A Confession

I

I was baptized and brought up in the Orthodox Christian faith. I was taught it both in childhood and through the whole time of my boyhood and youth. But when at eighteen I left the university in my second year, I no longer believed anything of what I had been taught.

Judging by certain recollections, I never believed seriously, but had only a trust in what I was taught and in what was professed before me by my elders; but this trust was very shaky.

I remember that when I was about eleven, a boy long since dead, Volodinka M., who was a pupil at the gymnasium, coming to us for a Sunday, announced to us as the latest novelty a discovery made at the gymnasium. The discovery consisted in this, that there is no God and that everything we are taught is mere invention (this was in 1838). I remember how my elder brothers grew interested in this news and called me too into the council. We all, I remember, became very animated and took this news as something very entertaining and quite possible.

I remember also that when my eldest brother Dmitri, being at the university, suddenly, with the passionateness natural to him, gave himself up to faith and began to go to all the services, to fast, to lead a pure and moral life, then all of us, and even our elders, never ceased holding him up to ridicule and nicknamed him, for some reason, Noah. I remember that Musin-Pushkin, who was then the curator of Kazan University, inviting us to his house to dance, mockingly urged my brother, who was refusing, on the ground that David too had danced before the ark. I sympathized then with these jokes of my elders and drew from them the conclusion that one must learn the catechism, one must go to church, but that one should not take all this too seriously. I remember also that I read Voltaire when very young, and his mockery not only did not outrage me but greatly amused me.

My falling away from faith took place in me just as it took place, and takes place now, in people of our make of education. It happens, as it seems to me, in the majority of cases thus: people live as everybody lives, and they all live on the basis of principles which not only have nothing in common with the religious teaching, but for the most part are contrary to it; the religious teaching takes no part in life, and in one's dealings with other people one never has to come up against it, and in one's own life one never has to consult it; this religious teaching is professed somewhere out there, away from life and independently of it. If one does come up against it, it is only as against an external phenomenon, unconnected with life.

From a man's life, from his deeds, now as then, there is no way whatever of telling whether he is a believer or not. If there is a difference between those who openly profess Orthodoxy and those who deny it, it is not in favour of the former. Now as then, the open acknowledgement and profession of Orthodoxy was met with for the most part in people who were dull, cruel and immoral and who considered themselves very important. But intelligence, honesty, straightforwardness, good nature and morality were met with for the most part in people who acknowledged themselves to be unbelievers.

In the schools they teach the catechism and send the pupils to church; from officials certificates are required that they have been to communion. But a man of our circle who is no longer studying and is not in the government service could, now, and in the old days still more, live for decades without once remembering that he lives among Christians and is himself reckoned to profess the Christian Orthodox faith.

So that now as before, the religious teaching, accepted on trust and supported by external pressure, little by little melts away under the influence of the knowledge and experiences of life which are contrary to the religious teaching, and a man very often lives long, imagining that the religious teaching communicated to him in childhood is intact within him, when in fact there has long been no trace of it left.

S., an intelligent and truthful man, told me how he ceased to believe. When he was already about twenty-six, once at a halt for the night during a hunt, from an old habit taken up in childhood, he knelt down in the evening to pray. His elder brother, who was with him on the hunt, lay on the hay and watched him. When S. had finished and was lying down, his brother said to him: “And do you still do all that?” And they said nothing more to each other. And from that day S. ceased to kneel to pray and to go to church. And now for thirty years he has not prayed, has not taken communion, and has not gone to church. And not because he knew his brother's convictions and joined them, not because he had decided anything in his own soul, but only because that word, spoken by his brother, was like the push of a finger against a wall that was ready to fall of its own weight; that word was an indication that there, where he thought there was faith, there had long been an empty place, and that therefore the words he spoke, and the crosses and the bows he made while standing at prayer, were wholly senseless actions. Having become conscious of their senselessness, he could not continue them.

So it was and so it is, I think, with the vast majority of people. I speak of people of our education, I speak of people truthful with themselves, and not of those who make the very subject of faith a means for attaining temporal aims of whatever kind. (These people are the most radical unbelievers, for if faith is for them a means for attaining some worldly aims, then that is certainly not faith.) These people of our education are in the position that the light of knowledge and of life has melted the artificial edifice, and they have either already noticed this and cleared the place, or have not yet noticed it.

The religious teaching communicated to me in childhood disappeared in me just as it did in others, with this difference only, that as I very early began to read and think a great deal, my renunciation of the religious teaching very early became conscious. From the age of sixteen I ceased to kneel to pray and ceased of my own impulse to go to church and to fast. I ceased to believe in what had been communicated to me in childhood, but I believed in something. What I believed in I could in no way have said. I believed in God too, or rather, I did not deny God, but what God, I could not have said; nor did I deny Christ and his teaching, but what his teaching was, I also could not have said.

Now, recalling that time, I see clearly that my faith — that which, apart from the animal instincts, moved my life — my one true faith at that time was the faith in perfecting. But in what perfecting consisted and what its aim was, I could not have said. I tried to perfect myself mentally — I studied everything I could and everything that life pushed me towards; I tried to perfect my will — I drew up rules for myself which I tried to follow; I perfected myself physically, sharpening strength and dexterity by all sorts of exercises and training myself to endurance and patience by all sorts of privations. And all this I considered perfecting. The beginning of it all was, of course, moral perfecting, but soon this was replaced by perfecting in general, that is, by the desire to be better not before myself or before God, but by the desire to be better before other people. And very soon this striving to be better before people was replaced by the desire to be stronger than other people, that is, more famous, more important, richer than others.

II

Some day I shall tell the story of my life — both touching and instructive — in those ten years of my youth. I think that very many have gone through the same. With my whole soul I wished to be good; but I was young, I had passions, and I was alone, utterly alone, when I sought what was good. Every time I tried to show what made up my most heartfelt desires — that I wanted to be morally good — I met with contempt and ridicule; and as soon as I gave myself up to vile passions, I was praised and encouraged. Ambition, love of power, love of gain, lasciviousness, pride, anger, revenge — all this was respected. Giving myself up to these passions, I became like a grown man, and I felt that people were pleased with me. My kind aunt, the purest of beings, with whom I lived, always told me that there was nothing she would so wish for me as that I should have a liaison with a married woman: “rien ne forme un jeune homme comme une liaison avec une femme comme il faut” [nothing so forms a young man as a liaison with a respectable woman;] another happiness she wished for me was that I should be an adjutant, and best of all to the Emperor; and the greatest happiness of all — that I should marry a very rich girl and that, as a result of this marriage, I should have as many slaves as possible.

I cannot recall those years without horror, loathing and heartache. I killed men in war, challenged men to duels in order to kill them, lost at cards, devoured the labour of the peasants, punished them, whored, deceived. Lying, thieving, adulteries of every kind, drunkenness, violence, murder... There was no crime I did not commit, and for all this I was praised, and my contemporaries considered and still consider me a comparatively moral man.

So I lived for ten years.

During that time I began to write out of vanity, love of gain, and pride. In my writings I did the same thing as in life. In order to have the fame and the money for which I wrote, it was necessary to hide the good and to display the bad. So I did. How many times I contrived to hide in my writings, under the guise of indifference and even of light mockery, those strivings of mine towards the good which made up the meaning of my life. And I attained this: I was praised.

At twenty-six I came to Petersburg after the war and made friends with the writers. They received me as one of their own, they flattered me. And before I could look round, the caste views on life of those writing people with whom I had made friends were assimilated by me and had already completely effaced in me all my former attempts to become better. These views substituted for the dissoluteness of my life a theory that justified it.

The view of life of these people, my comrades in writing, consisted in this, that life in general goes on developing, and that in this development we, the men of thought, take the chief part, and that among the men of thought the chief influence is ours — the artists', the poets'. Our vocation is to teach people. But in order that the natural question should not present itself to oneself — what do I know and what am I to teach? — it was explained in this theory that this need not be known, and that the artist and the poet teach unconsciously. I was considered a marvellous artist and poet, and therefore it was very natural for me to assimilate this theory. I — an artist, a poet — wrote, taught, myself not knowing what. For this I was paid money, I had excellent food, lodging, women, society, I had fame. Consequently, what I taught was very good.

This faith in the significance of poetry and in the development of life was a faith, and I was one of its priests. To be its priest was very profitable and pleasant. And I lived rather long in this faith, without doubting its truth. But in the second and especially in the third year of such a life I began to doubt the infallibility of this faith and began to examine it. The first occasion for doubt was that I began to notice that the priests of this faith were not all in agreement among themselves. Some said: we are the best and most useful teachers, we teach what is needed, and the others teach wrongly. And others said: no, we are the true ones, and you teach wrongly. And they argued, quarrelled, abused one another, deceived, cheated one against another. Besides this, there were many people among us who did not care who was right and who was wrong, but who simply attained their own selfish aims by means of this activity of ours. All this made me doubt the truth of our faith.

Besides this, having come to doubt the truth of the writers' faith itself, I began to observe its priests more attentively and became convinced that almost all the priests of this faith, the writers, were immoral people and, for the most part, bad people, insignificant in character — far below those people I had met in my former dissipated and military life — but self-confident and satisfied with themselves as only people can be satisfied who are altogether holy or who do not even know what holiness is. People became loathsome to me, and I became loathsome to myself, and I understood that this faith is a deception.

But the strange thing is that although I understood all this falsehood of the faith soon and renounced it, yet the rank given me by these people — the rank of artist, poet, teacher — I did not renounce. I naively imagined that I was a poet, an artist, and could teach everybody, myself not knowing what I was teaching. And so I did.

Out of my intimacy with these people I carried away a new vice — a pride developed to the point of disease and an insane assurance that I was called to teach people, myself not knowing what.

Now, recalling that time, my own frame of mind then and the frame of mind of those people (of whom, however, there are thousands even now), I feel pity, and horror, and amusement — there arises precisely that very feeling which one experiences in a madhouse.

We were all then convinced that we must talk and talk, write, print — as quickly as possible, as much as possible, and that all this was needed for the good of humanity. And thousands of us, denying and abusing one another, all printed, wrote, instructing others. And, not noticing that we knew nothing, that to the simplest question of life — what is good, what is bad — we did not know what to answer, we all, not listening to one another, all talked at once, sometimes indulging one another and praising one another so that I too might be indulged and praised, and sometimes getting irritated and shouting one another down, exactly as in a madhouse.

Thousands of workmen day and night worked with their last strength, setting type, printing millions of words, and the post carried them all over Russia, and we still taught more and more, taught and taught and taught, and could never manage to teach it all, and were always angry that we were listened to so little.

It is terribly strange, but now it is comprehensible to me. Our real, heartfelt reasoning was that we wanted to get as much money and praise as possible. To attain this aim we could do nothing else but write books and newspapers. So we did. But in order for us to do so useless a thing and to have the assurance that we were very important people, we needed yet another argument that would justify our activity. And so the following was devised among us: everything that exists is rational. And everything that exists develops. And everything develops by means of enlightenment. And enlightenment is measured by the diffusion of books and newspapers. And we are paid money and respected for writing books and newspapers, and therefore we are the most useful and the best of people. This reasoning would have been very good if we had all been in agreement; but since to every thought expressed by one there always appeared a thought diametrically opposite expressed by another, this ought to have made us think again. But we did not notice this. We were paid money, and the people of our party praised us — consequently we, each of us, considered ourselves right.

Now it is clear to me that there was no difference at all from a madhouse; but then I only dimly suspected this, and then only as all madmen do — I called everyone mad except myself.

III

So I lived, giving myself up to this madness for another six years, until my marriage. During this time I went abroad. Life in Europe and my intimacy with advanced and learned Europeans confirmed me still more in that faith in perfecting in general by which I lived, because I found that same faith among them too. This faith took in me the usual form which it has among the majority of educated people of our time. This faith was expressed by the word “progress”. Then it seemed to me that this word expressed something. I did not yet understand that, tormented like every living man by the question of how I might live better, I, when answering: live in accordance with progress — was saying exactly the same as a man borne in a boat by the waves and the wind would say to the chief and only question for him, “which way to steer” — if, without answering the question, he said: “we are being carried somewhere”.

