, I saw that
1:16:01
Speaker 1: people live and declare that they know the meaning of life.
1:16:04
Speaker 1: I looked at myself. I had lived as long as
1:16:06
Speaker 1: I knew a meaning of life, and had made life possible.
1:16:09
Speaker 1: Looking again at people of other lands and my contemporaries
1:16:11
Speaker 1: and their predecessors, I saw the same thing. Where there
1:16:14
Speaker 1: is life there. Since man began, faith has made life
1:16:17
Speaker 1: possible for him. And the chief outline of that faith
1:16:20
Speaker 1: is everywhere and always identical. Whatever that faith may be,
1:16:24
Speaker 1: and whatever answers it might give, to whomsoever it gives them,
1:16:27
Speaker 1: every such answer gives to the finite existence of man,
1:16:30
Speaker 1: an infinite meaning, a meaning not destroyed by sufferings, deprivations,
1:16:34
Speaker 1: or death. That means that only in faith can we
1:16:36
Speaker 1: find for life, a meaning and a possibility. What then,
1:16:39
Speaker 1: is this faith? And I understood that faith is not
1:16:42
Speaker 1: merely the evidence of things not seen, et cetera. And
1:16:45
Speaker 1: it is not a revelation that defines only one of
1:16:48
Speaker 1: the indications of faith. Is not a relation of man
1:16:51
Speaker 1: to God. One has first to define faith and then God,
1:16:53
Speaker 1: and not faith through God. It is not only the
1:16:56
Speaker 1: agreement with what one has been told, but faith is
1:16:59
Speaker 1: a knowledge of the meaning of human life, in consequence
1:17:01
Speaker 1: of which man does not destroy himself but lives. Faith
1:17:05
Speaker 1: is the strength of life. If a man lives, he
1:17:07
Speaker 1: believes in something. If he did not believe that one
1:17:10
Speaker 1: must live for something, he would not live. If he
1:17:12
Speaker 1: does not see and recognize the illusory nature of the finite,
1:17:15
Speaker 1: he believes in the finite. If he understands the illusory
1:17:18
Speaker 1: nature of the finite, he must believe in the infinite.
1:17:21
Speaker 1: Without faith, he cannot live. And I recalled the whole
1:17:24
Speaker 1: course of my mental labor and was horrified. It was
1:17:27
Speaker 1: now clear to me that for man to be able
1:17:29
Speaker 1: to live, he must either not see the infinite or
1:17:31
Speaker 1: have such an explanation of the meaning of life as
1:17:34
Speaker 1: will connect the finite with the infinite. Such an explanation
1:17:37
Speaker 1: I had had. But as long as I believed in
1:17:39
Speaker 1: the finite, I did not need the explanation, and I
1:17:42
Speaker 1: began to verify it by reason, and in the light
1:17:45
Speaker 1: of reason, the whole of my former explanation flew to Adams.
1:17:48
Speaker 1: But a time came when I ceased to believe in
1:17:50
Speaker 1: the finite, and then I began to build up rational
1:17:53
Speaker 1: foundations out of which I knew an explanation would bring
1:17:56
Speaker 1: me to the meaning of life. But nothing could I build.
1:17:59
Speaker 1: Together with the best of human intellect. I reached the
1:18:02
Speaker 1: conclusion that all equals null, and was much astonished at
1:18:05
Speaker 1: that conclusion, though nothing else could have resulted. What was
1:18:08
Speaker 1: I doing when I sought an answer in the experimental sciences?
1:18:11
Speaker 1: I wish to know why I lived, and for this
1:18:13
Speaker 1: purpose studied all that is outside me. Evidently I might
1:18:16
Speaker 1: learn much, but nothing of what I needed. What was
1:18:19
Speaker 1: I doing when I sought an answer in philosophical knowledge?
1:18:22
Speaker 1: I was studying the thoughts of those who had found
1:18:24
Speaker 1: themselves in the same position as I, lacking the reply
1:18:27
Speaker 1: to the question why do I live? Evidently I could
1:18:30
Speaker 1: learn nothing but what I knew myself, namely that nothing
1:18:33
Speaker 1: can be known. What am I a part of the infinite?
1:18:37
Speaker 1: And those few words lie the whole problem. Is it
1:18:40
Speaker 1: possible that humanity has only put that question to itself
1:18:43
Speaker 1: since yesterday? And can no one before me have set
1:18:46
Speaker 1: himself that question, a question so simple and one that
1:18:49
Speaker 1: springs to the tongue of every wise child. Surely that
1:18:52
Speaker 1: question has been asked since man began, and naturally, for
1:18:55
Speaker 1: the solution of that question, since man began, it has
1:18:58
Speaker 1: been equally insufficient to compare them, the finite with the finite,
1:19:01
Speaker 1: and the infinite with the infinite. And since man began,
1:19:04
Speaker 1: the relation of the infinite to the finite has been
1:19:06
Speaker 1: sought out and expressed. All these conceptions in which the
1:19:09
Speaker 1: finite has been adjusted to the infinite, and a meaning
1:19:12
Speaker 1: found for life, the conception of God, of will, of goodness,
1:19:15
Speaker 1: we submit to logical examination, and all those conceptions fail
1:19:19
Speaker 1: to stand to reason's criticism. Were it not so terrible,
1:19:22
Speaker 1: it would be ludicrous. With what pride and self satisfaction
1:19:25
Speaker 1: we like children, pull the watch to pieces, take out
1:19:28
Speaker 1: the spring, and make a toy of it, and are
1:19:30
Speaker 1: then surprised when the watch does not go. A solution
1:19:33
Speaker 1: of the contradiction between the finite and the infinite, And
1:19:36
Speaker 1: such a reply of the question of life, as will
1:19:38
Speaker 1: make it possible to live, is necessary and precious. And
1:19:42
Speaker 1: that is the only solution where we find, everywhere, always,
1:19:45
Speaker 1: and among all people, a solution descending from times in
1:19:48
Speaker 1: which we lose sight of the life of man, a
1:19:50
Speaker 1: solution so difficult that we can compose nothing like it.
1:19:53
Speaker 1: And this solution we lightheartedly destroy in order it again
1:19:56
Speaker 1: to set the same question, which is natural to everyone,
1:19:58
Speaker 1: into which we have no answer. The conception of an
1:20:01
Speaker 1: infinite God, the divinity of the soul, the connection of
1:20:04
Speaker 1: human affairs with God, the unity and existence of the soul.
1:20:08
Speaker 1: Man's conception of moral goodness and of evil are conceptions
1:20:11
Speaker 1: formulated in the hidden infinity of human thought. There those
1:20:14
Speaker 1: conceptions without which neither life nor I should exist. Yet,
1:20:17
Speaker 1: rejecting all that labor of the whole of humanity, I
1:20:20
Speaker 1: wished to make it afresh myself, and in my own manner.
1:20:24
Speaker 1: I did not then think like that. But the germs
1:20:26
Speaker 1: of these thoughts were already in me. I understood in
1:20:29
Speaker 1: the first place that my position with Schopenhauer and Solomon,
1:20:32
Speaker 1: notwithstanding our wisdom, was stupid. We see that life is
1:20:35
Speaker 1: an evil, and yet continue to live That is evidently stupid,
1:20:38
Speaker 1: For if life is senseless, and I am so fond
1:20:40
Speaker 1: of what is reasonable, it should be destroyed, and then
1:20:43
Speaker 1: there would be no one to challenge it. Secondly, I
1:20:45
Speaker 1: understood that all one's reasonings turned in a vicious cycle,
1:20:48
Speaker 1: like a wheel out of gear with its pinion. However
1:20:51
Speaker 1: much and however well we may reason, we cannot obtain
1:20:53
Speaker 1: a reply to the question, and gnaul will always equal null,
1:20:57
Speaker 1: and therefore our path is probably erroneous. Thirdly, I began
1:21:01
Speaker 1: to understand that and the replies given by faith is
1:21:03
Speaker 1: stored up the deepest of human wisdom, that I had
1:21:06
Speaker 1: no right to deny them on the ground of reason,
1:21:08
Speaker 1: and that those answers are the only ones which reply
1:21:10
Speaker 1: to life's question. End of chapter nine, chapter ten of
1:21:19
Speaker 1: a confession by Leo Tolstoy. I understood this, but it
1:21:23
Speaker 1: made matters no better for me. I was now ready
1:21:26
Speaker 1: to accept any faith, if only it did not demand
1:21:28
Speaker 1: me a direct denial of reason, which would have been
1:21:30
Speaker 1: a falsehood. And I studied Buddhism and Mohammedianism from books,
1:21:34
Speaker 1: and most of all I studied Christianity, both from books,
1:21:37
Speaker 1: and from the people around me. Naturally, I first of
1:21:40
Speaker 1: all turned to the orthodox of my circle, to the
1:21:42
Speaker 1: people who were learned, to church theologians, monks, to theologians
1:21:47
Speaker 1: of the newest shade, and even to evangelicals who professed
1:21:50
Speaker 1: salvation by belief in the Redemption. And I seized on
1:21:53
Speaker 1: these believers and questioned them as to their beliefs in
1:21:55
Speaker 1: their understanding of the meaning of life. But though I
1:21:58
Speaker 1: made all possible concessions and of all disputes, I could
1:22:01
Speaker 1: not accept the faith of these people. I saw that
1:22:04
Speaker 1: what they gave out as their faith did not explain
1:22:06
Speaker 1: the meaning of life, but obscured it, and that they
1:22:08
Speaker 1: themselves affirmed their belief not to answer the question of life,
1:22:11
Speaker 1: which brought me to faith, but for some other aims
1:22:13
Speaker 1: alien to me. I remember the painful feeling of fear
1:22:16
Speaker 1: of being thrown back into my former state of despair
1:22:19
Speaker 1: after the hope I had often and often experienced in
1:22:22
Speaker 1: my intercourse with these people. The more fully they explained
1:22:25
Speaker 1: to me their doctrines, the more clearly that I perceived
1:22:28
Speaker 1: their error and realized that my hope of finding in
1:22:30
Speaker 1: their belief and explanation of the meaning of life was vain.
