Count Lyof N. Tolstoy in writing this work expressed himself
in such independent terms that it could not be published in
Russia, but was issued in Geneva in 1888, by the firm of
Elpidine, who had printed in 1886 his "What is my Life," and
in 1892 brought out his "Walk in the Light." The books thus
issued in the original Russian version outside of the famous
author's native land are all purely spiritual, and are written
in the most elevated tone. But Tolstoy's mode of interpreting
the Scriptures is not approved by the Holy Synod of the
Eastern Orthodox Church, or Russo-Greek Communion, and thus
most of his treatises which come within the strictly religious
category are classed amongst the "Forbidden Books" of modern
Russian literature. In this "Confession" Tolstoy emphatically
strikes the keynote which is the _motif_ of all his didactic
writings. It is an affirmation of the principle that the pure
spirit of religion, apart from external dogma, is the really
precious factor of life. He follows the same strain in his
"What I Believe," and his "Christianity of Christ." The
following synopsis is translated and summarised from the
original Russian.
_I.--Evil Early Years_
Though reared in the faith of the Orthodox Eastern, or Russo-Greek
Church, I had by the time when, at the age of eighteen, I left the
university ceased to believe what I had been taught. My faith could
never have been well grounded in conviction. I not only ceased to pray,
but also to attend the services and to fast. Without denying the
existence of God, yet I cherished no ideas either as to the nature of
God or the teaching of Christ.
I found that my wish to become a good and virtuous man, whenever the
aspiration was in any way expressed, simply exposed me to ridicule;
while I instantly gained praise for any vicious behaviour. Even my
excellent aunt declared that she wished two things for me. One was that
I should form a liaison with some married lady; the other that I should
become an adjutant to the Tsar.
I look back with horror on the years of my young manhood, for I was
guilty of slaying men in battle, of gambling, of riotous squandering of
substance gained by the toil of serfs, of deceit, and of profligacy.
That course of life lasted ten years. Then I took to writing, but the
motive was grovelling, for I aimed at gaining money and flattery.
My aims were gratified, for, coming to St. Petersburg at the age of 26,
I secured the flattering reception I had coveted from the authors most
in repute. The war, about which I had written much from the field of
conflict, had just closed. I found that a theory prevailed amongst the
"Intelligentia" that the function of writers, thinkers, and poets was to
teach; they were to teach not because they knew or understood, but
unconsciously and intuitively. Acting on this philosophy, I, as a
thinker and poet, wrote and taught I knew not what, received large
remuneration for my efforts with the pen, and lived loosely, gaily, and
extravagantly.
Thus I was one of the hierarchs of the literary faith, and for a
considerable time was undisturbed by any doubts as to its soundness; but
when three years had been thus spent, serious suspicions entered my
mind. I noted that the devotees of this apparently infallible principle
were at variance amongst themselves, for they disputed, deceived,
abused, and swindled each other. And many were grossly selfish, and most
immoral.
Disgust supervened, both with myself and with mankind in general. My
error now was that though my eyes were opened to the vanity and delusion
of the position, yet I retained it, imagining that I, as thinker, poet,
teacher, could teach other men while not at all knowing what to teach.
To my other faults an inordinate pride had been added by my intercourse
with these _litterateurs_. That period viewed retrospectively seems to
me like one of a kind of madness. Hundreds of us wrote to teach the
people, while we all abused and confuted one another. We could teach
nothing, yet we sent millions of pages all over Russia, and we were
unspeakably vexed that we seemed to gain no attention whatever, for
nobody appeared to listen to us.
_II.--Groping in Darkness_
I travelled in Europe at this period, before my marriage, still
cherishing in my mind the idea of general perfectibility, which was so
popular at that time with the "Intelligentia." Cultured circles clung to
the theory of what we call "progress," vague though are the notions
attaching to the term. I was horrified with the spectacle of an
execution in Paris, and my eyes were opened to the fallacy underlying
the theory of human wisdom. The doctrine of "progress" I now felt to be
a mere superstition, and I was further confirmed in my conviction by the
sad death of my brother after a painful illness of a whole year.
My brother was kind, amiable, clever, and serious; but he passed away
without ever knowing why he had lived or what his death meant for him.
All theories were futile in the face of this tragedy. Returning to
Russia I settled in my rural home and began to organise schools for the
peasants, feeling real enthusiasm for the enterprise. For I still clung
to a great extent to the idea of progress by development. I thought that
though highly cultured men all thought and taught differently and agreed
about nothing, yet in the case of the children of the mujiks the
difficulty could easily be surmounted by permitting the children to
learn what they liked.
I also tried through my own newspaper to indoctrinate the people, but my
mind grew more and more embarrassed. At length I fell sick, rather
mentally than physically. I went off to the Steppes to breathe the pure
air and to take mare's milk and to live the simple life. I married soon
after my return to my estate. As time passed on I became happily
absorbed in the interests of wife and children, largely forgetting
during a happy interval of fifteen years the old anxiety for individual
perfection. For this desire was superseded by that of promoting the
welfare of my family.