Then I did not notice this. Only now and then — not my reason but my feeling revolted against this superstition, common in our time, with which people screen from themselves their own incomprehension of life. Thus, during my stay in Paris, the sight of a capital punishment exposed to me the instability of my superstition of progress. When I saw how the head was parted from the body, and how the one and the other thumped separately into the box, I understood — not with my mind but with my whole being — that no theories of the rationality of what exists and of progress can justify this deed, and that if all the people in the world, on the basis of whatever theories, from the creation of the world, had found that this was necessary — I know that it is not necessary, that it is bad, and that therefore the judge of what is good and necessary is not what people say and do, and not progress, but I with my heart. Another instance of the consciousness of the insufficiency for life of the superstition of progress was my brother's death. An intelligent, good, serious man, he fell ill when young, suffered for more than a year and died in agony, not understanding why he had lived, and understanding still less why he was dying. No theories could give any answer to these questions either to me or to him during his slow and agonizing dying.

But these were only rare instances of doubt; in essence I went on living, professing only the faith in progress. “Everything develops, and I develop; and why it is that I develop along with everyone, that will be seen in time.” So I should then have had to formulate my faith.

Having returned from abroad, I settled in the country and happened upon the occupation of peasant schools. This occupation was especially after my heart, because in it there was not that falsehood, which had become obvious to me, that already cut my eyes in the activity of literary teaching. Here too I acted in the name of progress, but I already had a critical attitude to progress itself. I said to myself that progress in some of its manifestations had been carried out wrongly, and that one must approach primitive people, peasant children, quite freely, offering them to choose that path of progress which they should want.

In essence I kept turning about one and the same insoluble problem, which consisted in teaching without knowing what. In the higher spheres of literary activity it was clear to me that one cannot teach without knowing what to teach, because I saw that all taught different things and by their disputes among themselves hid only from themselves their own ignorance; but here, with the peasant children, I thought it was possible to get round this difficulty by letting the children learn what they wanted. Now it is funny for me to recall how I shuffled in order to satisfy my lust — to teach — although I knew very well in the depth of my soul that I could teach nothing of what was needed, because I myself did not know what was needed. After a year spent in the occupation of the school, I went abroad a second time, in order to find out there how it might be managed that, knowing nothing myself, I should be able to teach others.

And it seemed to me that I had learned this abroad, and, armed with all this wisdom, in the year of the emancipation of the peasants I returned to Russia and, taking the post of arbiter, began to teach both the uneducated people in the schools and the educated people in the journal which I began to publish. The business seemed to be going well, but I felt that I was not quite sound in mind and that this could not last long. And I should then, perhaps, have come to that despair to which I came at fifty, if there had not been for me one more side of life, still untried by me and promising me salvation: this was family life.

For a year I busied myself with the arbitration, the schools and the journal, and became so worn out — especially because I had got tangled, so hard did the struggle over the arbitration become for me, so dimly did my activity in the schools show itself, so repugnant did my shuffling in the journal become to me, consisting all in one and the same thing, in the wish to teach everybody and to hide the fact that I did not know what to teach — that I fell ill more spiritually than physically, threw up everything and went off to the steppe to the Bashkirs, to breathe the air, drink kumys and live an animal life.

Returning from there, I married. The new conditions of a happy family life diverted me altogether from any search for the general meaning of life. My whole life during this time was concentrated in my family, in my wife, in the children, and therefore in cares about increasing the means of life. The striving after perfecting, already replaced before by the striving after perfecting in general, after progress, was now replaced outright by the striving that I and my family should be as well off as possible.

So another fifteen years passed.

In spite of the fact that I considered writing a trifle during those fifteen years, I nevertheless went on writing. I had already tasted the temptation of writing, the temptation of an enormous monetary reward and of applause for insignificant labour, and I gave myself up to it as a means of improving my material position and of stifling in my soul all questions about the meaning of my life and of life in general.

I wrote, teaching what for me was the one truth: that one must live so that oneself and one's family should be as well off as possible.

So I lived, but five years ago something very strange began to happen to me: there began to come upon me moments at first of perplexity, of a stoppage of life, as though I did not know how to live, what to do, and I lost my way and fell into dejection. But this passed, and I went on living as before. Then these moments of perplexity began to repeat themselves oftener and oftener and always in one and the same form. These stoppages of life were always expressed by the same questions: What for? Well, and then?

At first it seemed to me that these were just so — aimless, inappropriate questions. It seemed to me that all this was known, and that if I should ever want to occupy myself with resolving them, it would cost me no labour — that only now I had no time to occupy myself with it, but that when I took it into my head, I should find the answers. But oftener and oftener the questions began to repeat themselves, more and more insistently answers were demanded, and like dots falling all on one spot, these questions without answers gathered into one black stain.

It happened as it happens with everyone who falls ill with a mortal internal disease. At first there appear insignificant signs of indisposition, to which the sick man pays no attention, then these signs repeat themselves oftener and oftener and merge into one suffering undivided in time. The suffering grows, and before the sick man has time to look round, he is already conscious that what he took for an indisposition is what for him is more significant than anything in the world, that it is death.

The same happened to me too. I understood that this was not a chance indisposition but something very important, and that if the same questions kept repeating themselves, then they had to be answered. And I tried to answer them. The questions seemed such stupid, simple, childish questions. But no sooner had I touched them and tried to resolve them than I became convinced at once, first, that these are not childish and stupid questions but the most important and profound questions in life, and, secondly, that I cannot, and cannot however much I think, resolve them. Before occupying myself with the Samara estate, with my son's education, with the writing of a book, I must know why I am going to do it. So long as I do not know why, I can do nothing. In the midst of my thoughts about the estate, which occupied me very much at that time, there would suddenly come into my head the question: “Very well, you will have six thousand desyatinas in the province of Samara, three hundred head of horses, and then?..” And I was completely nonplussed and did not know what to think further. Or, beginning to think about how I should educate the children, I said to myself: “What for?” Or, reasoning about how the people might attain well-being, I suddenly said to myself: “And what is that to me?” Or, thinking about the fame my works would bring me, I said to myself: “Very well, you will be more famous than Gogol, Pushkin, Shakespeare, Molière, than all the writers in the world — well, and what of it?..”

And I could answer nothing, nothing at all.

IV

My life came to a stop. I could breathe, eat, drink, sleep, and I could not help breathing, eating, drinking, sleeping; but there was no life, because there were no desires the satisfaction of which I should have found reasonable. If I wanted anything, I knew beforehand that, whether I satisfied my desire or did not satisfy it, nothing would come of it.

If a sorceress had come and offered to fulfil my desires, I should not have known what to say. If I have not desires but the habits of former desires, in drunken moments, then in sober moments I know that this is a deception, that there is nothing to desire. Even to know the truth I could not desire, because I guessed what it consisted in. The truth was that life is a senselessness.

It was as though I had lived and lived, walked and walked, and had come to a precipice and clearly saw that ahead there was nothing but destruction. And it was impossible to stop, and impossible to go back, and impossible to shut my eyes so as not to see that ahead there was nothing but the deception of life and of happiness and real sufferings and real death — complete annihilation.

Life had grown hateful to me — some irresistible force was drawing me to be rid of it somehow. It cannot be said that I wanted to kill myself. The force that drew me away from life was stronger, fuller, more general than any wish. It was a force like the former striving of life, only in the reverse direction. With all my strength I strove away from life. The thought of suicide came to me as naturally as thoughts about the improvement of life had come before. This thought was so tempting that I had to use cunning against myself so as not to carry it out too hastily. I did not want to hurry only because I wanted to use every effort to disentangle myself. If I do not disentangle myself, there will always be time, I said to myself. And it was then that I, a happy man, carried out of my room the cord, where I was alone every evening, undressing, so as not to hang myself on the crossbeam between the cupboards, and gave up going out shooting with a gun, so as not to be tempted by too easy a way of ridding myself of life. I myself did not know what I wanted: I feared life, strove away from it, and meanwhile hoped for something more from it.

And this happened to me at a time when on all sides I had what is considered perfect happiness: it was when I was not yet fifty. I had a kind, loving and beloved wife, good children, a large estate which without effort on my part grew and increased. I was respected by my relatives and acquaintances, more than ever before, was praised by strangers and could consider that I had a certain celebrity without any particular self-delusion. Moreover, I was not only not unwell in body or in spirit, but on the contrary enjoyed a strength both spiritual and bodily such as I have rarely met with in my contemporaries: physically I could work at the mowing without falling behind the peasants; mentally I could work eight or ten hours at a stretch, without experiencing any consequences from such a strain.

And in such a position I came to this, that I could not live and, fearing death, had to use cunning against myself so as not to deprive myself of life.

This state of soul expressed itself for me thus: my life is some stupid and evil trick played on me by someone. In spite of the fact that I did not acknowledge any “someone” who might have created me, this form of representation — that someone had played an evil and stupid trick on me by bringing me into the world — was the most natural form of representation for me.

Involuntarily it seemed to me that somewhere out there was someone who was now amusing himself, looking at me, at how for a whole thirty or forty years I had lived, lived learning, developing, growing in body and spirit, and how now, having grown quite firm in mind, having reached that summit of life from which the whole of it opens out — how I stand like an utter fool on that summit, clearly understanding that there is nothing in life, and never was, and never will be. “And it is funny to him...”

But whether there is or is not this someone who laughs at me, that makes it no easier for me. I could not attach any reasonable meaning to a single act, or to my whole life. I was only surprised that I could have failed to understand this at the very beginning. All this has been known to everyone so long. Today or tomorrow illnesses and death will come (and they had come already) to those I love, to me, and nothing will remain but stench and worms. My deeds, whatever they may be, will all be forgotten — sooner, later — and I myself shall be no more. What is there, then, to trouble about? How can a man not see this and live — that is what is astonishing! One can live only so long as one is drunk with life; but as soon as one sobers up, one cannot help seeing that all this is only a deception, and a stupid deception! Just so: there is nothing even funny or witty about it, but simply — it is cruel and stupid.

Long ago there was told an Eastern fable about a traveller overtaken in the steppe by an infuriated beast. Saving himself from the beast, the traveller jumps into a waterless well, but at the bottom of the well he sees a dragon with its jaws open to devour him. And the unhappy man, not daring to climb out lest he perish from the infuriated beast, not daring to jump to the bottom of the well lest he be devoured by the dragon, catches hold of the branches of a wild bush growing in the crevices of the well and holds on to it. His hands grow weak, and he feels that soon he must give himself up to the destruction awaiting him on both sides; but he still holds on, and while he holds on he looks about him and sees that two mice, one black, the other white, going evenly round the stem of the bush on which he hangs, are gnawing it through. At any moment the bush will break of itself and tear away, and he will fall into the dragon's jaws. The traveller sees this and knows that he will inevitably perish; but while he hangs he looks about him and finds drops of honey on the leaves of the bush, reaches them with his tongue and licks them. So I too hold on to the branches of life, knowing that the dragon of death inevitably awaits me, ready to tear me to pieces, and I cannot understand why I have fallen upon this torment. And I try to suck that honey which formerly comforted me; but this honey no longer gladdens me, and the white mouse and the black — day and night — gnaw through the branch to which I hold. I see the dragon clearly, and the honey is no longer sweet to me. I see one thing only — the inevitable dragon and the mice — and I cannot turn my gaze away from them. And this is not a fable, but the real, indisputable truth, comprehensible to everyone.

The former deception of the joys of life, which stifled the horror of the dragon, no longer deceives me. However much I am told: you cannot understand the meaning of life, do not think, live — I cannot do this, because I did it too long before. Now I cannot help seeing day and night running and leading me to death. I see this one thing, because this one thing is the truth. All the rest is falsehood.

Those two drops of honey which longer than the others turned my eyes away from the cruel truth — the love of family and of writing, which I called art — are no longer sweet to me.

“The family...” I said to myself; but the family — a wife, children; they too are people. They are in the very same conditions as I am: they must either live in a lie or see the terrible truth. Why, then, should they live? Why should I love them, guard them, bring them up and watch over them? For the same despair that is in me, or for dull-wittedness! Loving them, I cannot hide the truth from them — every step in knowledge leads them to this truth. And the truth is death.