1:22:33
Speaker 1: It was not that in their doctrines they mixed many
1:22:35
Speaker 1: unnecessary and unreasonable things with Christian truths that had always
1:22:38
Speaker 1: been near to me. That was not what repelled me.
1:22:41
Speaker 1: I was repelled by the fact that these peoples's lives
1:22:43
Speaker 1: were like my own, with only this difference. That such
1:22:45
Speaker 1: a life did not correspond to the principles they expounded
1:22:48
Speaker 1: in their teachings. I clearly felt that they deceived themselves,
1:22:51
Speaker 1: and that they, like myself, found no other meaning in
1:22:53
Speaker 1: life than to live while life lasts, taking all one's
1:22:57
Speaker 1: hands conceize. I saw this because if they had had
1:22:59
Speaker 1: a meaning which destroyed the fear of loss, suffering, and death,
1:23:02
Speaker 1: it would not have feared these things. But they, these
1:23:05
Speaker 1: believers of our circle, just like myself, lived in sufficiency
1:23:08
Speaker 1: and superfluity, trying to increase to preserve them, feared privations, suffering,
1:23:12
Speaker 1: and death, just like myself and all of us. Non
1:23:15
Speaker 1: believers lived to satisfy their desires and lived just as badly,
1:23:18
Speaker 1: if not worse than the unbelievers. No arguments could convince
1:23:22
Speaker 1: me of the truth of their faith, only deeds which
1:23:24
Speaker 1: showed that they saw a meaning in life, making what
1:23:26
Speaker 1: was so dreadful to me, Poverty, sickness, and death not
1:23:29
Speaker 1: dreadful to them, could convince me, And such deeds I
1:23:33
Speaker 1: did not see among various believers of our circle. On
1:23:36
Speaker 1: the contrary, I saw such deeds done by the people
1:23:38
Speaker 1: of our circle who were the most unbelieving, but never
1:23:40
Speaker 1: by those so called believers. And I understood that the
1:23:43
Speaker 1: belief of these people was not the faith I sought,
1:23:46
Speaker 1: and that their faith is not a real faith, but
1:23:48
Speaker 1: an epicurean consolation in life. I understood that that faith
1:23:51
Speaker 1: may serve, if not for a consolation, then at least
1:23:54
Speaker 1: as some distraction for a repentant Solomon upon his deathbed.
1:23:58
Speaker 1: But it cannot serve for the great majority of memind
1:24:00
Speaker 1: who are called out not to amuse themselves while consuming
1:24:03
Speaker 1: the labor of others, but to create life for all humanity,
1:24:06
Speaker 1: to be able to live and continue to live, attributing
1:24:09
Speaker 1: a meaning to life. They those millards must have a
1:24:12
Speaker 1: different real knowledge of faith. Indeed, it was not the
1:24:15
Speaker 1: fact that we, with Solomon and Schopenhauer, did not kill
1:24:18
Speaker 1: ourselves that convinced me the existence of faith, but the
1:24:20
Speaker 1: fact that those millards of people have lived in our
1:24:23
Speaker 1: living and had bored Solomon and Us on the current
1:24:26
Speaker 1: of their lives, and I began to draw nearer to
1:24:28
Speaker 1: those believers among the poor, simple, unlettered folk, pilgrims, monks, sectarians,
1:24:33
Speaker 1: and peasants. The faith of these common people was the
1:24:36
Speaker 1: same Christian faith as was professed by the pseudo believers
1:24:39
Speaker 1: of our circle. Among them, too, I found a great
1:24:41
Speaker 1: deal of superstition mixed with the Christian truths. But the
1:24:44
Speaker 1: difference was that the superstitions of the believers of our
1:24:47
Speaker 1: circle were quite unnecessary to them, and were not in
1:24:49
Speaker 1: conformity with their lives, being merely a kind of Epicurean diversion.
1:24:53
Speaker 1: But the superstitions of the believers among the laboring masses
1:24:56
Speaker 1: conformed so with their lives that it was impossible to
1:24:59
Speaker 1: imagine them to wary oneself without these superstitions, which were
1:25:02
Speaker 1: a necessary condition of their life. The whole life of
1:25:05
Speaker 1: the believers in our circle was a contradiction of their faith.
1:25:08
Speaker 1: But the whole life of the working folk believers was
1:25:10
Speaker 1: a confirmation of the meaning of life which their faith
1:25:12
Speaker 1: gave them. And I began to look into the meaning
1:25:15
Speaker 1: of life and faith to these people, And the more
1:25:17
Speaker 1: I considered it the more I became convinced that they
1:25:19
Speaker 1: have a real faith, which is necessary to them and
1:25:22
Speaker 1: alone gives their life a meaning and makes it possible
1:25:24
Speaker 1: for them to live. In contrast with what I had
1:25:27
Speaker 1: seen in our circle, where the whole of life is
1:25:29
Speaker 1: passed in idleness, amusements, and dissatisfaction, I saw that the
1:25:33
Speaker 1: whole of the life of these people was passed in
1:25:35
Speaker 1: heavy labor, and that they were content with life. In
1:25:38
Speaker 1: contradistinction to the way in which people of our circle
1:25:40
Speaker 1: oppose faith and complain of it on account of deprivations
1:25:43
Speaker 1: and sufferings, these people accepted illness and sorrow without any
1:25:46
Speaker 1: perplexity or opposition, and with a quiet, firm conviction that
1:25:50
Speaker 1: all is good. In counterdistinction to us, who the wiser
1:25:53
Speaker 1: we are, the less we understand the meaning of life,
1:25:55
Speaker 1: and sees some evil irony in the fact that we
1:25:58
Speaker 1: suffer and die, These folks and suffer, and they approached
1:26:01
Speaker 1: death and suffering with tranquility and in the most cases gladly,
1:26:05
Speaker 1: In contrast to the fact that a tranquil death, a
1:26:07
Speaker 1: death without horror and despair, is a very rare exception
1:26:10
Speaker 1: in our circle. A troubled, rebellious and unhappy. Death is
1:26:14
Speaker 1: the rarest exception among the people. And such people lacking
1:26:17
Speaker 1: all that for us and for Solomon is the only
1:26:19
Speaker 1: good of life, and yet experiencing the greatest happiness, are
1:26:22
Speaker 1: in a great multitude. I looked more widely around me.
1:26:25
Speaker 1: I considered the life of the enormous, massive people in
1:26:28
Speaker 1: the past and the present, and of such people understanding
1:26:31
Speaker 1: the meaning of life and able to live and to die.
1:26:33
Speaker 1: I saw it not two or three or tens, but hundreds, thousands,
1:26:37
Speaker 1: and millions, And they all endlessly different in their manners, minds, education,
1:26:41
Speaker 1: and position, as they were all alike in complete contrast
1:26:44
Speaker 1: to my ignorance. Knew the meaning of life and death,
1:26:47
Speaker 1: labored quietly, endured deprivations and sufferings, lived and died, seeing
1:26:51
Speaker 1: therein not vanity but good. And I learned to love
1:26:54
Speaker 1: these people. The more I came to know their life,
1:26:57
Speaker 1: the life of those who are living and of those
1:26:58
Speaker 1: who are dead by whom I had heard, the more
1:27:01
Speaker 1: I loved them, and the easier it became for me
1:27:03
Speaker 1: to live. So I went on for about two years,
1:27:05
Speaker 1: and a change took place in me which had long
1:27:07
Speaker 1: been preparing, and the promise of which had always been
1:27:09
Speaker 1: in me. It came about that the life of our circle,
1:27:12
Speaker 1: the rich and learned, not merely became distasteful to me,
1:27:15
Speaker 1: but lost all meaning in my eyes. All our actions, discussions, science,
1:27:19
Speaker 1: and art presented itself to me in a new light.
1:27:22
Speaker 1: I understood that it is all merely self indulgence, and
1:27:25
Speaker 1: that to find a meaning in it is impossible. While
1:27:27
Speaker 1: the life of the whole, wavering people, the whole mankind
1:27:30
Speaker 1: who produced life, appeared to me in its true significance.
1:27:33
Speaker 1: I understood that that is life itself, and that the
1:27:36
Speaker 1: meaning given to that life is true, and I accepted it.
1:27:40
Speaker 1: End of chapter ten, chapter eleven of a confession by
1:27:48
Speaker 1: Leo Tolstoy, And remembering how those very beliefs had repelled me,
1:27:51
Speaker 1: and it seemed meaningless when professed by people whose lives
1:27:54
Speaker 1: conflicted with them, and how these same beliefs attracted me
1:27:57
Speaker 1: and seemed reasonable when I saw that people lived in
1:27:59
Speaker 1: a court with them. I understood why I had then
1:28:02
Speaker 1: rejected those beliefs and found them meaningless, and yet now
1:28:04
Speaker 1: accepted them and found them full of meaning. I understood
1:28:07
Speaker 1: that I had aired, and why I had aired. I
1:28:10
Speaker 1: had erred not so much because I thought incorrectly, as
1:28:12
Speaker 1: because I lived badly. I understood that it was not
1:28:15
Speaker 1: an error in my thought, that it hid the truth
1:28:17
Speaker 1: from me as much as my life itself and the
1:28:19
Speaker 1: exceptional conditions of epicurean gratification of desires in which I
1:28:22
Speaker 1: had passed it. I understood that my question as to
1:28:25
Speaker 1: what my life is and the answer and evil was
1:28:27
Speaker 1: quite correct. The only mistake was that the answer referred
1:28:31
Speaker 1: only to my life, while I had referred to it
1:28:33
Speaker 1: to life in general. I asked myself what my life
1:28:36
Speaker 1: is and got the reply and evil and an absurdity.
