A Confession by Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy (best sales books of all time txt) 📕

wished to know why I live, and for this purpose studied all that is outside

me. Evidently I might learn much, but nothing of what I needed.

What was I doing when I sought an answer in philosophical knowledge? I was

studying the thoughts of those who had found themselves in the same position

as I, lacking a reply to the question “why do I live?” Evidently I could

learn nothing but what I knew myself, namely that nothing can be known.

What am I? — A part of the infinite. In those few words lies the whole

problem.

Is it possible that humanity has only put that question to itself since

yesterday? And can no one before me have set himself that question — a

question so simple, and one that springs to the tongue of every wise child?

Surely that question has been asked since man began; and naturally for the

solution of that question since man began it has been equally insufficient

to compare the finite with the finite and the infinite with the infinite,

and since man began the relation of the finite to the infinite has been

sought out and expressed.

All these conceptions in which the finite has been adjusted to the infinite

and a meaning found for life — the conception of God, of will, of goodness

— we submit to logical examination. And all those conceptions fail to stand

reason’s criticism.

Were it not so terrible it would be ludicrous with what pride and

self-satisfaction we, like children, pull the watch to pieces, take out the

spring, make a toy of it, and are then surprised that the watch does not go.

A solution of the contradiction between the finite and the infinite, and

such a reply to the question of life as will make it possible to live, is

necessary and precious. And that is the only solution which we find

everywhere, always, and among all peoples: a solution descending from times

in which we lose sight of the life of man, a solution so difficult that we

can compose nothing like it — and this solution we light-heartedly destroy

in order again to set the same question, which is natural to everyone and to

which we have no answer.

The conception of an infinite god, the divinity of the soul, the connexion

of human affairs with God, the unity and existence of the soul, man’s

conception of moral goodness and evil — are conceptions formulated in the

hidden infinity of human thought, they are those conceptions without which

neither life nor I should exist; yet rejecting all that labour of the whole

of humanity, I wished to remake it afresh myself and in my own manner.

I did not then think like that, but the germs of these thoughts were already

in me. I understood, in the first place, that my position with Schopenhauer

and Solomon, notwithstanding our wisdom, was stupid: we see that life is an

evil and yet continue to live. That is evidently stupid, for if life is

senseless and I am so fond of what is reasonable, it should be destroyed,

and then there would be no one to challenge it. Secondly, I understood that

all one’s reasonings turned in a vicious circle like a wheel out of gear

with its pinion. However much and however well we may reason we cannot

obtain a reply to the question; and o will always equal o, and therefore our

path is probably erroneous. Thirdly, I began to understand that in the

replies given by faith is stored up the deepest human wisdom and that I had

no right to deny them on the ground of reason, and that those answers are

the only ones which reply to life’s question.

I understood this, but it made matters no better for me. I was now ready to

accept any faith if only it did not demand of me a direct denial of reason

— which would be a falsehood. And I studied Buddhism and Mohammedanism from

books, and most of all I studied Christianity both from books and from the

people around me.

Naturally I first of all turned to the orthodox of my circle, to people who

were learned: to Church theologians, monks, to theologians of the newest

shade, and even to Evangelicals who profess salvation by belief in the

Redemption. And I seized on these believers and questioned them as to their

beliefs and their understanding of the meaning of life.

But though I made all possible concessions, and avoided all disputes, I

could not accept the faith of these people. I saw that what they gave out as

their faith did not explain the meaning of life but obscured it, and that

they themselves affirm their belief not to answer that question of life

which brought me to faith, but for some other aims alien to me.

I remember the painful feeling of fear of being thrown back into my former

state of despair, after the hope I often and often experienced in my

intercourse with these people.

The more fully they explained to me their doctrines, the more clearly did I

perceive their error and realized that my hope of finding in their belief an

explanation of the meaning of life was vain.

It was not that in their doctrines they mixed many unnecessary and

unreasonable things with the Christian truths that had always been near to

me: that was not what repelled me. I was repelled by the fact that these

people’s lives were like my own, with only this difference — that such a

life did not correspond to the principles they expounded in their teachings.