“Art, poetry?..” For a long time, under the influence of success and the praise of men, I assured myself that this is a business one can do, in spite of the fact that death will come which will destroy everything — me, and my deeds, and the memory of them; but soon I saw that this too is a deception. It was clear to me that art is an adornment of life, a lure to life. But life had lost its lure for me; how then can I lure others? So long as I was not living my own life, but another's life bore me on its waves, so long as I believed that life has a meaning, though I could not express it — reflections of life of every kind in poetry and in the arts afforded me joy, it was merry for me to look at life in this little mirror of art; but when I began to search for the meaning of life, when I felt the necessity of living myself — this little mirror became for me either unnecessary, superfluous and ridiculous, or tormenting. I could no longer console myself with seeing in the little mirror that my position is stupid and desperate. It was well for me to rejoice in this while in the depth of my soul I believed that my life has a meaning. Then this play of lights and shadows — of the comic, the tragic, the touching, the beautiful, the terrible in life — amused me. But when I knew that life is senseless and terrible, the play in the little mirror could no longer divert me. No sweetness of honey could be sweet to me when I saw the dragon and the mice gnawing away my support.

But even this is not all. If I had simply understood that life has no meaning, I could have known this calmly, could have known that this is my lot. But I could not rest content with this. If I had been like a man living in a forest from which he knows there is no way out, I could have lived; but I was like a man lost in a forest, upon whom horror has come because he has lost his way, and who rushes about, wishing to get out on to the road, knows that every step confuses him still more, and cannot help rushing about.

This was what was terrible. And to be rid of this horror, I wanted to kill myself. I felt horror before what awaited me — I knew that this horror was more terrible than the position itself, but I could not drive it away and could not patiently await the end. However convincing was the reasoning that all the same a vessel in the heart would burst or something would give way, and everything would end, I could not patiently await the end. The horror of the darkness was too great, and I wanted to be rid of it as quickly, as quickly as possible by the noose or the bullet. And it was this feeling that drew me most strongly to suicide.

V

“But perhaps I have overlooked something, failed to understand something?” I said to myself several times. “It cannot be that this state of despair is natural to men.” And I sought an explanation of my questions in all those branches of knowledge which men have acquired. And I sought long and painfully, and not out of idle curiosity, not limply, but I sought painfully, stubbornly, days and nights — I sought as a perishing man seeks salvation — and I found nothing.

I sought in all the branches of knowledge, and not only did I not find, but I became convinced that all those who had sought in knowledge as I had, had likewise found nothing at all. And not only had they found nothing, but they had clearly acknowledged that the very thing which brought me to despair — the senselessness of life — is the one indubitable knowledge accessible to man.

I sought everywhere, and thanks to a life spent in study, and also to the fact that through my connections with the learned world the scholars themselves of all the various branches of knowledge were accessible to me and did not refuse to disclose to me all their knowledge, not only in books but in conversation — I learned all that knowledge answers to the question of life.

For a long time I could in no way believe that knowledge gives no other answer to the questions of life than the one it does give. For a long time it seemed to me, as I looked closely at the importance and seriousness of the tone of science, which asserted its propositions having nothing in common with the questions of human life, that I was failing to understand something. For a long time I was timid before knowledge, and it seemed to me that the inappropriateness of the answers to my questions came not through the fault of knowledge but from my own ignorance; but the matter was for me no joke, no amusement, but the business of my whole life, and willy-nilly I was brought to the conviction that my questions are the only legitimate questions, serving as the basis of all knowledge, and that it is not I with my questions who am at fault, but science, if it has the pretension to answer these questions.

My question — the one which at fifty brought me to suicide — was the simplest question, lying in the soul of every man, from the stupid child to the wisest elder — that question without which life is impossible, as I had experienced in fact. The question consists in this: “What will come of what I am doing today, of what I shall do tomorrow — what will come of my whole life?”

Expressed otherwise, the question will be this: “Why should I live, why should I wish for anything, why should I do anything?” The question can be expressed in yet another way: “Is there in my life such a meaning as would not be destroyed by the death inevitably awaiting me?”

To this one and the same question, differently expressed, I sought an answer in human knowledge. And I found that in relation to this question all human knowledge divides, as it were, into two opposite hemispheres, at the two opposite ends of which are two poles: one negative, the other positive; but that neither at the one pole nor at the other are there answers to the questions of life.

One series of knowledge as it were does not even acknowledge the question, but answers clearly and precisely its own independently posed questions: this is the series of experimental knowledge, and at its extreme point stands mathematics; the other series acknowledges the question but does not answer it: this is the series of speculative knowledge, and at its extreme point is metaphysics.

From early youth the speculative branches of knowledge occupied me, but afterwards the mathematical and natural sciences also attracted me, and until I had clearly put my question to myself, until this question had grown up of itself within me, insistently demanding resolution, until then I was satisfied with those counterfeits of answers to the question which knowledge gives.

In the experimental field I would say to myself: “Everything develops, differentiates, moves towards complexity and perfecting, and there are laws governing this course. You are a part of the whole. Having learned, so far as is possible, the whole, and having learned the law of development, you will learn also your place in this whole, and your own self.” Ashamed as I am to confess it, there was a time when I seemed to be satisfied with this. It was that very time when I myself was growing complex and developing. My muscles grew and strengthened, my memory was enriched, my capacity for thought and understanding increased, I was growing and developing, and, feeling this growth within me, it was natural for me to think that this is the law of the whole world, in which I should find the resolution of the questions of my life also. But the time came when the growth in me ceased — I felt that I was not developing but drying up, my muscles were weakening, my teeth were falling out — and I saw that this law not only explains nothing to me, but that there never was nor could be such a law, and that I had taken for a law what I had found in myself at a certain period of life. I approached the definition of this law more strictly; and it became clear to me that there can be no laws of infinite development; it became clear that to say: in infinite space and time everything develops, is perfected, grows complex, differentiates — means to say nothing at all. All this is words without meaning, for in the infinite there is neither complex nor simple, neither front nor back, neither better nor worse.

The chief thing was that my personal question — what am I with my desires? — remained altogether without an answer. And I understood that these branches of knowledge are very interesting, very attractive, but that they are precise and clear in inverse proportion to their applicability to the questions of life: the less applicable they are to the questions of life, the more precise and clear they are; the more they try to give solutions to the questions of life, the more unclear and unattractive they become. If you turn to that branch of these studies which tries to give solutions to the questions of life — to physiology, psychology, biology, sociology — there you meet a striking poverty of thought, the greatest unclearness, a pretension, in no way justified, to the solution of questions not within their province, and incessant contradictions of one thinker with others and even with himself. If you turn to the branch of knowledge which does not occupy itself with resolving the questions of life but answers its own scientific, special questions, then you are delighted by the power of the human mind, but you know beforehand that there are no answers to the questions of life. These branches of knowledge simply ignore the question of life. They say: “To what you are and why you live we have no answers, and we do not occupy ourselves with this; but if you need to know the laws of light, of chemical combinations, the laws of the development of organisms, if you need to know the laws of bodies, of their forms and the relation of numbers and magnitudes, if you need to know the laws of your own mind, then for all this we have clear, precise and indubitable answers.”

In general the relation of the experimental sciences to the question of life can be expressed thus: Question: Why do I live? — Answer: In infinitely great space, in infinitely long time, infinitely small particles are modified in infinite complexity, and when you understand the laws of these modifications, then you will understand why you live.

In the speculative field I would say to myself: “All humanity lives and develops on the basis of spiritual principles, of ideals that guide it. These ideals are expressed in religions, in the sciences, in the arts, in the forms of statehood. These ideals all become higher and higher, and humanity moves towards the highest good. I am a part of humanity, and therefore my vocation consists in assisting the consciousness and the realization of the ideals of humanity.” And in the time of my feeble-mindedness I was satisfied with this; but as soon as the question of life clearly arose in me, this whole theory instantly collapsed. Not to speak of the dishonest imprecision with which knowledge of this kind passes off conclusions drawn from the study of a small part of humanity as general conclusions, not to speak of the mutual contradictoriness of the various adherents of this view as to what the ideals of humanity consist in — the strangeness, not to say the stupidity, of this view consists in this, that in order to answer the question that confronts every man: “what am I”, or “why do I live”, or “what am I to do” — a man must first resolve the question: “what is the life of all that humanity which is unknown to him, of which one tiny part in one tiny period of time is known to him”. In order to understand what he is, a man must first understand what all this mysterious humanity is, made up of people just like himself, who do not understand their own selves.

I must confess that there was a time when I believed this. It was that time when I had my own favourite ideals which justified my whims, and I tried to think out such a theory by which I could look upon my whims as a law of humanity. But as soon as the question of life arose in my soul in all its clearness, this answer at once scattered into dust. And I understood that just as in the experimental sciences there are real sciences and half-sciences which try to give answers to questions not within their province, so in this field too I understood that there is a whole series of the most widely spread branches of knowledge which try to answer questions not within their province. The half-sciences of this field — the juridical, social, historical sciences — try to resolve the questions of man by imaginarily resolving, each in its own way, the question of the life of all humanity.

But just as in the field of experimental knowledge a man who sincerely asks, how am I to live, cannot be satisfied with the answer: study in infinite space the changes, infinite in time and complexity, of infinite particles, and then you will understand your life — so also a sincere man cannot be satisfied with the answer: study the life of all humanity, of which we can know neither the beginning nor the end and of which we do not know even a small part, and then you will understand your life. And just as in the experimental half-sciences, so these half-sciences too are the more full of unclearnesses, imprecisions, stupidities and contradictions the further they deviate from their own tasks. The task of experimental science is the causal sequence of material phenomena. Let experimental science introduce the question of a final cause, and nonsense results. The task of speculative science is the consciousness of the causeless essence of life. Let it introduce the investigation of causal phenomena, such as social and historical phenomena, and nonsense results.

Experimental science gives positive knowledge and manifests the greatness of the human mind only when it does not introduce a final cause into its investigations. And conversely, speculative science is science and manifests the greatness of the human mind only when it removes entirely the questions of the sequence of causal phenomena and considers man only in relation to the final cause. Such in this field is the science that constitutes the pole of this hemisphere — metaphysics, or speculative philosophy. This science clearly poses the question: what am I and the whole world? and why am I and why is the whole world? And ever since it has existed, it has always answered in one and the same way. Whether the philosopher calls the essence of life which is in me and in all that exists ideas, or substance, or spirit, or will, the philosopher says one thing, that this essence is and that I am that same essence; but why it is, he does not know, and does not answer, if he is a precise thinker. I ask: Why should this essence be? What will come of its being and of its being still to come?.. And philosophy not only does not answer, but itself only asks this. And if it is true philosophy, then all its work consists only in posing this question clearly. And if it holds firmly to its task, then it cannot answer otherwise the question: “what am I and the whole world?” — “everything and nothing”; and to the question: “why does the world exist and why do I exist?” — “I do not know.”

So that, however I turn those speculative answers of philosophy about, I shall in no way obtain anything resembling an answer — and not because, as in the clear, experimental field, the answer does not concern my question, but because here, though all the intellectual work is directed precisely at my question, there is no answer, and instead of an answer one obtains the same question, only in a more complicated form.

VI

In my searchings after answers to the question of life I experienced exactly the same feeling that a man experiences who has lost his way in a forest.

He came out into a clearing, climbed a tree and saw clearly the boundless spaces, but saw that there is no house there and cannot be; he went into the thicket, into the gloom, and saw gloom, and again no house and no house.

So I wandered in this forest of human knowledge, between the clearings of mathematical and experimental knowledge, which opened up clear horizons to me, but such that in their direction there could be no house, and the gloom of speculative knowledge, in which I sank into a greater gloom the further I advanced, and I became convinced at last that there is no way out and cannot be.

Giving myself up to the bright side of knowledge, I understood that I was only turning my eyes away from the question. However alluring, however clear were the horizons opening before me, however alluring it was to sink into the infinity of these branches of knowledge, I understood already that they, these branches of knowledge, are the clearer the less I need them, the less they answer the question.