1:28:39
Speaker 1: And really, my life, a life of indulgences of desires,
1:28:42
Speaker 1: was senseless and evil. And therefore the reply, life is
1:28:45
Speaker 1: evil and an absurdity, referred only to my life, but
1:28:47
Speaker 1: not the human life in general. I understood the truth,
1:28:51
Speaker 1: which afterwards I found in the Gospel, that men love
1:28:54
Speaker 1: darkness rather than light, for their works were evil. For
1:28:57
Speaker 1: everyone that doth ill hateth the light, and cometh not
1:28:59
Speaker 1: to these lest his work should be reproved. I perceived
1:29:03
Speaker 1: that to understand the meaning of life, it is necessary
1:29:05
Speaker 1: first that life should not be meaningless and evil. Then
1:29:08
Speaker 1: we could apply reason to explain it. I understood why
1:29:11
Speaker 1: I had so long wandered round so evident a truth,
1:29:14
Speaker 1: and that if one is to think and speak of
1:29:15
Speaker 1: the life of mankind, one must think and speak of
1:29:18
Speaker 1: that life, and not of the life of some of
1:29:20
Speaker 1: life's parasites. That truth was always as true as that
1:29:24
Speaker 1: two and two equal four, but I had not yet
1:29:27
Speaker 1: acknowledged it, because on admitting two and two to be four,
1:29:29
Speaker 1: I had also to admit that I was bad, And
1:29:32
Speaker 1: to feel myself to be good was for me more
1:29:34
Speaker 1: important and necessary than for two and two to be four.
1:29:37
Speaker 1: I came to love good people, hated myself, and confess
1:29:40
Speaker 1: the truth. Now all became clear to me. What if
1:29:43
Speaker 1: an executioner, passing his whole life and torturing people and
1:29:46
Speaker 1: cutting off their heads, or a hope was drunkard, or
1:29:49
Speaker 1: of a madman settled for life in a dark room
1:29:51
Speaker 1: which he had followed, and imagines that he would perish
1:29:53
Speaker 1: if he left. What if he asked himself what is life?
1:29:57
Speaker 1: Evidently he would be able to provide no other reply
1:29:59
Speaker 1: to that question than that life is the greatest evil.
1:30:02
Speaker 1: And the madman's answer would be perfectly correct, but only
1:30:04
Speaker 1: as it applied to himself. What if I am such
1:30:07
Speaker 1: a madman, What if all we rich and leisured people
1:30:10
Speaker 1: are such mad men? And I understood that we really
1:30:12
Speaker 1: are mad men, I, at any rate was certainly such.
1:30:17
Speaker 1: And indeed, a bird is so made that it must fly,
1:30:19
Speaker 1: collect food, and build a nest. And when I see
1:30:21
Speaker 1: that a bird does this, I have pleasure in its joy.
1:30:24
Speaker 1: A goat, a hare, and a wolf are so made
1:30:26
Speaker 1: that they must feed themselves, and must breed and feed
1:30:29
Speaker 1: their family, And when they do so, I feel firmly
1:30:31
Speaker 1: assured that they are happy and that their life is
1:30:33
Speaker 1: a reasonable one. Then what should a man do? He too,
1:30:37
Speaker 1: should provide his living as the animals do, but with
1:30:39
Speaker 1: this difference that he will perish if he does it alone.
1:30:42
Speaker 1: He must obtain it not for himself, but for all.
1:30:45
Speaker 1: And when he does that, I have a firm assurance
1:30:47
Speaker 1: that he is happy and that his life is reasonable.
1:30:50
Speaker 1: But what had I done during those whole thirty years
1:30:52
Speaker 1: of my responsible life? Far from producing sustenance for all,
1:30:56
Speaker 1: I did not even produce it for myself. I lived
1:30:59
Speaker 1: as a parasite. On asking myself what is the use
1:31:01
Speaker 1: of my life? I got the reply, no use. If
1:31:05
Speaker 1: the meaning of human life lies in supporting it. How
1:31:08
Speaker 1: could I, who for thirty years have been engaged not
1:31:10
Speaker 1: on supporting life, but on destroying it in myself and
1:31:12
Speaker 1: in others? How could I obtain any other answer than
1:31:15
Speaker 1: that my life was senseless and and evil. It was
1:31:18
Speaker 1: both senseless and evil. The life of the world endures
1:31:21
Speaker 1: by someone's will, by the life of the whole world,
1:31:24
Speaker 1: and by our lives. Someone fulfills his purpose. To hope,
1:31:27
Speaker 1: to understand the meaning of that will, one must first
1:31:30
Speaker 1: perform it by doing what is wanted of us. But
1:31:32
Speaker 1: if I will not do what is wanted of me,
1:31:34
Speaker 1: I shall never understand what is wanted of me, and
1:31:36
Speaker 1: still less what is wanted of all of us and
1:31:38
Speaker 1: of the whole world. If a naked, hungry beggar has
1:31:41
Speaker 1: been taken to the cross roads, brought into a building
1:31:44
Speaker 1: belonging to a beautiful establishment, fed, supplied with drink, and
1:31:47
Speaker 1: obliged to move a handle up and down, evidently, before
1:31:50
Speaker 1: discussing why he was taken, why he should move the handle,
1:31:54
Speaker 1: and whether the whole establishment is reasonably arranged, the beggar
1:31:57
Speaker 1: should first of all move the handle. If he moves
1:31:59
Speaker 1: the handle, he will understand that it works a pump,
1:32:02
Speaker 1: and that the pump draws water, and that the water
1:32:04
Speaker 1: irrigates the garden beds. Then he will be taken from
1:32:07
Speaker 1: the pumping station to another place, where he will gather fruits,
1:32:10
Speaker 1: and will enter into the joy of his master, and,
1:32:12
Speaker 1: passing from lower to higher work, will understand more and
1:32:15
Speaker 1: more of the arrangements of the establishment, and taking part
1:32:18
Speaker 1: in it, will never think to ask why he is there,
1:32:20
Speaker 1: and certainly will not reproach the Master. So those who
1:32:24
Speaker 1: do his will, the simple, unlearned, working folk, whom we
1:32:27
Speaker 1: regard as cattle, do not reproach the master. But we
1:32:30
Speaker 1: the wise eat the master's food, but do not do
1:32:33
Speaker 1: what the master wishes, and instead of doing it, sit
1:32:35
Speaker 1: in a circle and discuss why should that handle be moved?
1:32:38
Speaker 1: Isn't it stupid? So we have decided. We have decided
1:32:42
Speaker 1: that the Master is stupid or does not exist, and
1:32:44
Speaker 1: that we are wise. Only we feel that we are
1:32:47
Speaker 1: quite useless, and that we must somehow do away with ourselves.
1:32:50
Speaker 1: End of chapter eleven Chapter twelve of a confession by
1:32:59
Speaker 1: Leo Tolstoy. The consciousness of the error in reasonable knowledge
1:33:03
Speaker 1: helped me to free myself from the temptation of ido readiocination.
1:33:07
Speaker 1: The conviction that knowledge of truth can only be found
1:33:09
Speaker 1: by living led me to doubt the rightness of my life.
1:33:12
Speaker 1: But I was saved only by the fact that I
1:33:13
Speaker 1: was able to tear myself from my exclusiveness and to
1:33:16
Speaker 1: see the real life of the plain, working people, and
1:33:18
Speaker 1: to understand that that alone is real life. I understood
1:33:22
Speaker 1: that if I wished to understand life and its meaning,
1:33:24
Speaker 1: I must not live the life of a parasite, but
1:33:26
Speaker 1: must live a real life, and taking the meaning given
1:33:29
Speaker 1: to life by the real humanity, and merging myself in
1:33:32
Speaker 1: that life verify it. During that time, this is what
1:33:35
Speaker 1: happened to me, during that whole year, when I was
1:33:37
Speaker 1: asking myself almost every moment whether or not I should
1:33:40
Speaker 1: end matters with a noose or a bullet. All that time,
1:33:42
Speaker 1: together with my course of thought and the observation about
1:33:45
Speaker 1: which I have spoken, my heart was oppressed with a
1:33:47
Speaker 1: painful feeling which I can only describe as a search
1:33:50
Speaker 1: for God. I say that that search for God was
1:33:52
Speaker 1: not reasoning, but a feeling, because that search proceeded not
1:33:55
Speaker 1: from the course of my thoughts, it was even directly
1:33:57
Speaker 1: contrary to them, but proceeded from the heart. It was
1:34:00
Speaker 1: a feeling of fear, orphanage, isolation in the strange land,
1:34:03
Speaker 1: and a hope of help from some one. Though I
1:34:06
Speaker 1: was quite convinced of the impossibility of proving the existence
1:34:08
Speaker 1: of a deity, Conte had shown, and I quite understood
1:34:11
Speaker 1: him that it could not be proven. I had yet
1:34:13
Speaker 1: sought for God, hoping that I could find him, and
1:34:15
Speaker 1: from old Habit addressed prayers to that which I had
1:34:17
Speaker 1: sought but had not found. I went over in my
1:34:20
Speaker 1: mind the arguments of Kant and Schopenhauer showing the impossibility
1:34:23
Speaker 1: of proving the existence of a God, and I began
1:34:25
Speaker 1: to verify those arguments and refute them. Cause, said I
1:34:28
Speaker 1: to myself, is not a category of thoughts, such as
1:34:30
Speaker 1: are time and space. If I exist, there must be
1:34:33
Speaker 1: some cause of it, and a cause for causes, And
1:34:36
Speaker 1: that first cause of all is what men have called God.
1:34:39
Speaker 1: And I paused on that thought and tried with all
1:34:41
Speaker 1: my being to recognize the presence of that cause. And
1:34:44
Speaker 1: as soon as I acknowledged that there is a force
1:34:46
Speaker 1: in whose power I am, I at once felt that
1:34:48
Speaker 1: I could live. But I asked myself, what is that cause?