I clearly felt that they deceived themselves and that they, like myself

found no other meaning in life than to live while life lasts, taking all

one’s hands can seize. I saw this because if they had had a meaning which

destroyed the fear of loss, suffering, and death, they would not have feared

these things. But they, these believers of our circle, just like myself,

living in sufficiency and superfluity, tried to increase or preserve them,

feared privations, suffering, and death, and just like myself and all of us

unbelievers, lived to satisfy their desires, and lived just as badly, if not

worse, than the unbelievers.

No arguments could convince me of the truth of their faith. Only deeds which

showed that they saw a meaning in life making what was so dreadful to me —

poverty, sickness, and death — not dreadful to them, could convince me. And

such deeds I did not see among the various believers in our circle. On the

contrary, I saw such deeds done [8] by people of our circle who were the

most unbelieving, but never by our so-called believers.

And I understood that the belief of these people was not the faith I sought,

and that their faith is not a real faith but an epicurean consolation in

life.

I understood that that faith may perhaps serve, if not for a consolation at

least for some distraction for a repentant Solomon on his death-bed, but it

cannot serve for the great majority of mankind, who are called on not to

amuse themselves while consuming the labour of others but to create life.

For all humanity to be able to live, and continue to live attributing a

meaning to life, they, those milliards, must have a different, a real,

knowledge of faith. Indeed, it was not the fact that we, with Solomon and

Schopenhauer, did not kill ourselves that convinced me of the existence of

faith, but the fact that those milliards of people have lived and are

living, and have borne Solomon and us on the current of their lives.

And I began to draw near to the believers among the poor, simple, unlettered

folk: pilgrims, monks, sectarians, and peasants. The faith of these common

people was the same Christian faith as was professed by the pseudo-believers

of our circle. Among them, too, I found a great deal of superstition mixed

with the Christian truths; but the difference was that the superstitions of

the believers of our circle were quite unnecessary to them and were not in

conformity with their lives, being merely a kind of epicurean diversion; but

the superstitions of the believers among the labouring masses conformed so

with their lives that it was impossible to imagine them to oneself without

those superstitions, which were a necessary condition of their life. the

whole life of believers in our circle was a contradiction of their faith,

but the whole life of the working-folk believers was a confirmation of the

meaning of life which their faith gave them. And I began to look well into

the life and faith of these people, and the more I considered it the more I

became convinced that they have a real faith which is a necessity to them

and alone gives their life a meaning and makes it possible for them to live.

In contrast with what I had seen in our circle — where life without faith is

possible and where hardly one in a thousand acknowledges himself to be a

believer — among them there is hardly one unbeliever in a thousand. In

contrast with what I had seen in our circle, where the whole of life is

passed in idleness, amusement, and dissatisfaction, I saw that the whole

life of these people was passed in heavy labour, and that they were content

with life. In contradistinction to the way in which people of our circle

oppose fate and complain of it on account of deprivations and sufferings,

these people accepted illness and sorrow without any perplexity or

opposition, and with a quiet and firm conviction that all is good. In

contradistinction to us, who the wiser we are the less we understand the

meaning of life, and see some evil irony in the fact that we suffer and die,

these folk live and suffer, and they approach death and suffering with

tranquillity and in most cases gladly. In contrast to the fact that a

tranquil death, a death without horror and despair, is a very rare exception

in our circle, a troubled, rebellious, and unhappy death is the rarest

exception among the people. and such people, lacking all that for us and for

Solomon is the only good of life and yet experiencing the greatest

happiness, are a great multitude. I looked more widely around me. I

considered the life of the enormous mass of the people in the past and the

present. And of such people, understanding the meaning of life and able to

live and to die, I saw not two or three, or tens, but hundreds, thousands,

and millions. and they all — endlessly different in their manners, minds,

education, and position, as they were — all alike, in complete contrast to

my ignorance, knew the meaning of life and death, laboured quietly, endured

deprivations and sufferings, and lived and died seeing therein not vanity

but good.

And I learnt to love these people. The more I came to know their life, the

life of those who are living and of others who are dead of whom I read and

heard, the more I loved them and the easier it became for me to live. So I

went on for about two years, and a change took place in me which had long

been preparing and the promise of which had always been in me. It came about

that the life of our circle, the rich and learned, not merely became

distasteful to me, but lost all meaning in my eyes. All our actions,

discussions, science and art, presented itself to me in a