Well, I know, I said to myself, all that science so stubbornly wishes to know, but along this path there is no answer to the question of the meaning of my life. And in the speculative field I understood that, in spite of the fact, or precisely because, the aim of knowledge was directed straight at answering my question, there is no other answer than the one I had given myself: What is the meaning of my life? — None. Or: What will come of my life? — Nothing. Or: Why does all that exists exist, and why do I exist? — Because it exists.

Asking of the one side of human knowledge, I received a countless number of precise answers about what I was not asking: about the chemical composition of the stars, about the movement of the sun towards the constellation of Hercules, about the origin of species and of man, about the forms of infinitely small atoms, about the vibration of infinitely small imponderable particles of ether; but the answer in this field of knowledge to my question, what is the meaning of my life? — was one: you are what you call your life, you are a temporary, accidental cohesion of particles. The mutual action, the change of these particles produces in you what you call your life. This cohesion will hold for a certain time; then the interaction of these particles will cease — and what you call life will cease, and all your questions will cease. You are an accidentally stuck-together little lump of something. The little lump ferments. This fermenting the little lump calls its life. The little lump will fall apart — and the fermenting will end, and all the questions. So answers the clear side of knowledge, and it can say nothing else, if only it follows its own foundations strictly.

With such an answer it turns out that the answer does not answer the question. I need to know the meaning of my life, and that it is a particle of the infinite not only does not give it meaning, but destroys every possible meaning.

Those vague bargains which this side of experimental, precise knowledge makes with speculation, in which it is said that the meaning of life consists in development and in assisting this development, cannot, by their imprecision and unclearness, be counted as answers.

The other side of knowledge, the speculative, when it holds strictly to its own foundations, answering the question directly, everywhere and in all ages answers and has answered one and the same thing: the world is something infinite and incomprehensible. Human life is an unfathomable part of this unfathomable “all”. Again I exclude all those bargains between speculative and experimental knowledge which make up the whole ballast of the half-sciences, the so-called juridical, political, historical. Into these sciences the concepts of development and perfecting are again just as wrongly introduced, with this difference only, that there it is the development of everything, and here of the life of people. The wrongness is one and the same: development, perfecting in the infinite can have neither aim nor direction, and in relation to my question answers nothing.

But there, where speculative knowledge is precise, namely in true philosophy, not in that which Schopenhauer called professorial philosophy, serving only to distribute all existing phenomena into new philosophical columns and to call them by new names — there, where the philosopher does not lose sight of the essential question, the answer is always one and the same — the answer given by Socrates, Schopenhauer, Solomon, the Buddha.

“We shall approach the truth only in so far as we withdraw from life,” says Socrates, preparing for death. “What do we, who love the truth, strive after in life? To be freed from the body and from all the evil that flows from the life of the body. If so, then how should we not rejoice when death comes to us?”

“The wise man seeks death all his life, and therefore death is not terrible to him.”

“Having recognized the inner essence of the world as will,” says Schopenhauer, “and having recognized in all phenomena, from the unconscious striving of the dark forces of nature to the fully conscious activity of man, only the objectivity of this will, we shall in no way escape the consequence that, together with the free denial, the self-annihilation of the will, all those phenomena will also disappear — that constant striving and urging without aim and without rest on all the steps of objectivity, in which and through which the world consists; the diversity of successive forms will disappear, and together with the form all its phenomena will disappear with their general forms, space and time, and finally its last fundamental form also — subject and object. No will, no representation, no world either. Before us, of course, there remains only nothing. But that which resists this passage into nothingness, our nature, is after all only this very will to existence (Wille zum Leben) which constitutes ourselves, as it constitutes our world. That we so dread nothingness, or, what is the same, so wish to live, means only that we ourselves are nothing else than this wish for life, and know nothing but it. Therefore that which remains after the complete annihilation of the will, for us, who are still full of will, is of course nothing; but conversely, for those in whom the will has turned and renounced itself, for them this our world, so real, with all its suns and milky ways, is nothing.”

“Vanity of vanities,” says Solomon, “vanity of vanities — all is vanity! What profit has a man of all his labours at which he labours under the sun? A generation passes away and a generation comes, but the earth abides for ever. What has been, that shall be; and what has been done, that shall be done; and there is nothing new under the sun. There is a thing of which they say: ‘look, here is something new’; but it has been already in the ages that were before us. There is no remembrance of former things; nor will there remain any remembrance of that which shall be among those who come after. I, Ecclesiastes, was king over Israel in Jerusalem. And I gave my heart to search out and to test with wisdom all that is done under heaven: this heavy occupation God has given to the sons of men, that they should exercise themselves in it. I saw all the works that are done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and vexation of spirit... I spoke in my heart thus: behold, I am become great, I have acquired more wisdom than all who were before me over Jerusalem, and my heart has seen much wisdom and knowledge. And I gave my heart to know wisdom and to know madness and folly; I learned that this too is vexation of spirit. For in much wisdom is much sorrow; and he who increases knowledge increases grief.

“I said in my heart: come now, I will test you with mirth and enjoy good things; but this too is vanity. Of laughter I said: it is folly; and of mirth: what does it do? I thought in my heart to gladden my body with wine and, while my heart was guided by wisdom, to lay hold on folly also, till I should see what is good for the sons of men, what they ought to do under heaven in the few days of their life. I undertook great works: I built myself houses, I planted myself vineyards. I made myself gardens and groves and planted in them all kinds of fruit-bearing trees; I made myself pools of water, to water from them the groves that bring forth trees; I acquired for myself men-servants and maid-servants, and I had servants born in my house; I had also large and small cattle, more than all who were before me in Jerusalem; I gathered for myself silver and gold and the treasures of kings and provinces; I got myself men singers and women singers and the delights of the sons of men — instruments of music of every kind. And I became great and rich, more than all who were before me in Jerusalem; and my wisdom remained with me. Whatever my eyes desired, I did not refuse them, I did not withhold from my heart any mirth. And I looked round upon all my works that my hands had made, and on the labour which I laboured in making them, and behold, all is vanity and vexation of spirit, and there is no profit from them under the sun. And I turned to look upon wisdom, and madness, and folly. But I learned that one fate befalls them all. And I said in my heart: the same fate will befall me as the fool — why then have I become very wise? And I said in my heart that this too is vanity. For the wise man will not be remembered for ever, any more than the fool; in the days to come all will be forgotten, and, alas, the wise man dies just as the fool does! And I hated life, because the works that are done under the sun became hateful to me, for all is vanity and vexation of spirit. And I hated all my labour at which I laboured under the sun, because I must leave it to the man who will come after me. For what will a man have from all his labour and from the care of his heart, at which he labours under the sun? For all his days are sorrows, and his labours are disquiet; even at night his heart knows no rest. And this too is vanity. Nor is it in a man's power even that good, to eat and drink and gladden his soul from his labour...

“To all and to everything one thing: one fate to the righteous and to the wicked, to the good and to the evil, to the clean and to the unclean, to him who brings a sacrifice and to him who brings none; to the virtuous as to the sinner; to him who swears as to him who fears an oath. This is the evil in all that is done under the sun, that one fate comes to all, and the heart of the sons of men is full of evil, and madness is in their heart, in their life; and after that they go to the dead. Whoever is among the living still has hope, since even a living dog is better than a dead lion. The living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing, and there is no more reward for them, because even the memory of them is given over to oblivion; and their love, and their hatred, and their jealousy have already perished, and they have no more part for ever in anything that is done under the sun.”

So says Solomon, or he who wrote these words.

And here is what Indian wisdom says:

Sakya-Muni, a young and happy prince from whom illness, old age and death had been hidden, drives out for a walk and sees a terrible old man, toothless and slavering. The prince, from whom old age had until then been hidden, is astonished and questions his driver: what is this, and why has this man come into such a pitiful, repulsive, hideous condition? And when he learns that this is the common fate of all men, that he, the young prince, inevitably faces the same, he can no longer drive out for his walk and orders them to turn back, so as to think this over. And he shuts himself up alone and thinks. And probably he thinks out some consolation for himself, because he drives out again for a walk, merry and happy. But this time he meets a sick man. He sees an emaciated, blue, trembling man with dimmed eyes. The prince, from whom illness had been hidden, stops and asks what this is. And when he learns that this is illness, to which all men are subject, and that he himself, the healthy and happy prince, may fall ill in the same way tomorrow, he again has not the heart to be merry, orders them to turn back and again seeks calm, and probably finds it, because a third time he drives out for a walk; but the third time he sees yet another sight; he sees that they are carrying something. — “What is that?” A dead man. — “What does dead mean?” asks the prince. They tell him that to become dead means to become what this man has become. — The prince goes up to the dead man, uncovers him and looks at him. — “What will happen to him further?” asks the prince. They tell him that they will bury him in the earth. — “Why?” — Because he will certainly never be alive again, but there will only be stench from him and worms. — “And this is the lot of all men? And the same will happen to me? I shall be buried, and there will be stench from me, and the worms will eat me?” — Yes. — “Back! I am not going for a walk, and I shall never go again.”

And Sakya-Muni could find no consolation in life, and he decided that life is the greatest evil, and he used all the powers of his soul to free himself from it and to free others. And to free them in such a way that after death, too, life should not somehow be renewed, so as to destroy life altogether, at the root. So says all Indian wisdom.

So these are the direct answers which human wisdom gives when it answers the question of life.

“The life of the body is an evil and a lie. And therefore the destruction of this life of the body is a good, and we ought to desire it,” says Socrates.

“Life is that which ought not to be — an evil, and the passage into nothing is the only good of life,” says Schopenhauer.

“Everything in the world — folly and wisdom, riches and poverty, mirth and grief — all is vanity and trifles. Man will die, and nothing will remain. And this is stupid,” says Solomon.

“It is impossible to live with the consciousness of the inevitability of sufferings, of enfeeblement, of old age and of death — one must free oneself from life, from every possibility of life,” says the Buddha.

And what these powerful minds have said, millions upon millions of people like them have said, and thought, and felt. And I think and feel it too.

So that my wandering in the branches of knowledge not only did not lead me out of my despair, but only strengthened it. The one branch of knowledge did not answer the questions of life; the other branch of knowledge answered, directly confirming my despair and indicating that what I had come to is not the fruit of my error, of a diseased state of mind — on the contrary, it confirmed to me that I was thinking rightly and had come together with the conclusions of the most powerful minds of humanity.

There is no use deceiving oneself. All is vanity. Happy is he who was not born; death is better than life; one must be rid of it.

VII

Having found no explanation in knowledge, I began to seek this explanation in life, hoping to find it in the people around me, and I began to observe people such as I am, how they live around me and how they relate to this question which had brought me to despair.

And here is what I found among people in the same position as myself in education and manner of life.

I found that for people of my circle there are four ways out of the terrible position in which we all find ourselves.

The first way out is the way out of ignorance. It consists in not knowing, not understanding, that life is an evil and a senselessness. People of this class — for the most part women, or very young, or very dull people — have not yet understood that question of life which presented itself to Schopenhauer, Solomon, the Buddha. They see neither the dragon awaiting them nor the mice gnawing away the bushes to which they hold, and they lick the drops of honey. But they lick these drops of honey only for a time: something will turn their attention to the dragon and the mice, and there will be an end of their licking. From them I have nothing to learn: one cannot cease to know what one knows.

The second way out is the way out of Epicureanism. It consists in this, that, knowing the hopelessness of life, one makes use meanwhile of the good things there are, looking neither at the dragon nor at the mice, but licking the honey in the best possible way, especially if a good deal of it has come one's way on the bush. Solomon expresses this way out thus:

“And I commended mirth, because there is nothing better for a man under the sun than to eat and drink and be merry: this accompanies him in his labours in the days of his life which God has given him under the sun.

“Therefore go, eat your bread with mirth and drink your wine with a glad heart... Enjoy life with the woman whom you love, all the days of your vain life, all your vain days, because this is your portion in life and in your labours at which you labour under the sun... All that your hand is able to do by your strength, do, because in the grave, whither you go, there is neither work, nor reflection, nor knowledge, nor wisdom.”