1:34:51
Speaker 1: That force? How am I to think of it, what
1:34:54
Speaker 1: are my relations to that which I call God? And
1:34:57
Speaker 1: only the familiar replies occurred to me, He is the
1:34:59
Speaker 1: creator and the preserver. This reply did not satisfy me,
1:35:02
Speaker 1: and I felt that I was losing within me what
1:35:04
Speaker 1: I needed for my life. I became terrified and began
1:35:07
Speaker 1: to pray to him whom I sought, that he should
1:35:09
Speaker 1: help me. But the more I prayed, the more apparent
1:35:12
Speaker 1: it became to me that he did not hear me,
1:35:14
Speaker 1: and that there was no one to whom I could
1:35:15
Speaker 1: address myself. And with despair in my heart that there
1:35:18
Speaker 1: is no God at all, I said, Lord, have mercy,
1:35:21
Speaker 1: save me, Lord teach me. But no one had mercy
1:35:24
Speaker 1: on me, and I felt that my life was coming
1:35:26
Speaker 1: to a standstill. But again and again, from varying sides,
1:35:29
Speaker 1: I returned to the same conclusion that I could not
1:35:31
Speaker 1: have come into the world without any cause or reason
1:35:34
Speaker 1: or meaning. I could not be such a fledgling fallen
1:35:36
Speaker 1: from its nest, as I felt myself to be, or
1:35:39
Speaker 1: granting that I be such, lying on my back crying
1:35:41
Speaker 1: in the high grass. Even then I cried because I
1:35:43
Speaker 1: know a mother has borne me within her, has hatched me,
1:35:46
Speaker 1: warned me, fed me, and loved me. Where is she
1:35:49
Speaker 1: that mother? If I had been deserted, who has deserted me?
1:35:52
Speaker 1: I cannot hide from myself that someone bored me loving me.
1:35:55
Speaker 1: Who was that someone? Again, God, he knows and sees
1:35:59
Speaker 1: my search, my despair and my struggle. He exists, said
1:36:02
Speaker 1: I to myself. And I had only for an instant
1:36:05
Speaker 1: to admit that. And at once life rose within me,
1:36:07
Speaker 1: and I felt the possibility and joy of being. But again,
1:36:10
Speaker 1: from the admission of the existence of a God, I
1:36:12
Speaker 1: went out to search my relation with him. And again
1:36:15
Speaker 1: I imagined that God, our creator in three persons, who sent
1:36:18
Speaker 1: his son, the Savior. And again that God detached from
1:36:21
Speaker 1: the world and from me, melted like a block of ice,
1:36:23
Speaker 1: melted before my eyes. And again nothing remained, and again
1:36:26
Speaker 1: the spring of life dried up within me, and I
1:36:28
Speaker 1: despaired and felt that I had nothing to do but
1:36:30
Speaker 1: kill myself. And worst of all was that I could
1:36:33
Speaker 1: not do it. Not twice or three times, but tens
1:36:35
Speaker 1: and hundreds of times. I reached those conditions, first of
1:36:38
Speaker 1: joy and animation, and then of despair and consciousness of
1:36:41
Speaker 1: the impossibility of living. I remember that it was in
1:36:44
Speaker 1: early spring, I was alone in the woods, listening to
1:36:46
Speaker 1: its sounds. I listened and thought, ever of the same
1:36:49
Speaker 1: thing as I had continually done during those last three years.
1:36:52
Speaker 1: I was again seeking God. Very well. There is no God,
1:36:55
Speaker 1: said I to myself. There is no one who is
1:36:57
Speaker 1: not my imagination but a reality like my own. He
1:37:01
Speaker 1: does not exist, and no miracles can prove his existence,
1:37:03
Speaker 1: because the miracles would be my imagination, besides being irrational.
1:37:07
Speaker 1: But my perception of God, of Him whom I seek,
1:37:09
Speaker 1: I asked myself, where is that perception come from? And
1:37:13
Speaker 1: again at this thought, the glad waves of life rose
1:37:15
Speaker 1: within me. All that was around me came to life
1:37:17
Speaker 1: and received a meaning. But my joy did not last long.
1:37:21
Speaker 1: My mind continued its work. The conception of God is
1:37:24
Speaker 1: not God, said I to myself. The conception is what
1:37:26
Speaker 1: takes place within me. The conception of God is something
1:37:29
Speaker 1: I can evoke or can refrain from evoking in myself.
1:37:32
Speaker 1: That is not what I seek. I seek that without
1:37:35
Speaker 1: which there can be no life. And again, all around
1:37:38
Speaker 1: me and within me began to die, and again I
1:37:40
Speaker 1: wished to kill myself. But then I turned my gaze
1:37:42
Speaker 1: upon myself on what went on within me. I remembered
1:37:45
Speaker 1: all those cessations of life and reanimations that had reoccurred
1:37:48
Speaker 1: within me hundreds of times. I remembered that I only
1:37:51
Speaker 1: lived at those times when I believed in God. As
1:37:53
Speaker 1: it was before, so it was now. I need only
1:37:55
Speaker 1: be aware of God. To live, I needed only to
1:37:58
Speaker 1: forget Him or disbelieve Him, and I die. What is
1:38:01
Speaker 1: this animation in dying? I do not live when I
1:38:03
Speaker 1: lose belief in the existence of God. I should long
1:38:06
Speaker 1: ago have killed myself had I not a dim hope
1:38:08
Speaker 1: of finding him. I live, really live only when I
1:38:11
Speaker 1: feel Him and seek Him. What more do you seek?
1:38:13
Speaker 1: Exclaimed a voice within me. This is He. He is
1:38:16
Speaker 1: that without which one cannot live. To know God and
1:38:19
Speaker 1: to live is one and the same thing. God is life.
1:38:22
Speaker 1: Live seeking God, and then you will not live without God.
1:38:26
Speaker 1: And more than ever before, all within me and around
1:38:28
Speaker 1: me lit up, and the light did not again abandon me,
1:38:31
Speaker 1: and I was saved from suicide. When and how this
1:38:34
Speaker 1: change occurred in me I could not say, as imperceptibly
1:38:37
Speaker 1: and gradually the force of life in me had been destroyed,
1:38:40
Speaker 1: and I had reached the impossibility of living. A cessation
1:38:42
Speaker 1: of life and the necessity of suicide. So imperceptibly and
1:38:46
Speaker 1: gradually did the force of life return to me. And
1:38:49
Speaker 1: strange to say that the strength of life which returned
1:38:51
Speaker 1: me was not new, but quite old, the same that
1:38:53
Speaker 1: had borne me along in my earliest days. I quite
1:38:56
Speaker 1: returned to what belonged to my earliest childhood and youth.
1:39:00
Speaker 1: Returned to the belief in that will which produced me
1:39:02
Speaker 1: and desires something of me. I returned to the belief
1:39:04
Speaker 1: that the chief and only aim of my life is
1:39:06
Speaker 1: to be better, i e. To live in accord with
1:39:08
Speaker 1: that will. And I returned to the belief that I
1:39:11
Speaker 1: can find expression of that will in what humanity, in
1:39:13
Speaker 1: the distant pass hidden from has produced for its guidance.
1:39:16
Speaker 1: That is to say, I returned to a belief in God,
1:39:19
Speaker 1: in moral perfection, and in a tradition transmitting the meaning
1:39:22
Speaker 1: of life. There was only this difference that then all
1:39:25
Speaker 1: this was accepted unconsciously, while now I knew that without
1:39:28
Speaker 1: it I could not live. What happened to me was
1:39:30
Speaker 1: something like this. I was put into a boat I
1:39:32
Speaker 1: do not remember when, and pushed off from an unknown shore.
1:39:35
Speaker 1: Shown the direction of the opposite shore had ores put
1:39:38
Speaker 1: in my unpracticed hands, and was left alone. I rowed
1:39:41
Speaker 1: as best as I could and moved forward. But the
1:39:43
Speaker 1: further I advanced towards the middle of the stream, the
1:39:45
Speaker 1: more rapid grew the current bearing me away from my goal,
1:39:48
Speaker 1: and the more frequently did I encounter others like myself
1:39:51
Speaker 1: borne away by the stream. There were few rowers who
1:39:53
Speaker 1: continued to row. There were others who had abandoned their oars.
1:39:56
Speaker 1: There were large boats and immense vessels full of people
1:40:00
Speaker 1: struggled against the current, others yielded to it. And the
1:40:02
Speaker 1: further I went, the more, seeing the progress down the
1:40:05
Speaker 1: current of all those who were adrift, I forgot the
1:40:07
Speaker 1: direction given to me in the very center of the stream.
1:40:10
Speaker 1: Amid the crowds of boats and vessels which were being
1:40:12
Speaker 1: borne downstream, I quite lost my direction and abandoned my oars.
1:40:17
Speaker 1: Around me on all sides, with mirth and rejoicing, people
1:40:20
Speaker 1: with sails and oars were borne down the stream, assuring
1:40:22
Speaker 1: me and each other that no other direction was possible.
1:40:25
Speaker 1: And I believed them and floated with them. Now I
1:40:28
Speaker 1: was carried far, so far that I heard the roar
1:40:30
Speaker 1: of the rapids in which I must be shattered, and
1:40:32
Speaker 1: I saw boats shattered in them, and I recollected myself.
1:40:35
Speaker 1: I was long unable to understand what had happened to me.
1:40:38
Speaker 1: I saw before me nothing but destruction, towards which I
1:40:41
Speaker 1: was rushing, in which I feared. I saw no safety anywhere,
1:40:44
Speaker 1: and did not know what to do. But looking back,
1:40:46
Speaker 1: I perceived innumerable boats which unceasingly and strenuously pushed against
1:40:50
Speaker 1: the stream. And I remembered about the shore, the oars
1:40:53
Speaker 1: in the direction, and began to pull back upwards against
1:40:55
Speaker 1: the stream and towards the shore. That shore was God,
1:40:58
Speaker 1: and the direction was tradition. The ores were the freedom
1:41:01
Speaker 1: given to me to pull for the shore and unite
1:41:03
Speaker 1: with God. And so the force of life was renewed
1:41:05
Speaker 1: in me, and I again began to live. End of
1:41:08
Speaker 1: chapter twelve. Chapter thirteen of a confession by Leo Tolstoy.
1:41:18
Speaker 1: I turned from the life of our circle, acknowledging that
1:41:20
Speaker 1: ours is not life but a simulation of life, that
1:41:23
Speaker 1: the conditions of superfluidity in which we live deprive us
1:41:25
Speaker 1: of the possibility of understanding life, and that in order
1:41:28
Speaker 1: to understand life, I must understand not an exceptional life
1:41:31
Speaker 1: such as ours, who are parasites of life, but the
1:41:33
Speaker 1: life of simple laboring folk, those who make it life,
1:41:36
Speaker 1: and the meaning which they attribute to it. The simplest
1:41:39
Speaker 1: laboring people around me were the Russian people, and I
1:41:42
Speaker 1: turned to them into the meaning of life which they gave.