All this time, however, I was writing busily, and was gaining much money
as well as winning great applause. And in everything I wrote I
persistently taught what was for me the sole truth--that our chief
object in life should be to secure our own happiness and that of our
family. Then, five years ago, supervened a mood of mental lethargy. I
grew despondent; my perplexity increased, and I was tormented by the
constant recurrence of such questions as--"Why?" and "What afterwards?"
And by degrees the questions took a more concrete form. "I now possess
six thousand 'desyatins' of land in the government of Samara, and three
hundred horses--what then?" I could find no answer. Then came the
question, "What if I could excel Shakespeare, and Molière, and Gogol,
and become the most celebrated the world has ever seen--what then?"
Answer, there was none; yet I felt that I must find one in order to go
on living.
Life had now lost its meaning, and was no longer real to me. I was a
healthy and happy man, and yet so empty did life seem to me that I was
afraid of being tempted to commit suicide, even though I had not the
slightest intention to perpetrate such a deed. But, fearing lest the
temptation might come upon me I hid a rope away out of my sight, and
ceased carrying a gun in my walks.
_III.--The Spirit of Despair_
It was in my 50th year that the question "What is life" had reduced me
to utter despair. Various queries clustered round this central
interrogation. "Why should I live? Why should I do anything? Is there
any signification in life that can overcome inevitable death?" I found
that in human knowledge no real answer was forthcoming to such
yearnings. None of the theories of the philosophers gave any
satisfaction. In my search for a solution of life's problem I felt like
a traveller lost in a forest, out of which he can find no issue.
I found that not only did Solomon declare that he hated life, for all is
vanity and vexation of spirit; but that Sakya Muni, the Indian sage,
equally decided that life was a great evil; while Socrates and
Schopenhauer agree that annihilation is the only thing to be wished for.
But neither these testimonies of great minds nor my own reasoning could
induce me to destroy myself. For a force within me, combined with an
instinctive consciousness of life, counteracted the feeling of despair
and drew me out of my misery of soul. I felt that I must study life not
merely as it was amongst those like myself, but as it was amongst the
millions of the common people. I reflected that knowledge based on
reason, the knowledge of the cultured, imparted no meaning to life, but
that, on the other hand, amongst the masses of the common people there
was an unreasoning consciousness of life which gave it a significance.
This unreasoning knowledge was the very faith which I was rejecting. It
was faith in things I could not understand; in God, one yet three; in
the creation of devils and angels. Such things seemed utterly contrary
to reason. So I began to reflect that perhaps what I considered
reasonable was after all not so, and what appeared unreasonable might
not really be so.
I discovered one great error that I had perpetrated. I had been
comparing life with life, that is, the finite with the finite, and the
infinite with the infinite. The process was vain. It was like comparing
force with force, matter with matter, nothing with nothing. It was like
saying in mathematics that A equals A, or O equals O. Thus the only
answer was "identity."
Now I saw that scientific knowledge would give no reply to my questions.
I began to comprehend that though faith seemed to give unreasonable
answers, these answers certainly did one important thing. They did at
least bring in the relation of the finite to the infinite. I came to
feel that in addition to the reasoning knowledge which I once reckoned
to be the sole true knowledge, there was in every man also an
unreasoning species of knowledge which makes life possible. That
unreasoning knowledge is faith.
What is this faith? It is not only belief in God and in things unseen,
but it is the apprehension of life's meaning. It is the force of life. I
began to understand that the deepest source of human wisdom was to be
found in the answers given by faith, that I had no reasonable right to
reject them, and that they alone solved the problem of life.
_IV.--Mistakes Apprehended_
Nevertheless my heart was not lightened. I studied the writings of
Buddhism, Islam, and Christianity. I also studied actual religious life
by turning to the orthodox, the monks, and the Evangelicals who preach
salvation through faith in a Redeemer. I asked what meaning was given
for them to life by what they believed. But I could not accept the faith
of any of these men, because I saw that it did not explain the meaning
of life, but only obscured it. So I felt a return of the terrible
feeling of despair.
Being unable to believe in the sincerity of men who did not live
consistently with the doctrines they professed, and feeling that they
were self-deceived, and, like myself, were satisfied with the lusts of
the flesh, I began to draw near to the believers amongst the poor,
simple, and ignorant, the pilgrims, monks, and peasants. I found that
though their faith was mingled with much superstition, yet with them the
whole life was a confirmation of the meaning of life which their faith
gave them.
The more I contemplated the lives of these simple folk, the more deeply
was I convinced of the reality of their faith, which I perceived to be a
necessity for them, for it alone gave life a meaning and made it worth
living. This was in direct opposition to what I saw in my own circle,
where I marked the possibility of living without faith, for not one in a
thousand professed to be a believer, while amongst the poorer classes
not one in thousands was an unbeliever. The contradiction was extreme.