The majority of people of our circle hold to this second conclusion. The conditions in which they find themselves make it so that they have more good things than evil, and their moral dullness gives them the possibility of forgetting that the advantage of their position is accidental, that not everyone can have a thousand women and palaces, as Solomon had, that for every man with a thousand wives there are a thousand men without wives, and for every palace there are a thousand men building it in the sweat of their brow, and that the same chance which today has made me a Solomon may tomorrow make me Solomon's slave. And the dullness of these people's imagination gives them the possibility of forgetting what gave the Buddha no peace — the inevitability of illness, old age and death, which today or tomorrow will destroy all these pleasures. That some of these people assert that the dullness of their thought and imagination is a philosophy, which they call positive, does not in my view set them apart from the class of those who, not seeing the question, lick the honey. And these people I could not imitate: not having their dullness of imagination, I could not artificially produce it in myself. I could not, as no living man can, tear my eyes away from the mice and the dragon once he has seen them.

The third way out is the way out of strength and energy. It consists in destroying life, having understood that life is an evil and a senselessness. So do rare, strong and consistent people. Having understood the whole stupidity of the joke that has been played upon them, and having understood that the good things of the dead are greater than the good things of the living and that it is best of all not to be, they act accordingly and end this stupid joke at once, the means being at hand: a noose round the neck, water, a knife with which to pierce the heart, railway trains. And the people of our circle who act so are becoming more and more numerous. And people act so for the most part in the very best period of life, when the powers of the soul are in their fullest flower and few of the habits that degrade human reason have yet been acquired. I saw that this is the worthiest way out, and I wanted to act so.

The fourth way out is the way out of weakness. It consists in this, that, understanding the evil and the senselessness of life, one goes on dragging it out, knowing beforehand that nothing can come of it. People of this sort know that death is better than life, but, not having the strength to act reasonably — to end the deception quickly and kill themselves — they seem to be waiting for something. This is the way out of weakness, for if I know the better and it is in my power, why not give myself up to the better?.. I was in this class.

So people of my sort save themselves in four ways from the terrible contradiction. However much I strained my mental attention, I saw as yet no other way out besides these four. One way out: not to understand that life is a senselessness, a vanity and an evil, and that it is better not to live. I could not help knowing this, and once I had come to know it, I could not shut my eyes to it. Another way out — to make use of life such as it is, without thinking of the future. And this I could not do. I, like Sakya-Muni, could not go hunting when I knew that there is old age, suffering, death. My imagination was too vivid. Besides, I could not rejoice in the momentary chance that had thrown a moment's enjoyment my way. The third way out: having understood that life is an evil and a stupidity, to end it, to kill myself. I understood this, but for some reason I still did not kill myself. The fourth way out — to live in the position of Solomon, of Schopenhauer — to know that life is a stupid joke played upon me, and still to live, to wash, to dress, to dine, to talk and even to write little books. This was repulsive and tormenting to me, but I remained in this position.

Now I see that if I did not kill myself, the cause of it was a dim consciousness of the unsoundness of my thoughts. However convincing and indubitable the course of my thought and of the thoughts of the wise, which had brought us to the acknowledgement of the senselessness of life, seemed to me, there remained in me an unclear doubt as to the truth of the starting point of my reasoning.

It was this: I, my reason, have acknowledged that life is unreasonable. If there is no higher reason (and there is none, and nothing can prove it), then reason is the creator of life for me. Were there no reason, there would be no life for me either. How is it that this reason denies life, when it is itself the creator of life? Or, on the other hand: if there were no life, there would be no reason of mine either — consequently reason is the son of life. Life is everything. Reason is the fruit of life, and this reason denies life itself. I felt that here something was wrong.

Life is a senseless evil, this is indubitable, I said to myself. But I have lived, I am living still, and all humanity has lived and lives. How is that? Why does it live, when it is able not to live? Am I alone with Schopenhauer so clever as to have understood the senselessness and the evil of life?

The reasoning about the vanity of life is not so cunning, and the very simplest people have long been making it, and yet they lived and live. So they all live and never even think of doubting the reasonableness of life?

My knowledge, confirmed by the wisdom of the wise, disclosed to me that everything in the world — organic and inorganic — is all arranged extraordinarily cleverly, and only my own position is stupid. But those fools — the enormous masses of simple people — know nothing about how everything organic and inorganic is arranged in the world, yet they live, and it seems to them that their life is arranged very reasonably!

And it came into my head: but what if there is something I still do not know? For that is exactly how ignorance behaves. Ignorance always says just this. When it does not know something, it says that what it does not know is stupid. In fact it turns out that there is a whole humanity which has lived and lives as though understanding the meaning of its life, for, not understanding it, it could not live, and I say that all this life is a senselessness, and I cannot live.

No one prevents Schopenhauer and me from denying life. But then kill yourself — and you will not reason. You do not like life, kill yourself. But if you live and cannot understand the meaning of life, then put an end to it, and do not turn about in this life, telling and describing how you do not understand life. You have come into a merry company, everyone is very happy, everyone knows what they are doing, and you are bored and disgusted, so go away.

For in fact, what are we, convinced of the necessity of suicide and not resolving to commit it, but the weakest, the most inconsistent and, to put it simply, the stupidest of people, carrying our stupidity about like a fool with a painted sack?

For our wisdom, however indubitably true it is, has not given us knowledge of the meaning of our life. And all humanity, which makes life, the millions, do not doubt the meaning of life.

In fact, ever since those far, far-off times when there has been life of which I know anything at all, people have lived, knowing that reasoning about the vanity of life which showed me its senselessness, and yet they lived, attributing some meaning to it. Ever since any life of men began, they already had this meaning of life, and they carried on this life which has come down to me. All that is in me and around me, all of it is the fruit of their knowledge of life. Those very instruments of thought with which I discuss this life and condemn it, all this was made not by me but by them. I myself was born, was brought up, grew up thanks to them. They dug out the iron, taught men to fell timber, tamed cows and horses, taught men to sow, taught them to live together, ordered our life; they taught me to think and to speak. And I, their product, nourished and reared by them, taught by them, thinking with their thoughts and words, have proved to them that they are a senselessness! “Here something is wrong,” I said to myself. “Somewhere I have made a mistake.” But wherein the mistake lay, I could in no way find.

VIII

All these doubts, which I am now able to express more or less coherently, I could not then have expressed. Then I only felt that, however logically inevitable my conclusions about the vanity of life were, confirmed as they were by the greatest thinkers, there was something wrong in them. Whether in the reasoning itself, or in the posing of the question, I did not know; I felt only that the rational conviction was complete, but that it was not enough. All these arguments could not convince me so far as to make me do what followed from my reasonings, that is, kill myself. And I should be telling an untruth if I said that it was by reason that I came to what I came to and did not kill myself. Reason was at work, but something else was at work as well, which I cannot call otherwise than a consciousness of life. There was at work also that force which made me turn my attention to this and not to that, and it was this force that led me out of my desperate position and directed my reason quite differently. This force made me turn my attention to the fact that I with hundreds of people like me are not the whole of humanity, that the life of humanity I do not yet know.

Looking round the narrow little circle of my contemporaries, I saw only people who did not understand the question, people who understood it and stifled it with the drunkenness of life, people who had understood it and put an end to life, and people who had understood it and out of weakness were living out a desperate life. And I saw no others. It seemed to me that that narrow little circle of learned, rich and leisured people to which I belonged made up the whole of humanity, and that those milliards who had lived and were living were, so to say, some sort of cattle — not people.

However strange, however incredibly incomprehensible it now seems to me that I could, while reasoning about life, overlook the life of humanity that surrounded me on all sides, how I could be so ridiculously mistaken as to think that my life, and Solomon's and Schopenhauer's, is the real, normal life, and that the life of the milliards is a circumstance not worth attention — however strange this is to me now, I see that it was so. In the error of the pride of my intellect it seemed to me so indubitable that Solomon and Schopenhauer and I had posed the question so rightly and truly that nothing else could be, it seemed so indubitable that all those milliards belong to those who have not yet come to a grasp of the whole depth of the question, that I sought the meaning of my life and never once thought: “but what meaning do all the milliards who have lived and are living in the world attribute, and have attributed, to their life?”

I lived long in this madness, especially characteristic — not in words but in deeds — of us, the most liberal and learned people. But whether thanks to some strange physical love of mine for the real working people, which made me understand them and see that they are not so stupid as we think, or thanks to the sincerity of my conviction that I can know nothing except that the best thing I can do is to hang myself, I sensed that if I want to live and to understand the meaning of life, I must seek this meaning of life not among those who have lost the meaning of life and want to kill themselves, but among those milliards of people, dead and living, who make life and who bear upon themselves their own life and ours. And I looked round at the enormous masses of dead and living simple, unlearned and unrich people, and I saw something quite different. I saw that all these milliards of people who have lived and are living, all, with rare exceptions, do not fit my division, that I cannot acknowledge them as not understanding the question, because they themselves pose it and answer it with unusual clarity. I cannot acknowledge them as Epicureans either, because their life is composed more of privations and sufferings than of enjoyments; and still less can I acknowledge them as unreasonably living out a senseless life, since every act of their life and death itself is explained by them. To kill oneself they consider the greatest evil. It turned out that all humanity has some knowledge of the meaning of life which I did not acknowledge and which I despised. It turned out that rational knowledge does not give the meaning of life, excludes life; while the meaning attributed to life by milliards of people, by all humanity, rests on some despised, false knowledge.

Rational knowledge, in the person of the learned and the wise, denies the meaning of life, while the enormous masses of people, all humanity, acknowledge this meaning in unreasoning knowledge. And this unreasoning knowledge is faith, that very faith which I could not but reject. This is God, one and three, this is the creation in six days, devils and angels, and all that I cannot accept so long as I have not gone out of my mind.

My position was terrible. I knew that on the path of rational knowledge I should find nothing but the denial of life, and there, in faith, nothing but the denial of reason, which is still more impossible than the denial of life. By rational knowledge it came out that life is an evil, and people know this, and it depends on people not to live, and yet they lived and live, and I myself lived, though I had long known that life is senseless and is an evil. By faith it came out that in order to understand the meaning of life I must renounce reason, the very thing for which meaning is needed.

IX

A contradiction resulted, from which there were only two ways out: either what I called reasonable was not so reasonable as I thought; or what seemed to me unreasonable was not so unreasonable as I thought. And I began to verify the course of the reasonings of my rational knowledge.

Verifying the course of the reasonings of rational knowledge, I found it entirely correct. The conclusion that life is nothing was inevitable; but I saw a mistake. The mistake was that I had been thinking in a way that did not correspond to the question I had posed. The question was this: why should I live, that is, what real, non-perishing thing will come of my illusory, perishing life, what meaning has my finite existence in this infinite world? And to answer this question I studied life.

The solutions of all possible questions of life obviously could not satisfy me, because my question, simple as it seems at first, includes in itself the demand for an explanation of the finite by the infinite and the reverse.

I asked: what is the timeless, causeless, spaceless significance of my life? — And I answered the question: what is the temporal, causal and spatial significance of my life? It came about that after a long labour of thought I answered: none.

In my reasonings I constantly equated — and could not do otherwise — the finite with the finite and the infinite with the infinite, and therefore what came out for me was what had to come out: force is force, matter is matter, will is will, infinity is infinity, nothing is nothing, and nothing further could come out.

It was something like what happens in mathematics when, thinking to solve an equation, one solves an identity. The course of the reasoning is correct, but as a result one gets the answer: a = a, or x = x, or 0 = 0. The same thing happened with my reasoning in relation to the question of the significance of my life. The answers given by all of science to this question are only identities.

And indeed, strictly rational knowledge, that knowledge which, as Descartes did, begins with complete doubt of everything, casts aside all knowledge taken on trust and builds everything anew on the laws of reason and experience — it cannot give any other answer to the question of life than the very one I received, an indefinite answer. It only seemed to me at first that knowledge had given a positive answer — Schopenhauer's answer: life has no meaning, it is an evil. But, having gone into the matter, I understood that the answer is not positive, that it was only my feeling that expressed it so. The answer strictly expressed, as it is expressed among the Brahmins, and in Solomon, and in Schopenhauer, is only an indefinite answer, or an identity: 0 = 0, life, which presents itself to me as nothing, is nothing. So that philosophical knowledge denies nothing, but only answers that this question cannot be resolved by it, that for it the solution remains indefinite.