1:41:45
Speaker 1: That meaning, if one could put it into words, was
1:41:47
Speaker 1: as follows. Every man has come to the world by
1:41:49
Speaker 1: the will of God, and God has so made men
1:41:52
Speaker 1: that man could destroy his soul or save it. The
1:41:54
Speaker 1: aim of man in life is to save his soul.
1:41:56
Speaker 1: And to save his soul he must live godly, and
1:41:58
Speaker 1: to live godly he must renounce all pleasures of life,
1:42:01
Speaker 1: must labor, humble himself, suffer, and be merciful. That meaning
1:42:05
Speaker 1: people obtained from the whole teaching of faith transmitted to
1:42:07
Speaker 1: them by their pastors and by the traditions that live
1:42:09
Speaker 1: among the people. This meaning was clear to me and
1:42:12
Speaker 1: near to my heart. But together with this meaning of
1:42:14
Speaker 1: the popular faith of our non sectarian folk among whom
1:42:17
Speaker 1: I lived, much was inseparably bound up that revolted me
1:42:20
Speaker 1: and seemed to me inexplicable. Sacraments, church services, fast in
1:42:23
Speaker 1: the adoration of relics and icons. The people cannot separate
1:42:27
Speaker 1: one from the other, nor could I and strange as
1:42:29
Speaker 1: much of what entered into the faith of these people
1:42:31
Speaker 1: was to me. I accepted everything, and attended the services,
1:42:34
Speaker 1: knelt morning and evening in prayer, fasted and prepared to
1:42:37
Speaker 1: receive the eucharists. And at first my reason did not
1:42:39
Speaker 1: resist anything. The very things that had formerly seemed to
1:42:42
Speaker 1: me impossible did not now evoke in me any opposition.
1:42:46
Speaker 1: My relations to faith before and after were quite different. Formerly,
1:42:49
Speaker 1: life itself seemed to me full of meaning, and faith
1:42:51
Speaker 1: presented itself as the arbitrary assertion of propositions, to me
1:42:54
Speaker 1: quite unnecessary, unreasonable, and disconnected from life. I then asked
1:42:58
Speaker 1: myself what meaning those proper positions had, and convinced that
1:43:01
Speaker 1: they had none, I rejected them. Now, on the contrary,
1:43:04
Speaker 1: I knew firmly that my life otherwise has and can
1:43:06
Speaker 1: have no meaning, and articles of faith were far from
1:43:09
Speaker 1: presenting themselves to me is unnecessary. On the contrary, I
1:43:12
Speaker 1: had been led by indubitable experience to the conviction that
1:43:15
Speaker 1: only these propositions presented by faith give life a meaning.
1:43:18
Speaker 1: Formerly I looked on them as some quite unnecessary gibberish.
1:43:21
Speaker 1: But now if I did not understand them. I yet
1:43:23
Speaker 1: knew that they had a meaning, and I said to
1:43:25
Speaker 1: myself that I must learn to understand them. I argued
1:43:28
Speaker 1: as follows, telling myself that the knowledge of faith flows,
1:43:30
Speaker 1: like all humanity, with its reason, from a mysterious source.
1:43:34
Speaker 1: That source is God, the origin both of the human
1:43:36
Speaker 1: body and the human reason. As my body has descended
1:43:39
Speaker 1: to me from God, so also has my reason and
1:43:41
Speaker 1: my understanding of life. And consequently, the various stages of
1:43:44
Speaker 1: development of that understanding of life cannot be false. All
1:43:48
Speaker 1: that people sincerely believe and must be true. It may
1:43:50
Speaker 1: be differently expressed, but it cannot be a lie. And
1:43:53
Speaker 1: therefore if it presents itself to me as a lie,
1:43:55
Speaker 1: that only means that I have not understood it. Furthermore,
1:43:58
Speaker 1: I said to myself, the essence of every faith consists
1:44:00
Speaker 1: in its giving life, a meaning which death does not destroy. Naturally,
1:44:04
Speaker 1: for a faith to be able to reply to the
1:44:05
Speaker 1: questions of a king dying in luxury, or an old
1:44:08
Speaker 1: slave tormented by overwork, or of an unreasonable child of
1:44:11
Speaker 1: a wise old man, or a half witted old woman,
1:44:14
Speaker 1: of a young and happy wife of a youth tormented
1:44:16
Speaker 1: by passions. Of all people in the most varied conditions
1:44:19
Speaker 1: of life and education. If there is one reply to
1:44:21
Speaker 1: the one eternal question of life, why do I live? In?
1:44:24
Speaker 1: What will result of my life? The reply, though one
1:44:26
Speaker 1: in its essence, must be endlessly varied in its presentation.
1:44:29
Speaker 1: And the more it is one, the more true and
1:44:31
Speaker 1: profound it is, the more strange and deformed must it
1:44:33
Speaker 1: naturally appear in its attempted expression comfortably to the education
1:44:37
Speaker 1: and position of each person. But this argument, justifying in
1:44:40
Speaker 1: my eyes the queerness of much on the ritual side
1:44:42
Speaker 1: of religion, did not suffice to allow me, in the
1:44:44
Speaker 1: one great affair of life, religion, to do things in
1:44:47
Speaker 1: which seemed to me questionable. With all my soul, I
1:44:50
Speaker 1: wished to be in a position to mingle with the
1:44:52
Speaker 1: people fulfilling the ritual side of their religion, but I
1:44:54
Speaker 1: could not do it. I felt that I should lie
1:44:56
Speaker 1: to myself and mock all which was sacred to me,
1:44:58
Speaker 1: were I to do so. At this point, however, our
1:45:01
Speaker 1: new Russian theological writers came to my rescue. According to
1:45:04
Speaker 1: the explanation, these theologians gave the fundamental dogma of our
1:45:08
Speaker 1: faith is the infallibility of the church. From the admission
1:45:11
Speaker 1: of that dogma follows inevitably the truth of all that
1:45:13
Speaker 1: is professed by the Church. The Church is an assembly
1:45:16
Speaker 1: of true believers united by love, and therefore possessed of
1:45:19
Speaker 1: true knowledge. Became the basis of my faith. I told
1:45:22
Speaker 1: myself that divine truth cannot be accessible to a separate individual.
1:45:25
Speaker 1: It is revealed only to the whole assembly of people
1:45:27
Speaker 1: united by love. To attain truth, one must not be separate,
1:45:31
Speaker 1: and in order to not separate one's self, one must
1:45:33
Speaker 1: love and must endure things one may not agree with.
1:45:36
Speaker 1: Truth reveals itself to love, and if you do not
1:45:38
Speaker 1: submit to the rights of the Church, you transgress against love,
1:45:41
Speaker 1: and by transgressing against love, you deprive yourself from the
1:45:44
Speaker 1: possibility of recognizing the truth. I did not then see
1:45:47
Speaker 1: the selfistry contained in this argument. I did not see
1:45:49
Speaker 1: that union and love may give the greatest love, but
1:45:51
Speaker 1: certainly cannot give us divine truth expressed in the definite
1:45:54
Speaker 1: words of the Nicene Creed. I also do not perceive
1:45:57
Speaker 1: that love cannot make a certain expression of truth and
1:45:59
Speaker 1: obligatory condition of union. I did not then see these
1:46:02
Speaker 1: mistakes in the argument, and thanks to it was able
1:46:04
Speaker 1: to accept and perform all the rights of the Orthodox Church,
1:46:07
Speaker 1: without understanding most of them. I then tried with all
1:46:10
Speaker 1: the strength of my soul to avoid all arguments and contradictions,
1:46:13
Speaker 1: and tried to explain as reasonably as possible the church
1:46:15
Speaker 1: statements I encountered. While fulfilling the rights of the Church,
1:46:18
Speaker 1: I humbled my reason and submitted to the traditions possessed
1:46:21
Speaker 1: by all humanity. I united myself with my forefathers, the father, mother,
1:46:25
Speaker 1: and grandparents that I loved. They and all my predecessors
1:46:28
Speaker 1: believed and lived, and they produced me. I united myself
1:46:31
Speaker 1: also with the mission of the common people, whom I respected. Moreover,
1:46:34
Speaker 1: those actions had nothing bad in themselves, bad I considered
1:46:37
Speaker 1: the indulgence of one's desires. When rising early for church services,
1:46:41
Speaker 1: I knew I was doing well, if only because I
1:46:43
Speaker 1: was sacrificing my bodily ease to humble my mental pride
1:46:46
Speaker 1: for the sake of union with my ancestors and contemporaries,
1:46:49
Speaker 1: and for the sake of finding the meaning of life.
1:46:52
Speaker 1: It was the same with my preparations to receive communion,
1:46:54
Speaker 1: and with the daily reading of prayers with genuflections, and
1:46:57
Speaker 1: also with the observance of all the fasts, however significant
1:47:00
Speaker 1: these sacrifices might be, I made them not for the
1:47:02
Speaker 1: sake of something good. I fasted, prepared for communion, and
1:47:06
Speaker 1: observed the fixed hours of prayers at home and in church.
1:47:09
Speaker 1: During church service, I attended to every word and gave
1:47:11
Speaker 1: them a meaning whenever I could. In the mass, the
1:47:14
Speaker 1: most important words for me were let us love one
1:47:16
Speaker 1: another in conformity, the furthest words, and unity. We believe
1:47:20
Speaker 1: in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. I
1:47:22
Speaker 1: passed by because I could not understand them. End of
1:47:25
Speaker 1: chapter thirteen, Chapter fourteen of a confession by Leo Tolstoit.