In my class a tranquil death, without terror or despair, is rare; in
that lower class, an uneasy death is a rare exception. I found that
countless numbers in that lower mass of humanity had so understood the
meaning of life that they were able both to live bearing contentedly the
burdens of life, and to die peacefully.
The more I learned of these men of faith the more I liked them, and the
easier I felt it so to live. For two years I lived in their fashion.
Then the life of my own wealthy and cultured class became repellent to
me, for it had lost all meaning whatever. It seemed like empty child's
play, while the life of the working classes appeared to me in its true
significance.
Now I began to apprehend where I had judged wrongly. My mistake was that
I had applied an answer to my question concerning life which only
concerned my own life, to life in general. My life had been but one long
indulgence of my passions. It was evil and meaningless. Therefore such
an answer had no application to life at large, but only to my individual
life.
I understood the truth which the Gospel subsequently taught me more
fully, that men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds
were evil. I understood that for the comprehension of life, it was
essential that life should be something more than an evil and
meaningless thing revealed by reason. Life must be considered as a
whole, not merely in its parasitic excrescences. I felt that to be good
was more important than to believe. I loved good men. I hated myself. I
accepted truth. I understood that we were all more or less mad with the
love of evil.
I looked at the animals, saw the birds building nests, living only to
fly and to subsist. I saw how the goat, hare, and wolf live, but to feed
and to nurture their young, and are contented and happy. Their life is a
reasonable one. And man must gain his living like the animals do, only
with this great difference, that if he should attempt this alone, he
will perish. So he must labour for the good of all, not merely for
himself.
I had not helped others. My life for thirty years had been that of a
mere parasite. I had been contented to remain ignorant of the reason why
I lived at all.
There is a supreme will in the universe. Some one makes the universal
life his secret care. To know what that supreme will is, we must obey it
implicitly. No reproaches against their masters come from the simple
workers who do just what is required of them, though we are in the habit
of regarding them as brutes. We, on the contrary, who think ourselves
wise, consume the goods of our master while we do nothing willingly that
he prescribes. We think that it would be stupid for us to do so.
What does such conduct imply? Simply that our master is stupid, or that
we have no master.
_V.--Feeling Versus Reason_
Thus I was led at last to the conclusion that knowledge based on reason
is fallacious, and that the knowledge of truth can be secured only by
living. I had come to feel that I must live a real, not a parasitical
life, and that the meaning of life could be perceived only by
observation of the combined lives of the great human community.
The feelings of my mind during all these experiences and observations
were mingled with a heart-torment which I can only describe as a
searching after God. This search was a feeling rather than a course of
reasoning. For it came from my heart, and was actually opposed to my way
of thinking. Kant had shown the impossibility of proving the existence
of God, yet I still hoped to find Him, and I still addressed Him in
prayer. Yet I did not find Him whom I sought.
At times I contended against the reasoning of Kant and Schopenhauer, and
argued that causation is not in the same category with thought and space
and time. I argued that if I existed, there was a cause of my being, and
that cause was the cause of all causes. Then I pondered the idea that
the cause of all things is what is called God, and with all my powers I
strove to attain a sense of the presence of this cause.
Directly I became conscious of a power over me I felt a possibility of
living. Then I asked myself what was this cause, and what was my
relation to what I called God? Simply the old familiar answer occurred
to me, that God is the creator, the giver of all. Yet I was dissatisfied
and fearful, and the more I prayed, the more convinced I was that I was
not heard. In my despair I cried aloud for mercy, but no one had mercy
on me, and I felt as if life stagnated within me.
Yet the conviction kept recurring that I must have appeared in this
world with some motive on the part of some one who had sent me into it.
If I had been sent here, who sent me? I had not been like a fledgling
flung out of a nest to perish. Some one had cared for me, had loved me.
Who was it? Again came the same answer, God. He knew and saw my fear, my
despair, and so I passed from the consideration of the existence of God,
which was proved, on to that of our relation towards him as our Redeemer
through His Son. But I felt this to be a thing apart from me and from
the world, and this God vanished like melting ice from my eyes. Again I
was left in despair. I felt there was nothing left but to put an end to
my life; yet I knew that I should never do this.
Thus did moods of joy and despair come and go, till one day, when I was
listening to the sounds in a forest, and was still on that day in the
early springtide seeking after God in my thoughts, a flash of joy
illumined my soul. I realised that the conception of God was not God
Himself. I felt that I had only truly lived when I believed in God. God
is life. Live to seek God and life will not be without Him. The light
that then shone never left me. Thus I was saved from self-destruction.
Gradually I felt the glow and strength of life return to me. I renounced
the life of my own class, because it was unreal, and its luxurious
superfluity rendered comprehension of life impossible. The simple men
around me, the working classes, were the real Russian people. To them I
turned. They made the meaning of life clear. It may thus be expressed:--
Each of us is so created by God that he may ruin or save his soul. To
save his soul, a man must live after God's word by humility, charity,
and endurance, while renouncing all the pleasures of life. This is for
the common people the meaning of the whole system of faith,
traditionally delivered to them from the past and administered to them
by the pastors of the Church.
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