Having understood this, I understood that one could not seek in rational knowledge an answer to my question, and that the answer given by rational knowledge is only an indication that the answer can be obtained only with a different posing of the question, only when the question of the relation of the finite to the infinite is introduced into the reasoning. I understood also that, however unreasonable and monstrous the answers given by faith may be, they have this advantage, that they introduce into every answer the relation of the finite to the infinite, without which there can be no answer. However I pose the question: how am I to live? the answer is: by God's law. What real thing will come of my life? — Eternal torments or eternal bliss. — What meaning is there that is not destroyed by death? — Union with the infinite God, paradise.

So that, besides rational knowledge, which had earlier presented itself to me as the only knowledge, I was inevitably brought to acknowledge that all living humanity has some other knowledge, an unreasoning one — faith, which gives the possibility of living. All the unreasonableness of faith remained for me the same as before, but I could not help acknowledging that it alone gives humanity answers to the questions of life and, in consequence of that, the possibility of living.

Rational knowledge brought me to acknowledge that life is senseless; my life came to a stop, and I wanted to destroy myself. Looking round at people, at all humanity, I saw that people live and assert that they know the meaning of life. I looked round at myself: I lived as long as I knew the meaning of life. As to other people, so to me, the meaning of life and the possibility of life were given by faith.

Looking further round at the people of other countries, at my contemporaries and at those who have lived and died, I saw one and the same thing. Where there is life, there faith, ever since humanity has existed, gives the possibility of living, and the chief features of faith are everywhere and always one and the same.

Whatever answers any faith whatever may give, and to whomever, every answer of faith gives to the finite existence of man the meaning of the infinite — a meaning not destroyed by sufferings, privations and death. This means that in faith alone can the meaning and the possibility of life be found. And I understood that faith, in its most essential significance, is not only “the evidence of things not seen” and so forth, is not revelation (that is only the description of one of the signs of faith), is not only the relation of man to God (one must define faith and then God, and not define faith through God), is not only agreement with what has been told to a man, as faith is most often understood — faith is the knowledge of the meaning of human life, in consequence of which man does not destroy himself but lives. Faith is the force of life. If a man lives, then he believes in something. If he did not believe that one must live for something, then he would not live. If he does not see and does not understand the illusoriness of the finite, he believes in this finite; if he understands the illusoriness of the finite, he must believe in the infinite. Without faith it is impossible to live.

And I recalled the whole course of my inner work and was horrified. Now it was clear to me that in order for a man to be able to live, he must either not see the infinite, or have such an explanation of the meaning of life in which the finite would be equated with the infinite. Such an explanation I had, but I had no need of it so long as I believed in the finite, and I began to verify it with reason. And before the light of reason all the former explanation scattered into dust. But the time came when I ceased to believe in the finite. And then I began, on rational foundations, to build out of what I knew such an explanation as would give a meaning to life; but nothing got built. Together with the best minds of humanity I came to 0 = 0, and was very much surprised at having obtained such a solution, whereas nothing else could have come out.

What was I doing when I sought an answer in experimental knowledge? — I wanted to learn why I live, and for this I studied everything that is outside me. It is clear that I could learn a great deal, but nothing of what I needed.

What was I doing when I sought an answer in philosophical knowledge? I studied the thoughts of those beings who were in the very same position as I, who had no answer to the question: why do I live. It is clear that I could learn nothing other than what I myself knew, that nothing can be known.

What am I? — a part of the infinite. Indeed, in these two words already lies the whole problem. Can it really be that humanity has put this question to itself only since yesterday? And can it really be that no one before me has put this question to himself — a question so simple, one that asks to be spoken by every clever child?

Why, this question has been posed ever since there have been people; and ever since there have been people it has been understood that for the solution of this question it is equally insufficient to equate the finite with the finite and the infinite with the infinite, and ever since there have been people the relations of the finite to the infinite have been sought out and expressed.

All these concepts, by which the finite is equated with the infinite and the meaning of life is obtained — the concepts of God, of freedom, of goodness — we subject to logical investigation. And these concepts do not stand up to the criticism of reason.

If it were not so terrible, it would be funny, with what pride and self-satisfaction we, like children, take a watch apart, pull out the spring, make a toy of it and then are surprised that the watch stops going.

What is needed and dear is the resolution of the contradiction of the finite with the infinite, and such an answer to the question of life as makes life possible. And this one resolution, which we find everywhere, always and among all peoples — a resolution carried down out of a time in which the life of men is lost to our sight, a resolution so difficult that we can do nothing like it — this very resolution we frivolously destroy, in order to pose again that question which is inherent in everyone and to which we have no answer.

The concepts of an infinite God, of the divinity of the soul, of the connection of men's affairs with God, the concepts of moral good and evil, are concepts worked out in the historical distance of the life of humanity that is hidden from our eyes, are those concepts without which there would be no life and no self of mine; and I, casting aside all this work of all humanity, want to do it all myself, alone, anew and in my own way.

I did not think so then, but the germs of these thoughts were already in me. I understood, 1) that my position with Schopenhauer and Solomon, in spite of our wisdom, is stupid: we understand that life is an evil, and yet we live. This is plainly stupid, because if life is stupid — and I so love everything reasonable — then life must be destroyed, and there will be no one left to deny it. 2) I understood that all our reasonings turn in an enchanted circle, like a wheel that does not catch on the cogs. However much and however well we reason, we cannot obtain an answer to the question, and it will always be 0 = 0, and that therefore our path is probably mistaken. 3) I began to understand that in the answers given by faith is stored the deepest wisdom of humanity, and that I had no right to deny them on the basis of reason, and that, chiefly, these answers alone answer the question of life.

X

I understood this, but it made it no easier for me.

I was ready now to accept any faith, if only it did not demand of me a direct denial of reason, which would be a lie. And I studied Buddhism and Mohammedanism from books, and most of all Christianity, both from books and from the living people around me.

I naturally turned first of all to the believers of my own circle, to learned people, to Orthodox theologians, to monk-elders, to Orthodox theologians of a new shade, and even to the so-called new Christians who profess salvation by faith in the redemption. And I seized upon these believers and questioned them about how they believe and in what they see the meaning of life.

In spite of the fact that I made every possible concession, avoided all disputes, I could not accept the faith of these people — I saw that what they gave out as faith was not an explanation but a darkening of the meaning of life, and that they themselves asserted their faith not in order to answer that question of life which had brought me to faith, but for some other purposes, alien to me.

I remember the tormenting feeling of horror at the return to my former despair after hope, which I experienced many and many times in my dealings with these people. The more, and the more in detail, they set forth their religious teachings to me, the more clearly I saw their error and the loss of my hope of finding in their faith an explanation of the meaning of life.

It was not that in the exposition of their religious teaching they mixed in, with Christian truths that had always been close to me, a great many unnecessary and unreasonable things — it was not this that repelled me; what repelled me was that the life of these people was the same as mine, with this difference only, that it did not correspond to those very principles which they set forth in their religious teaching. I clearly felt that they deceive themselves and that they, just as I, have no other meaning of life than to live while life lasts and to take everything the hand can take. I saw this from the fact that if they had had that meaning by which the fear of privations, sufferings and death is destroyed, then they would not have feared them. But they, these believers of our circle, just as I did, lived in abundance, tried to increase it or to preserve it, feared privations, sufferings, death, and, just as I and all of us unbelievers, lived satisfying their lusts, lived just as badly, if not worse, than the unbelievers.

No reasonings could convince me of the truth of their faith. Only such actions as would show that they have a meaning of life by which the poverty, illness and death that are terrible to me are not terrible to them could have convinced me. And such actions I did not see among these various believers of our circle. I did see such actions, on the contrary, among the most unbelieving people of our circle, but never among the so-called believers of our circle.

And I understood that the faith of these people is not the faith I was seeking, that their faith is not faith but only one of the Epicurean consolations in life. I understood that this faith may perhaps serve, if not for consolation, then for a certain distraction, to a repentant Solomon on his deathbed, but that it cannot serve for the vast majority of humanity, which is called not to divert itself, making use of the labours of others, but to create life. In order that all humanity might live, in order that it might continue life, giving it a meaning, they, these milliards, must have another, real knowledge of faith. For it was not the fact that Solomon and Schopenhauer and I did not kill ourselves — it was not this that convinced me of the existence of faith, but the fact that these milliards lived and live and have borne us and the Solomons along on their waves of life.

And I began to draw close to the believers among the poor, simple, unlearned people — to pilgrims, monks, sectarians, peasants. The religious teaching of these people of the people was also Christian, like the religious teaching of the supposed believers of our circle. With the Christian truths a great deal of superstition was mixed in here too, but the difference was that the superstitions of the believers of our circle were quite unnecessary to them, did not hang together with their life, were only a kind of Epicurean amusement; whereas the superstitions of the believers among the working people were to such a degree bound up with their life that it was impossible to imagine their life without these superstitions — they were a necessary condition of that life. The whole life of the believers of our circle was a contradiction of their faith, while the whole life of the believing, labouring people was a confirmation of that meaning of life which the knowledge of faith gave. And I began to look closely into the life and the beliefs of these people, and the more I looked the more I became convinced that they have a real faith, that their faith is necessary to them and alone gives them the meaning and the possibility of life. In contrast to what I saw in our circle, where life without faith is possible and where scarcely one in a thousand acknowledges himself a believer, in their midst there is scarcely one unbeliever in thousands. In contrast to what I saw in our circle, where the whole of life passes in idleness, amusements and dissatisfaction with life, I saw that the whole life of these people passed in heavy labour, and that they were less dissatisfied with life than the rich. In contrast to the way people of our circle resisted and railed at fate for privations and sufferings, these people accepted illnesses and sorrows without any perplexity or resistance, but with a calm and firm certainty that all this must be and cannot be otherwise, that all this is good. In contrast to the fact that the cleverer we are the less we understand the meaning of life and the more we see some evil mockery in our suffering and dying, these people live, suffer and draw near to death with calm, and more often than not with joy. In contrast to the fact that a calm death, a death without horror and despair, is the rarest exception in our circle, an uncalm, unsubmissive and joyless death is the rarest exception among the people. And of such people, deprived of everything that for Solomon and me is the only good of life, and experiencing at the same time the greatest happiness, there is a very great multitude. I looked more widely round about me. I looked closely into the life of the enormous masses of people past and present. And I saw such people, who had understood the meaning of life, who knew how to live and to die — not two, three, ten, but hundreds, thousands, millions. And all of them, infinitely different in disposition, mind, education, position, all alike and quite contrary to my ignorance knew the meaning of life and of death, calmly laboured, bore privations and sufferings, lived and died, seeing in this not vanity but good.

And I came to love these people. The more I entered into their life, the life of the living and the life of those like them who had died, of whom I read and heard, the more I loved them, and the easier it became for me myself to live. I lived so for about two years, and there took place in me an upheaval which had long been preparing in me and the promise of which had always been in me. What happened to me was that the life of our circle — of the rich, the learned — not only became loathsome to me, but lost all meaning. All our actions, reasonings, science, arts — all this presented itself to me as indulgence. I understood that one cannot seek meaning in this. But the actions of the labouring people, who create life, presented themselves to me as the one real business. And I understood that the meaning given to this life is the truth, and I accepted it.

XI

And recalling how those very same beliefs repelled me and seemed senseless when they were professed by people who lived contrary to these beliefs, and how these same beliefs attracted me and seemed reasonable to me when I saw that people live by them — I understood why I had then cast these beliefs aside and why I had found them senseless, and why I now accepted them and found them full of meaning. I understood that I had lost my way and how I had lost it. I had lost my way not so much because I thought wrongly as because I lived badly. I understood that the truth had been hidden from me not so much by the error of my thought as by my very life in those exceptional conditions of Epicureanism, of the satisfaction of lusts, in which I had passed it. I understood that my question as to what my life is, and the answer: an evil — was entirely correct. The only thing that was wrong was that the answer, which related only to me, I had related to life in general: I asked myself what my life is, and received the answer: an evil and a senselessness. And truly, my life — a life of indulgence to lust — was senseless and evil, and therefore the answer, “life is evil and senseless”, related only to my life and not to human life in general. I understood that truth, afterwards found by me in the Gospel, that men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. I understood that in order to understand the meaning of life it is necessary first of all that life should not be senseless and evil, and only after that reason, in order to understand it. I understood why I had walked so long around so obvious a truth, and that if one is to think and speak of the life of humanity, then one must speak and think of the life of humanity and not of the life of a few parasites upon life. This truth was always a truth, like 2 × 2 = 4, but I did not acknowledge it, because, acknowledging 2 × 2 = 4, I should have had to acknowledge that I am not good. And to feel myself good was for me more important and more binding than 2 × 2 = 4. I came to love good people, came to hate myself, and I acknowledged the truth. Now everything became clear to me.