1:47:34
Speaker 1: It was then so necessary for me to believe in
1:47:36
Speaker 1: order to live that I unconsciously concealed from myself the
1:47:39
Speaker 1: contradictions and obscurities of theology. But this reading of meanings
1:47:43
Speaker 1: into the rites had its limits. If the chief words
1:47:45
Speaker 1: and the prayer for the Emperor became more and more
1:47:47
Speaker 1: queer to me, if I found some explanation for the words,
1:47:50
Speaker 1: and remembering our sovereign most Holy Mother of God and
1:47:53
Speaker 1: all the saints, ourselves and one another, we give our
1:47:55
Speaker 1: whole life to Christ, our God. If I explained to
1:47:58
Speaker 1: myself the frequent repetitions of prayers for that Csarre and
1:48:00
Speaker 1: his relations, by the fact that they are more exposed
1:48:03
Speaker 1: to temptations in other people, and therefore are more in
1:48:05
Speaker 1: need of being prayed for. The prayers about subduing our
1:48:08
Speaker 1: enemies and evil under our feet, even if one tried
1:48:11
Speaker 1: to say that sin was the enemy being prayed against.
1:48:13
Speaker 1: These and other prayers, such as the Cherabic Song and
1:48:15
Speaker 1: the whole sacrament of oblation, or the Chosen Warriors, et cetera.
1:48:18
Speaker 1: Quite two thirds of all the services either remained completely incomprehensible,
1:48:22
Speaker 1: or when I forced an explanation to them, made me
1:48:25
Speaker 1: feel that I was lying, thereby destroying my relation to
1:48:27
Speaker 1: God and depriving me of all possibility of belief. I
1:48:30
Speaker 1: felt the same about the celebration of the chief holidays.
1:48:33
Speaker 1: To remember the Sabbath, that is, to devote one day
1:48:35
Speaker 1: to God, was something I could understand. But the Chief
1:48:38
Speaker 1: Holiday was in commemoration of the Resurrection, the reality of
1:48:41
Speaker 1: which I could not picture to myself or understand. And
1:48:44
Speaker 1: the name of Resurrection was also given to the weekly holiday,
1:48:48
Speaker 1: and on those days the sacrament of the Eucharus was administered,
1:48:50
Speaker 1: which was quite unintelligible to me. The rest of the
1:48:53
Speaker 1: twelve great holidays except Christmas, commemorated miracles. The things I
1:48:57
Speaker 1: tried not to think about in order to not deny
1:48:59
Speaker 1: the Ascension, Pentecost, Epiphany, the feast of the Intercession of
1:49:02
Speaker 1: the Holy Virgin, et cetera. At the celebration of these holidays,
1:49:06
Speaker 1: feeling that importance was being attributed to the very things
1:49:09
Speaker 1: that to me presented a negative importance, I either devised
1:49:12
Speaker 1: tranquilizing explanations or shut my eyes in order not to
1:49:15
Speaker 1: see what tempted me. Most of all, this happened to
1:49:17
Speaker 1: me when taking part in the most usual sacraments, which
1:49:20
Speaker 1: are considered the most important, Baptism and Communion. There I
1:49:23
Speaker 1: experienced not incomprehensible, but fully comprehensible doings, doings which seemed
1:49:28
Speaker 1: to me to lead into temptation, and I was in
1:49:30
Speaker 1: a dilemma whether to lie or to reject them. Never
1:49:33
Speaker 1: shall I forget the painful feeling I experienced the day
1:49:35
Speaker 1: I received the Eucharists for the first time after many years.
1:49:38
Speaker 1: The service, confession, and prayers were quite intelligible and produced
1:49:41
Speaker 1: in me a glad consciousness that the meaning of life
1:49:43
Speaker 1: was being revealed to me. The communion itself, I explained,
1:49:46
Speaker 1: is an act I performed in remembrance of Christ and
1:49:49
Speaker 1: indicating a purification from sin and the full acceptance of
1:49:52
Speaker 1: Christ's teachings. If that explanation was artificial, I did not
1:49:55
Speaker 1: notice its artificiality. So happy was I humbling and abasing
1:49:58
Speaker 1: myself before a priest, a simple, timid country clergyman, turning
1:50:02
Speaker 1: all the dirt out of my soul and confessing my vices.
1:50:05
Speaker 1: So glad was I to merge and thought with the
1:50:07
Speaker 1: humanity of the fathers who wrote the prayers of the office.
1:50:09
Speaker 1: So glad was I of union with all those who
1:50:11
Speaker 1: have believed and now believe that. I did not notice
1:50:14
Speaker 1: the artificiality of my explanation. But when I approached the
1:50:17
Speaker 1: altar gates and the priest made me say that I
1:50:19
Speaker 1: believed that what I was about to swallow was truly
1:50:21
Speaker 1: flesh and blood, I felt a pain in my heart.
1:50:24
Speaker 1: It was not merely a false note. It was a
1:50:26
Speaker 1: cruel demand made by some one or other who evidently
1:50:28
Speaker 1: had never known what faith is. I now permit myself
1:50:31
Speaker 1: to say that it was a cruel demand, but I
1:50:33
Speaker 1: did not then think so, only that it was indescribably painful.
1:50:36
Speaker 1: To me, I was no longer in the position in
1:50:38
Speaker 1: which I had been in youth, when I thought that
1:50:40
Speaker 1: all in life was clear, I had indeed come to faith,
1:50:43
Speaker 1: because apart from faith I had found nothing, certainly nothing
1:50:46
Speaker 1: except destruction. Therefore, to throw away that faith was impossible,
1:50:49
Speaker 1: and I submitted. And I found in my soul a
1:50:51
Speaker 1: feeling which helped me to endure it. This was the
1:50:54
Speaker 1: feeling of self abasement and humility. I humbled myself, swallowed
1:50:57
Speaker 1: that flesh and blood without any blasphemous feelings, and with
1:51:00
Speaker 1: a wish to believe. But the blow had been struck,
1:51:02
Speaker 1: and knowing what awaited me, I could not go a
1:51:04
Speaker 1: second time. I continued to fulfill the rights of the
1:51:07
Speaker 1: church and still believed that the doctrine I was following
1:51:09
Speaker 1: contained the truth. When something happened to me which I
1:51:12
Speaker 1: now understand, but which then seemed strange. I was listening
1:51:15
Speaker 1: to the conversation of an illiterate peasant, a pilgrim, about God, faith,
1:51:19
Speaker 1: life and salvation. When a knowledge of faith revealed itself
1:51:22
Speaker 1: to me. I drew near to the people, listening to
1:51:24
Speaker 1: their opinions of life and faith, and I understood the
1:51:27
Speaker 1: truth more and more so also was it when I
1:51:29
Speaker 1: read the lives of holy men, which became my favorite books,
1:51:32
Speaker 1: putting aside the miracles and regarding them as fables illustrating thoughts.
1:51:36
Speaker 1: This reading revealed to me life's meaning. There were the
1:51:39
Speaker 1: lives of Macarius the Great, the story of Buddha. They
1:51:41
Speaker 1: were the words of Saint John Chrysostom. And there were
1:51:44
Speaker 1: the stories of the Traveler and the well, the monk
1:51:46
Speaker 1: who found some gold, and of Peter the Publican. There
1:51:49
Speaker 1: were stories of the martyrs, all announcing that death does
1:51:51
Speaker 1: not exclude life. And there were the stories of ignorant,
1:51:54
Speaker 1: stupid men who knew nothing of the teaching of the church,
1:51:56
Speaker 1: but who yet were saved. But as soon as I
1:51:59
Speaker 1: met learned believers or took up their books, doubt of myself, dissatisfaction,
1:52:03
Speaker 1: and exasperated disputation were roused in me, and I felt
1:52:06
Speaker 1: that the more I entered into the meanings of these
1:52:08
Speaker 1: men's speeches, the more I went astray from truth and
1:52:10
Speaker 1: approached an abyss. End of chapter fourteen Chapter fifteen of
1:52:19
Speaker 1: a confession by Leo Tolstoyt, how often I envied the
1:52:23
Speaker 1: peasants for their illiteracy and lack of learning those statements
1:52:26
Speaker 1: in the Creeds, which to me were evident absurdities, for
1:52:28
Speaker 1: them contained nothing false. They could accept them and could
1:52:31
Speaker 1: believe in the truth. The truth I believed in only
1:52:34
Speaker 1: to me unhappy man. Was it clear that with truth
1:52:36
Speaker 1: falsehood was interwoven by the finest threads, and that I
1:52:39
Speaker 1: could not accept them in that form. So I lived
1:52:42
Speaker 1: for about three years at first, when I was only
1:52:45
Speaker 1: slightly associated with truth as a catashuman, and was only
1:52:48
Speaker 1: scenting out what seemed to me clearest. These encounters struck
1:52:51
Speaker 1: me less when I did not understand anything I said.
1:52:55
Speaker 1: It is my fault. I am sinful. But the more
1:52:57
Speaker 1: I became imbued with the truths I was learning, the
1:53:00
Speaker 1: more they became the basis of my life. The more
1:53:02
Speaker 1: oppressive and the more painful became these encounters, and the
1:53:05
Speaker 1: sharper became the line between that which I do not
1:53:07
Speaker 1: understand because I am not able to understand it, and
1:53:09
Speaker 1: what cannot be understood except by lying to one's self.
1:53:12
Speaker 1: In spite of my doubts and sufferings, I still clung
1:53:15
Speaker 1: to the Orthodox Church. But questions of life arose which
1:53:18
Speaker 1: had to be decided, and the decision of these questions
1:53:21
Speaker 1: by the Church contrary to the very basis of the
1:53:24
Speaker 1: belief by which I lived, obliged me at last to
1:53:26
Speaker 1: renounce communion with Orthodoxy as impossible. These questions were first
1:53:31
Speaker 1: the relation of the Orthodox Eastern Church to other churches,
1:53:34
Speaker 1: to the Catholics, and to the so called sectarians. At
1:53:37
Speaker 1: that time, in consequence of my interest in religion, I
1:53:40
Speaker 1: came into touch with believers of various faiths, Catholics, Protestants,
1:53:44
Speaker 1: old Believers, Molochans, and others. And I met among them
1:53:47
Speaker 1: many men of lofty morals who are truly religious. I
1:53:50
Speaker 1: wished to be a brother to them. And what happened
1:53:53
Speaker 1: that feeling which promised to unite all in one faith
1:53:56
Speaker 1: in love, that very teaching in the person of its
1:53:58
Speaker 1: best representatives, told me that these men were all living
1:54:01
Speaker 1: a lie, and that what gave them their power of
1:54:03
Speaker 1: life was a temptation of the devil, and that we
1:54:05
Speaker 1: alone possessed the only possible truth. And I saw that
1:54:08
Speaker 1: all who do not profess an identical faith with themselves
1:54:11
Speaker 1: are considered by the Orthodox to be heretics, just as
1:54:14
Speaker 1: the Catholics and others considered the Orthodox to be heretics.