What if an executioner who spends his life in torturing and cutting off heads, or a hopeless drunkard, or a madman who has settled for life in a dark room, has fouled this room of his and imagines that he will perish if he leaves it — what if they asked themselves: what is life? Obviously they could receive to the question, what is life, no other answer than that life is the greatest evil; and the madman's answer would be entirely correct, but only for him. What if I am the same sort of madman? What if we all, the rich, the learned, are the same sort of madmen?

And I understood that we really are such madmen. I at least was certainly such a madman. And in fact, a bird exists in such a way that it must fly, gather food, build nests, and when I see a bird doing this, I rejoice in its joy. A goat, a hare, a wolf exist in such a way that they must feed themselves, multiply, feed their families, and when they do this, I have the firm consciousness that they are happy and that their life is reasonable. What then must a man do? He must in just the same way procure life, as the animals do, but with this difference only, that he will perish if he procures it alone — he must procure it not for himself but for all. And when he does this, I have the firm consciousness that he is happy and that his life is reasonable. And what was I doing in all my thirty years of conscious life? — Not only did I not procure life for all, I did not even procure it for myself. I lived as a parasite, and, having asked myself why I live, received the answer: for nothing. If the meaning of human life lies in procuring it, then how could I, who had spent thirty years occupied not in procuring life but in ruining it in myself and in others, receive any other answer than that my life is a senselessness and an evil? And a senselessness and an evil it was.

The life of the world is accomplished by someone's will — someone by this life of the whole world and by our lives is doing some business of his own. In order to have hope of understanding the meaning of this will, one must first of all fulfil it — do what is wanted of us. But if I shall not do what is wanted of me, then I shall never understand even what is wanted of me, and still less what is wanted of us all and of the whole world.

If a naked, hungry beggar were taken from the crossroads, brought into a covered place in a splendid establishment, given food and drink and set to move some sort of stick up and down, then obviously, before going into why he was taken, why he must move the stick, whether the arrangement of the whole establishment is reasonable, the beggar must first of all move the stick. If he moves the stick, then he will understand that this stick moves a pump, that the pump raises water, that the water goes along the beds; then he will be led out of the covered well and set to another task, and he will gather the fruits and will enter into the joy of his lord, and, passing from a lower task to a higher, understanding further and further the arrangement of the whole establishment and taking part in it, he will never even think of asking why he is here, and will certainly not begin to reproach the master.

And so those who do his will do not reproach the master — simple, working, unlearned people, those whom we consider cattle; but we, the sages, eat up all the master's food and do not do what the master wants of us, and instead of doing it, we have sat down in a circle and reason: “Why move this stick? It is stupid, after all.” And so we have thought it out. We have thought our way to this, that the master is stupid or does not exist, and that we are clever, only we feel that we are good for nothing and that we must somehow rid ourselves of ourselves.

XII

The consciousness of the mistake of rational knowledge helped me to free myself from the temptation of idle intellectualizing. The conviction that the knowledge of truth can be found only by living prompted me to doubt the rightness of my life; but I was saved only by the fact that I managed to tear myself out of my exceptional position and to see the real life of the simple working people and to understand that this alone is real life. I understood that if I want to understand life and its meaning, I must live not the life of a parasite but a real life, and, accepting that meaning which real humanity gives it, having merged with this life, verify it.

At this same time the following happened to me. Through the whole of that year, when almost every minute I asked myself: should I not end it with a noose or a bullet — through all that time, alongside those courses of thought and observation of which I have spoken, my heart languished with a tormenting feeling. This feeling I cannot call otherwise than a searching for God.

I say that this searching for God was not reasoning but a feeling, because this searching did not flow from my course of thoughts — it was even directly opposite to them — but flowed from the heart. It was a feeling of fear, of orphanhood, of loneliness amid everything alien, and of hope in someone's help.

In spite of the fact that I was fully convinced of the impossibility of proving the existence of God (Kant proved to me, and I fully understood him, that this cannot be proved), I nevertheless sought God, hoped that I should find him, and turned by old habit with entreaty to that which I sought and did not find. Now I would go over in my mind the arguments of Kant and Schopenhauer about the impossibility of proving the existence of God, now I would begin to refute them. Cause, I said to myself, is not a category of thought like space and time. If I am, then there is a cause for it, and a cause of causes. And this cause of everything is what is called God; and I would halt at this thought and try with my whole being to be conscious of the presence of this cause. And as soon as I was conscious that there is a force in whose power I am, at once I felt the possibility of life. But I asked myself: “What then is this cause, this force? How am I to think of it, how am I to relate to what I call God?” And only the answers familiar to me came into my head: “He is the creator, the provider.” These answers did not satisfy me, and I felt that what I need for life was disappearing in me. I fell into horror and began to pray to him whom I sought, that he should help me. And the more I prayed, the more evident it was to me that he does not hear me and that there is no one to whom one could turn. And with despair in my heart that there is no God and no God, I said: “Lord, have mercy, save me! Lord, teach me, my God!” But no one had mercy on me, and I felt that my life was coming to a stop.

But again and again, from various other sides, I came to the same acknowledgement, that I could not have appeared in the world without any occasion, cause or meaning, that I cannot be such a fledgling fallen from the nest as I felt myself to be. Let me, a fallen fledgling, lie on my back squeaking in the tall grass, but I squeak because I know that a mother carried me within her, hatched me out, warmed me, fed me, loved me. Where is she, this mother? If I have been cast out, then who cast me out? I cannot hide from myself that someone begot me in love. Who then is this someone? — Again God.

“He knows and sees my searchings, my despair, my struggle. He is,” I said to myself. And I had only to acknowledge this for a moment, and at once life rose up within me, and I felt both the possibility and the joy of being. But again from the acknowledgement of the existence of God I passed to the seeking out of a relation to him, and again there presented itself to me that God, our creator, in three persons, who sent his son, the redeemer. And again this God, separate from the world and from me, melted like a block of ice, melted before my eyes, and again nothing remained, and again the source of life dried up, and I fell into despair and felt that there was nothing left for me to do but kill myself. And, what was worst of all, I felt that I could not do even this.

Not two, not three times, but tens, hundreds of times I came into these states — now of joy and animation, now again of despair and of the consciousness of the impossibility of life.

I remember it was in early spring, I was alone in the forest, listening to the sounds of the forest. I listened and thought all the while of one thing, as I constantly thought all the while of one and the same thing during these last three years. I was again seeking God.

“Very well, there is no God of any kind,” I said to myself. “There is none such as would be not my representation but a reality like the whole of my life; there is none such. And nothing, no miracles, can prove such a one, because the miracles would be my representation, and an unreasonable one at that.”

“But my concept of God, of the one I am seeking?” I asked myself. “Where did this concept come from?” And again at this thought joyful waves of life rose up in me. Everything around me came alive, received a meaning. But my joy did not last long. My mind went on with its work. “The concept of God is not God,” I said to myself. “A concept is what takes place within me; the concept of God is what I can arouse and can fail to arouse in myself. This is not what I am seeking. I am seeking that without which life could not be.” And again everything began to die around me and within me, and again I wanted to kill myself.

But then I looked round at my own self, at what was taking place within me; and I recalled all these dyings and revivings that had taken place in me hundreds of times. I recalled that I lived only when I believed in God. As it was before, so it is now, I said to myself: I have only to know of God, and I live; I have only to forget, not to believe in him, and I die. What then are these revivings and dyings? For I do not live when I lose faith in the existence of God; for I should long ago have killed myself if I had not had a dim hope of finding him. For I live, truly live, only when I feel him and seek him. What then am I seeking still? — a voice cried out in me. — Here he is. He is that without which one cannot live. To know God and to live are one and the same. God is life.

“Live, seeking God, and then there will be no life without God.” And more strongly than ever everything was lit up within me and around me, and this light has not left me since.

And I was saved from suicide. When and how this upheaval was accomplished in me I could not say. As imperceptibly, gradually, the force of life was destroyed in me, and I came to the impossibility of living, to a stoppage of life, to the need of suicide, so, just as gradually, imperceptibly, this force of life returned to me. And it is strange that the force of life which returned to me was not new but the very oldest — the same that had drawn me in the first days of my life. I returned in everything to the very earliest, to the childlike and the youthful. I returned to faith in that will which produced me and wants something of me; I returned to the idea that the chief and only aim of my life is to be better, that is, to live more in accordance with this will; I returned to the idea that the expression of this will I can find in what all humanity, in a distance hidden from me, has worked out for its own guidance — that is, I returned to faith in God, in moral perfecting, and in the tradition that has handed down the meaning of life. There was only this difference, that then all this was accepted unconsciously, whereas now I knew that without this I cannot live.

What happened to me was something like this: I do not remember when I was put into a boat, pushed off from some shore unknown to me, shown the direction to another shore, given oars into inexperienced hands and left alone. I worked the oars as best I could and rowed on; but the further I rowed out towards the middle, the swifter became the current that carried me away from the goal, and the oftener and oftener I met swimmers like myself, borne away by the current. There were solitary rowers who went on rowing; there were rowers who had thrown away their oars; there were large boats, enormous ships, full of people; some struggled with the current, others gave themselves up to it. And the further I rowed, the more, looking at the downstream direction of all those moving, I forgot the direction given me. In the very middle of the current, in the crush of boats and ships rushing downstream, I lost the direction altogether and threw away the oars. On all sides of me, with merriment and rejoicing, rowers under sail and at the oars swept past me downstream, assuring me and one another that there could be no other direction. And I believed them and floated with them. And I was carried far, so far that I heard the noise of the rapids in which I was bound to be dashed to pieces, and saw boats that had been dashed to pieces in them. And I came to myself. For a long time I could not understand what had happened to me. I saw before me only the destruction towards which I was running and which I feared, saw no salvation anywhere and did not know what to do. But, looking back, I saw countless boats which, without ceasing, stubbornly cut across the current, and I remembered the shore, the oars and the direction, and began to row back, up the current and towards the shore.

The shore was God, the direction was tradition, the oars were the freedom given me to row towards the shore — to unite with God. And so the force of life was renewed in me, and I began again to live.

XIII

I renounced the life of our circle, acknowledging that it is not life but only a semblance of life, that the conditions of abundance in which we live deprive us of the possibility of understanding life, and that in order to understand life I must understand not the life of exceptions, not of us, the parasites upon life, but the life of the simple working people, of those who make life, and the meaning which they give to it. The simple working people around me were the Russian people, and I turned to them and to the meaning which they give to life. This meaning, if it can be expressed, was the following. Every man has come into this world by the will of God. And God has so created man that every man can ruin his soul or save it. The task of man in life is to save his soul; in order to save his soul, one must live in God's way, and in order to live in God's way, one must renounce all the comforts of life, labour, humble oneself, endure and be merciful. This meaning the people draw from the whole religious teaching handed down and handed on to them by their pastors and by the tradition living among the people and expressing itself in legends, proverbs, tales. This meaning was clear to me and close to my heart. But with this meaning of the people's faith there is inseparably bound up, among our non-schismatic people, among whom I lived, a great deal that repelled me and presented itself as inexplicable: the sacraments, the church services, the fasts, the veneration of relics and icons. The people cannot separate the one from the other, and neither could I. However strange much of what entered into the faith of the people was to me, I accepted it all, went to the services, stood at prayer morning and evening, fasted, prepared for communion, and at first my reason did not resist anything. That very thing which had earlier seemed to me impossible now aroused no resistance in me.