1:54:17
Speaker 1: And I saw that the Orthodox, though they tried to
1:54:19
Speaker 1: hide this regard with hostility all those who do not
1:54:21
Speaker 1: express their faith by the same external symbols and words
1:54:24
Speaker 1: as themselves. And this is naturally so, first because the
1:54:28
Speaker 1: assertion that you are in falsehood and I am in
1:54:30
Speaker 1: truth is the most cruel thing one man can say
1:54:32
Speaker 1: to another. And secondly, because a man loving his children
1:54:35
Speaker 1: and brothers cannot help being hostile to those who wish
1:54:38
Speaker 1: to pervert his children and his brothers to a false belief.
1:54:41
Speaker 1: And that hostility is increased in proportion to one's greater
1:54:44
Speaker 1: knowledge of theology. And to me, who considered that truthly
1:54:47
Speaker 1: in union by love, it became self evident that theology
1:54:50
Speaker 1: was itself destroying what it ought to practice. This offense
1:54:53
Speaker 1: is so obvious to us educated people who have lived
1:54:55
Speaker 1: in countries where various religions are professed, and have seen
1:54:59
Speaker 1: the contempt, so health assurance and invincible contradiction with which
1:55:02
Speaker 1: Catholics behave to the Orthodox Greeks and to the Protestants,
1:55:05
Speaker 1: and the Orthodox to the Catholics and the Protestants, and
1:55:08
Speaker 1: the Protestants to the two others, And the similar attitude
1:55:11
Speaker 1: of old believers pashkovities Russian evangelicals, shakers, and all religions,
1:55:16
Speaker 1: that the very obviousness of the temptation at first perplexes us.
1:55:20
Speaker 1: One says to oneself, it is impossible that it is
1:55:22
Speaker 1: so simple, and that people do not see that if
1:55:24
Speaker 1: two assertions are mutually contradictory, then neither of them has
1:55:27
Speaker 1: the sole truth which faith should possess. There is something
1:55:30
Speaker 1: else here. There must be some explanation. I thought there was,
1:55:34
Speaker 1: and sought that explanation, and read all I could on
1:55:36
Speaker 1: the subject, and consulted all whom I could, and no
1:55:39
Speaker 1: one could give me any explanation except the one which
1:55:42
Speaker 1: causes the Sumski Hussars to consider the Sumski Hussars the
1:55:45
Speaker 1: best regiment in the world, and the Yao Uchans to
1:55:47
Speaker 1: consider the best regimen of the world as the Yeo Lukhans.
1:55:51
Speaker 1: The ecclesiastics of all the different creeds, through their best representatives,
1:55:54
Speaker 1: told me nothing but that they believe themselves to have
1:55:56
Speaker 1: the truth and the others to be in error, and
1:55:59
Speaker 1: that all they could do was to pray for them.
1:56:01
Speaker 1: I went to Arkamendrite's bishops, elders, monks of the strictest
1:56:04
Speaker 1: orders and asked them, but none made any attempt to
1:56:08
Speaker 1: explain the matter to me, except one man who explained
1:56:10
Speaker 1: it all, and explained it so that I never had
1:56:12
Speaker 1: to ask anyone any more about it. I said that
1:56:15
Speaker 1: for every unbeliever turning to belief, and all our young
1:56:18
Speaker 1: generation are in a position to do so. The question
1:56:20
Speaker 1: that presents itself first is why is truth not in
1:56:23
Speaker 1: Lutheranism nor in Catholicism, but in Orthodoxy. Educated in the
1:56:27
Speaker 1: high school, he cannot help knowing what the peasants do
1:56:29
Speaker 1: not know. That the Protestants and Catholics equally affirm that
1:56:33
Speaker 1: their faith is the only true one. Historical evidence twisted
1:56:36
Speaker 1: by each religion in its own favor, is insufficient. Is
1:56:39
Speaker 1: it not possible, said I, to understand the teaching in
1:56:42
Speaker 1: a loftier way, so that from its height the differences
1:56:45
Speaker 1: should disappear as they do for one who believes truly?
1:56:48
Speaker 1: Can we not go further along the path like the
1:56:50
Speaker 1: one we are following? With the old believers? They emphasize
1:56:53
Speaker 1: the fact that they have a differently shaped cross in
1:56:55
Speaker 1: different aleluliahs, and a different procession around the altar. We reply,
1:56:59
Speaker 1: you believe the Nicene Creed and the seven Sacraments, and
1:57:02
Speaker 1: so do we let us hold to that, and in
1:57:04
Speaker 1: all other matters you do as you please. We have
1:57:07
Speaker 1: united with them by placing the essentials of faith above
1:57:09
Speaker 1: the unessentials. Now, with the Catholics, can we not say,
1:57:13
Speaker 1: you believe in so and so, and and so and so,
1:57:15
Speaker 1: which are the chief things as for the filioqui clause
1:57:18
Speaker 1: and the pope do as you please? Can we not
1:57:20
Speaker 1: say the same to the Protestants uniting with them? And
1:57:23
Speaker 1: what is most important? My interlocutor agreed with my thoughts,
1:57:27
Speaker 1: but told me that such conceptions would bring reproach to
1:57:29
Speaker 1: the spiritual authorities for deserting the faith of our forefathers,
1:57:32
Speaker 1: and this would produce a schism. And the vocation of
1:57:34
Speaker 1: the spiritual authorities is to safeguard and all its purity
1:57:38
Speaker 1: the Greco Russian Orthodox faith inherited from our forefathers. And
1:57:41
Speaker 1: I understood it all. I am seeking a faith the
1:57:44
Speaker 1: power of life, And they are seeking the best way
1:57:46
Speaker 1: to fulfill in the eyes of men, certain human obligations
1:57:49
Speaker 1: and fulfilling these human affairs, They fulfill them in a
1:57:51
Speaker 1: human way. However much they may talk of their pity
1:57:54
Speaker 1: for their erring brethren and of addressing prayers for them
1:57:57
Speaker 1: to the throne of the Almighty. To carry out human
1:57:59
Speaker 1: pers violence is necessary, and it always has been applied,
1:58:03
Speaker 1: and is and will be applied. If of two religions
1:58:06
Speaker 1: each considers itself true in the other false, then men
1:58:09
Speaker 1: desiring to attract others to the truth will preach their
1:58:11
Speaker 1: own doctrine. And if a false teaching is preached to
1:58:14
Speaker 1: the inexperienced sons of their church, which as the truth,
1:58:17
Speaker 1: then that church cannot but burn the books and remove
1:58:20
Speaker 1: the man who is misleading its sons. What is to
1:58:23
Speaker 1: be done with a sectarian burning, in the opinion of
1:58:25
Speaker 1: the Orthodox, with the fire of false doctrine, who, in
1:58:28
Speaker 1: the most important affair of life in faith, misleads the
1:58:31
Speaker 1: sons of the church, What can be done with him
1:58:34
Speaker 1: except to cut off his head or incarcerate him. Under
1:58:37
Speaker 1: the Tsar Alexis Mikailovitch, people were burned at the stake.
1:58:40
Speaker 1: That is to say, the severest method of punishment of
1:58:42
Speaker 1: the time was applied, and in our day also the
1:58:44
Speaker 1: severest method of punishment is applied detention in solitary confinement.
1:58:49
Speaker 1: The second relation of the Church to a question of
1:58:51
Speaker 1: life was with regard to war and executions. At the
1:58:54
Speaker 1: time Russia was at war and Russians, in the name
1:58:57
Speaker 1: of Christian love began to kill their fellow men. It
1:59:00
Speaker 1: was impossible not to think about this and not to
1:59:03
Speaker 1: see that killing is an evil repugnant to the first
1:59:05
Speaker 1: principles of any faith. Yet prayers were said in the
1:59:08
Speaker 1: church for the successes of our arms, and the teachings
1:59:10
Speaker 1: of the faith acknowledged killing to be an act resulting
1:59:13
Speaker 1: from faith. And besides the murders during war, I saw
1:59:16
Speaker 1: it during the disturbances which followed the war, Christian dignitaries
1:59:19
Speaker 1: and teachers and monks of the wesser and stricter orders
1:59:22
Speaker 1: who approved the killing of helpless, erring youths. And I
1:59:25
Speaker 1: took note of all that is done by men who
1:59:27
Speaker 1: professed Christianity, and I was horrified. End of chapter fifteen
1:59:35
Speaker 1: Chapter sixteen of a confession by Leo Tolstoyven and I
1:59:39
Speaker 1: ceased to doubt and became convinced that not always true
1:59:42
Speaker 1: when their religion I had joined. Formerly, I should have
1:59:44
Speaker 1: said that it was all false, but I could not
1:59:46
Speaker 1: say so. Now the whole of the people possessed a
1:59:49
Speaker 1: knowledge of the truth. For otherwise they could not have lived. Moreover,
1:59:52
Speaker 1: that knowledge was accessible to me, for I had felt
1:59:54
Speaker 1: it and lived by it. But I no longer doubted
1:59:57
Speaker 1: that there was also falsehood in it. And all that
1:59:59
Speaker 1: had previous repelled me now presented itself vividly before me.
2:00:02
Speaker 1: And though I saw that among the peasants there was
2:00:04
Speaker 1: a smaller admixture of lies that repelled me that among
2:00:07
Speaker 1: the representatives of the Church, I still saw that in
2:00:09
Speaker 1: the peoples's belief also falsehood was mingled in the truth.
2:00:12
Speaker 1: But where did the truth and where did the falsehood
2:00:14
Speaker 1: come from? Both the falsehood and the truth were contained
2:00:17
Speaker 1: in the so called holy tradition in the scriptures. Both
2:00:20
Speaker 1: the falsehood and the truth had been handed down by
2:00:22
Speaker 1: what is called the Church. And whether I liked it
2:00:24
Speaker 1: or not, I was brought to the study and investigation
2:00:27
Speaker 1: of these writings and traditions, which till now I had
2:00:29
Speaker 1: been so afraid to investigate. And I turned to the
2:00:31
Speaker 1: examination of that same theology which I had once rejected
2:00:34
Speaker 1: with such contempt as unnecessary. Formerly it seemed to me
2:00:37
Speaker 1: a series of unnecessary absurdities, when on all sides I
2:00:40
Speaker 1: was surrounded by manifestations of life which seemed to me
2:00:42
Speaker 1: clearer and full of sense. Now I should have been
2:00:45
Speaker 1: glad to throw away what would not enter a healthy head,
2:00:47
Speaker 1: But I had nowhere to turn to on this teaching.
2:00:50
Speaker 1: Religious doctrine rests, or at least with it, the only
2:00:52
Speaker 1: knowledge of the meaning of life I have found, as
2:00:54
Speaker 1: inseparably connected. However wild it may seem to my firm
2:00:57
Speaker 1: old mind, it was the only hope of salvation. It
2:01:00
Speaker 1: had to be carefully, attentively examined in order to understand it,
2:01:04
Speaker 1: and not even to understand it as I understand the
2:01:06
Speaker 1: propositions of science. I do not seek that, nor can
2:01:09
Speaker 1: I seek it, knowing the special character of religious knowledge,
2:01:12
Speaker 1: I shall not seek the explanation of everything. I know
2:01:15
Speaker 1: that the explanation of everything, like the commencement of everything,
2:01:18
Speaker 1: must be concealed in infinity. But I wish to understand
2:01:21
Speaker 1: in a way which will bring me to what is
2:01:22
Speaker 1: inevitably inexplicable. I wish to recognize anything that is inexplicable
2:01:26
Speaker 1: as being not so. Because the demands and my reason
2:01:28
Speaker 1: are wrong, they are right, and apart from that I
2:01:30
Speaker 1: can understand nothing. But because I recognize the limits of
2:01:33
Speaker 1: my intellect, I wish to understand in such a way
2:01:36
Speaker 1: that everything that is inexplicable shall present itself to me
2:01:38
Speaker 1: as being necessarily inexplicable, and not as being something I
2:01:41
Speaker 1: am under an arbitrary obligation. To believe that there is
2:01:45
Speaker 1: truth in the teaching is to me indubitable, but is
2:01:47
Speaker 1: also certain that there is falsehood in it. And I
2:01:50
Speaker 1: must find what is true and what is false, and
2:01:52
Speaker 1: must disentangle the one from the other. I am seeking
2:01:54
Speaker 1: to work upon this task. What if falsehood I have
2:01:57
Speaker 1: found in the teaching, and what I have found of truth,
2:01:59
Speaker 1: and to what conclusions I came will form the following
2:02:02
Speaker 1: parts of this work, which, if it be worth it,
2:02:04
Speaker 1: and if anybody wants it, will probably some day be
2:02:06
Speaker 1: printed somewhere. Eighteen seventy nine. The foregoing was written by
2:02:11
Speaker 1: me some three years ago, and will be printed now.
2:02:14
Speaker 1: A few days ago, when revising it, and returning to
2:02:16
Speaker 1: this line of thought, to the feelings I had when
2:02:18
Speaker 1: I was living through it all, I had a dream.
2:02:21
Speaker 1: This dream expressed in the condensed form all that I
2:02:23
Speaker 1: have experienced and described, And I think, therefore for those
2:02:26
Speaker 1: who have understood me, a description of this dream will
2:02:28
Speaker 1: refresh and elucidate and unify what has been set forth
2:02:31
Speaker 1: at such a length in the foregoing pages. The dream
2:02:34
Speaker 1: was this. I saw that I was lying on a bed.
2:02:37
Speaker 1: I was neither comfortable nor uncomfortable. I was lying on
2:02:40
Speaker 1: my back. But I began to consider how and on
2:02:43
Speaker 1: what I was lying, a question which had not until
2:02:45
Speaker 1: then occurred to me. And observing my bed, I saw
2:02:48
Speaker 1: I was lying on plated string supports attached to its sides.
2:02:51
Speaker 1: My feet were resting on one such support, by calves
2:02:54
Speaker 1: on another, and my legs felt uncomfortable. I seemed to
2:02:57
Speaker 1: know that those supports were movable, and with a movement
2:02:59
Speaker 1: of my foot, I pushed away the furthest of them
2:03:01
Speaker 1: at my feet. It seemed to me that it would
2:03:03
Speaker 1: be more comfortable, so but I pushed it away too
2:03:06
Speaker 1: far and wished to reach it again with my foot,
2:03:08
Speaker 1: And that movement caused the next support under my calves
2:03:10
Speaker 1: to slip away, also, so that my legs hung in
2:03:13
Speaker 1: the air. I made a movement with my whole body
2:03:15
Speaker 1: to adjust myself, fully convinced that I could do so
2:03:17
Speaker 1: at once, But the movement caused the other supports under
2:03:20
Speaker 1: me to slip and become entangled. And I saw that
2:03:22
Speaker 1: matters were going quite wrong. The whole of the lower
2:03:25
Speaker 1: part of my body slipped and hung down. Though my
2:03:27
Speaker 1: feet did not reach the ground. I was holding on
2:03:29
Speaker 1: only by the upper part of my back. And not
2:03:32
Speaker 1: only did it become uncomfortable, but I was even frightened.
2:03:35
Speaker 1: And then only did I ask myself about something which
2:03:37
Speaker 1: had not occurred to me before. Then I asked myself,
2:03:40
Speaker 1: where am I and what am I lying on? And
2:03:42
Speaker 1: I began to look around, and first of all looked
2:03:44
Speaker 1: down in the direction which my body was hanging, and
2:03:47
Speaker 1: where I felt I must soon fall. I looked down
2:03:49
Speaker 1: and did not believe my eyes. I was not only
2:03:52
Speaker 1: at a height comparable to the height of the highest
2:03:54
Speaker 1: towers or mountains, but at a height such as I
2:03:56
Speaker 1: could have never even imagined. I could not even make
2:03:58
Speaker 1: out whether I saw anything below in that bottomless abyss
2:04:01
Speaker 1: above which I was hanging, and whither I was being drawn.
2:04:05
Speaker 1: My heart contracted, and I experienced horror. To look thither
2:04:08
Speaker 1: was terrible. If I looked thither, I felt that I
2:04:10
Speaker 1: should at once slip from the last support and perish.
2:04:13
Speaker 1: And I did not look. But not to look was
2:04:15
Speaker 1: still worse, for I thought of what would happen to
2:04:17
Speaker 1: me directly if I fell from the last support, and
2:04:19
Speaker 1: I felt that from fear, I was losing my last supports,
2:04:22
Speaker 1: and that my back was slowly slipping lower and lower.
2:04:24
Speaker 1: Another moment and I should drop off. And then it
2:04:27
Speaker 1: occurred to me that this cannot be real. It is
2:04:29
Speaker 1: a dream. Wake up. I try to arouse myself, but
2:04:32
Speaker 1: cannot do so what am I to do? What am
2:04:35
Speaker 1: I to do? I asked myself, And look upwards above
2:04:38
Speaker 1: there is also an infinite space. I look into the
2:04:40
Speaker 1: immensity of sky and try to forget about the immensity below,
2:04:43
Speaker 1: and I really do forget it. The immensity below repels
2:04:46
Speaker 1: and frightens me. The immensity above attracts and strengthens me.
2:04:50
Speaker 1: I am still supported above the abyss by the last
2:04:52
Speaker 1: supports that have not yet slipped from under me. I
2:04:54
Speaker 1: know that I am hanging, but I only look upwards
2:04:56
Speaker 1: and my fear passes. As happens in dreams, A voice says,
2:05:00
Speaker 1: notice this, this is it. And I look more and
2:05:03
Speaker 1: more into the infinite above me and feel that I
2:05:05
Speaker 1: am becoming calm. I remember all that has happened and
2:05:08
Speaker 1: how it happened, how I moved my legs how I
2:05:10
Speaker 1: hung down, how frightened I was, and how I was
2:05:12
Speaker 1: saved from fear by looking upwards. And I asked myself, well,
2:05:16
Speaker 1: and now am I not hanging just the same? And
2:05:18
Speaker 1: I do not so much look round as experience with
2:05:20
Speaker 1: my whole body the point of support on which I
2:05:22
Speaker 1: am held. I see that I no longer hang about
2:05:25
Speaker 1: as if to fall, but am firmly held. I ask
2:05:28
Speaker 1: myself how I am held. I feel round, look round,
2:05:30
Speaker 1: and see that under me, under the middle of my body,
2:05:33
Speaker 1: there is one support, and that when I look upwards,
2:05:36
Speaker 1: I lie on it in a position of securest balance,
2:05:38
Speaker 1: and that it alone gave me the support before and then,
2:05:41
Speaker 1: as happens in dreams, I imagine the mechanism by means
2:05:44
Speaker 1: of which I was held, a very natural, intelligible and
2:05:47
Speaker 1: sure means, though to one awake the mechanism made no sense.
2:05:51
Speaker 1: I was even surprised in my dream that I had
2:05:53
Speaker 1: not understood it. Sooner it appeared that at my head
2:05:55
Speaker 1: there was a pillar, and the security of that slender
2:05:58
Speaker 1: pillar was undoubted, though there was nothing to say support it.
2:06:01
Speaker 1: From that pillar, a loop hung very ingeniously and yet simply,
2:06:04
Speaker 1: And if one lay with the middle of one's body
2:06:06
Speaker 1: in that loop, and looked up. There could be no
2:06:08
Speaker 1: question of falling. This was all queer to me, and
2:06:10
Speaker 1: I was very glad and tranquil, And it seemed as
2:06:13
Speaker 1: if someone said, to me, see that you remember, And
2:06:16
Speaker 1: I awoke. End of chapter sixteen, end of a confession
2:06:21
Speaker 1: by Leo Tolstoi