My relation to faith now and then was quite different. Formerly life itself seemed to me full of meaning, and faith presented itself as an arbitrary assertion of certain propositions, quite unnecessary to me, unreasonable and unconnected with life. I asked myself then what meaning these propositions have, and, having become convinced that they have none, I cast them aside. Now, on the contrary, I firmly knew that my life has not and cannot have any meaning, and the propositions of faith not only did not present themselves to me as unnecessary, but I was brought by indubitable experience to the conviction that these propositions of faith alone give a meaning to life. Formerly I looked upon them as a quite unnecessary gibberish; now, if I did not understand them, I knew that there is meaning in them, and I said to myself that I must learn to understand them.

I made the following reasoning. I said to myself: the knowledge of faith flows, like all humanity with its reason, from a mysterious beginning. This beginning is God, the beginning both of the human body and of its reason. As my body came down to me in succession from God, so my reason and my apprehension of life came down to me, and therefore all those steps in the development of this apprehension of life cannot be false. All that people truly believe in must be truth; it may be variously expressed, but a falsehood it cannot be, and therefore if it presents itself to me as a falsehood, that only means that I do not understand it. Besides this, I said to myself: the essence of every faith consists in this, that it gives to life a meaning which is not destroyed by death. It is natural that, in order for faith to be able to answer the question of a king dying in luxury, of an old slave worn out with work, of an unreasoning child, of a wise elder, of a half-witted old woman, of a young happy woman, of a youth tormented by passions, of all people under the most various conditions of life and education — it is natural, if there is one answer that answers the one eternal question of life: “why do I live, what will come of my life?” — that this answer, though one in its essence, must be infinitely various in its manifestations; and the more one, the truer, the deeper this answer is, the stranger and the more monstrous it must naturally appear in its attempts at expression, according to the education and position of each. But these reasonings, which justified for me the strangeness of the ritual side of faith, were nevertheless insufficient to allow me, in that one business of life for me, in faith, to permit myself to do acts about which I had doubts. I desired with all the powers of my soul to be able to merge with the people, fulfilling the ritual side of their faith; but I could not do it. I felt that I should be lying before myself, should be mocking at what is holy to me, if I did it. But here new works of our Russian theology came to my aid.

By the explanation of these theologians, the fundamental dogma of the faith is the infallible church. From the acknowledgement of this dogma there follows, as a necessary consequence, the truth of all that the church professes. The church, as an assembly of believers united by love and therefore possessing true knowledge, became the foundation of my faith. I said to myself that divine truth cannot be accessible to one man, that it is revealed only to the whole body of people united by love. In order to apprehend the truth one must not divide; and in order not to divide, one must love and be reconciled with what one does not agree with. Truth will be revealed to love, and therefore, if you do not submit to the rites of the church, you violate love; and, violating love, you deprive yourself of the possibility of knowing the truth. I did not then see the sophism contained in this reasoning. I did not then see that union in love may give the greatest love, but in no way a theological truth expressed in definite words in the Nicene Creed; nor did I see that love can in no way make a particular expression of truth obligatory for union. I did not then see the mistake of this reasoning, and thanks to it I obtained the possibility of accepting and performing all the rites of the Orthodox church without understanding the greater part of them. I tried then with all the powers of my soul to avoid all reasonings, all contradictions, and tried to explain, as reasonably as possible, those propositions of the church that I came up against.

Performing the rites of the church, I humbled my reason and submitted myself to that tradition which all humanity had. I united myself with my ancestors, with those I loved — father, mother, grandfathers, grandmothers. They and all who went before believed and lived, and produced me. I united myself also with all the millions of people of the people whom I respected. Besides this, these very actions had in them nothing bad (I considered indulgence to lusts bad). Rising early for the church service, I knew that I was doing well for this reason alone, that for the humbling of the pride of my intellect, for the drawing near to my ancestors and contemporaries, for the sake of the search for the meaning of life, I sacrificed my bodily ease. The same was so in preparing for communion, in the daily reading of prayers with prostrations, the same in the keeping of all the fasts. However insignificant these sacrifices were, they were sacrifices in the name of the good. I prepared for communion, fasted, kept the appointed prayers at home and in church. In listening to the church services I went into every word and gave them meaning where I could. At the liturgy the most important words for me were: “let us love one another, that with one mind...” The words that followed: “let us confess the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit” — I passed over, because I could not understand them.

XIV

It was so necessary for me then to believe in order to live, that I unconsciously hid from myself the contradictions and unclearnesses of the religious teaching. But this making sense of the rites had a limit. If the litany became clearer and clearer to me in its chief words, if I somehow explained to myself the words: “Calling to remembrance our most holy sovereign lady the Mother of God and all the saints, let us commit ourselves and one another and our whole life to Christ our God” — if I explained the frequent repetition of prayers for the Tsar and his kindred by the fact that they are more subject to temptation than others and therefore require more prayers — then the prayers for the subduing under our feet of the enemy and the adversary, even if I explained them by saying that the enemy is evil — these prayers and others, such as the Cherubic hymn and the whole mystery of the proskomidia, or “to the victorious leader” and the like, almost two thirds of all the services, either had no explanations at all, or I felt that in supplying explanations for them I was lying and by that destroying altogether my relation to God, losing completely all possibility of faith.

The same I experienced at the celebration of the chief feasts. To remember the sabbath day, that is, to devote one day to turning towards God, was comprehensible to me. But the chief feast was the remembrance of the event of the resurrection, the actuality of which I could not represent to myself or understand. And by this name of resurrection the weekly celebrated day was called. And on these days the sacrament of the eucharist was performed, which was quite incomprehensible to me. All the remaining twelve feasts, except Christmas, were remembrances of miracles, of that which I tried not to think about so as not to deny it: the Ascension, Pentecost, Epiphany, the Protection, and so forth. At the celebration of these feasts, feeling that importance was attributed to the very thing which for me constitutes the very reverse of importance, I either thought out explanations that calmed me, or shut my eyes so as not to see what tempts me.

Most strongly of all this happened to me in taking part in the most usual sacraments, considered the most important: baptism and communion. Here I came up against actions that were not merely incomprehensible but fully comprehensible: these actions seemed to me tempting, and I was placed in a dilemma — either to lie or to reject.

I shall never forget the tormenting feeling I experienced on the day when I took communion for the first time after many years. The services, the confession, the rules — all this was comprehensible to me and produced in me a joyful consciousness that the meaning of life was being revealed to me. Communion itself I explained to myself as an action performed in remembrance of Christ and signifying purification from sin and the full reception of Christ's teaching. If this explanation was artificial, I did not notice its artificiality. It was so joyful to me, humbling and abasing myself before my confessor, a simple, timid priest, to turn out all the filth of my soul, repenting of my vices; it was so joyful to merge my thoughts with the strivings of the fathers who wrote the prayers of the rules; it was so joyful to be at one with all who had believed and who believe, that I did not feel the artificiality of my explanation. But when I went up to the royal doors and the priest made me repeat that I believe that what I am about to swallow is the true body and blood, it cut me to the heart; this is more than a false note, this is a cruel demand of someone who evidently had never known what faith is.

But I allow myself to say now that this was a cruel demand; then I did not even think it, I was only inexpressibly pained. I was no longer in the position I had been in in my youth, thinking that everything in life is clear; I had come to faith, after all, because apart from faith I had found nothing, certainly nothing, but destruction, and therefore it was impossible to cast this faith aside, and I submitted. And I found in my soul a feeling which helped me to bear this. It was a feeling of self-abasement and humility. I humbled myself, swallowed this blood and body without a blasphemous feeling, with a wish to believe, but the blow had already been struck. And knowing beforehand what awaited me, I could not go a second time.

I went on performing the rites of the church in just the same way and still believed that in that religious teaching which I followed there was truth, and there took place in me what is clear to me now but seemed strange then.

I would listen to the talk of an illiterate peasant pilgrim about God, about faith, about life, about salvation, and the knowledge of faith was revealed to me. I drew close to the people, listening to their judgements about life, about faith, and I understood the truth more and more. The same happened to me in reading the Chetyi-Minei and the Prologues; this became my favourite reading. Excepting the miracles, looking on them as a fable expressing a thought, this reading revealed to me the meaning of life. There were the lives of Macarius the Great, of the prince Ioasaph (the story of the Buddha); there were the words of John Chrysostom, the words about the traveller in the well, about the monk who found gold, about Peter the publican; there was the history of the martyrs, all of whom declared one thing, that death does not exclude life; there were histories of illiterate, stupid people who knew nothing of the teachings of the church and were saved.

But I had only to come together with learned believers or to take up their books, and some sort of doubt of myself, dissatisfaction, the exasperation of dispute arose in me, and I felt that the more I went into their speeches, the further I went from the truth and the nearer to the abyss.

XV

How many times I envied the peasants their illiteracy and unlearnedness. Out of those propositions of faith from which plain senselessnesses came out for me, nothing false came out for them; they could accept them and could believe in the truth, in that truth in which I too believed. Only for me, unhappy man, was it clear that truth is interwoven with falsehood by the finest threads and that I cannot accept it in such a form.

So I lived for about three years, and at first, when, like a catechumen, I was only little by little partaking of the truth, only going, guided by instinct, where it seemed brighter to me, these collisions struck me less. When I did not understand something, I said to myself: “I am to blame, I am bad.” But the more I became imbued with those truths which I was learning, the more they became the foundation of life, the heavier, the more striking these collisions became, and the sharper became that line which lies between what I do not understand because I am not able to understand, and what cannot be understood otherwise than by lying before oneself.

In spite of these doubts and sufferings, I still held to Orthodoxy. But questions of life arose which had to be resolved, and here the resolution of these questions by the church — contrary to the very foundations of that faith by which I lived — finally forced me to renounce the possibility of communion with Orthodoxy. These questions were, first, the relation of the Orthodox church to the other churches — to Catholicism and to the so-called schismatics. At this time, in consequence of my interest in faith, I drew close to believers of various confessions: Catholics, Protestants, Old Believers, Molokans and others. And I met many among them who were morally lofty and truly believing. I wished to be the brother of these people. And what then? — That teaching which promised to unite all in one faith and love, this very teaching, in the person of its best representatives, told me that these are all people in falsehood, that what gives them the strength of life is a temptation of the devil, and that we alone are in possession of the one possible truth. And I saw that all who do not profess the faith in the same way as they do are considered heretics by the Orthodox, exactly as the Catholics and others consider Orthodoxy heresy; I saw that to all who do not profess their faith in the same outward symbols and words as Orthodoxy, Orthodoxy, though it tries to conceal this, relates with hostility, as it must, first, because the assertion that you are in falsehood and I am in truth is the cruellest word one man can say to another, and, secondly, because a man who loves his children and brothers cannot but relate with hostility to people who wish to convert his children and brothers to a false faith. And this hostility increases in proportion to the greater knowledge of the religious teaching. And to me, who placed the truth in the union of love, it involuntarily struck the eye that the religious teaching itself destroys the very thing it ought to produce.

This temptation is to such a degree obvious, to such a degree obvious to us educated people who have lived in countries where various faiths are professed and who have seen that contemptuous, self-assured, unshakable denial with which the Catholic relates to the Orthodox and the Protestant, the Orthodox to the Catholic and the Protestant, and the Protestant to both, and the same relation of the Old Believer, the Pashkovite, the Shaker and of all the faiths, that the very obviousness of the temptation at first disconcerts one. You say to yourself: it cannot be that it is so simple, and that people should nevertheless not have seen that if two assertions deny each other, then in neither the one nor the other is there that single truth which faith ought to be. There is something here. There is some explanation — and I thought there was, and sought this explanation, and read everything I could on this subject, and consulted everyone I could. And I received no explanation but the very one by which the Sumy hussars consider that the first regiment in the world is the Sumy hussars, and the yellow uhlans consider that the first regiment in the world is the yellow uhlans. The clergy of all the various confessions, the best representatives among them, told me nothing but that they believe that they are in the truth and the others in error, and that all they can do is to pray for them. I went to archimandrites, bishops, elders, schema-monks and asked, and no one made any attempt to explain to me this temptation. Only one of them explained it all to me, but explained it in such a way that I asked no one else again.

I said that for every unbeliever turning to faith (and our whole young generation is subject to this turning) this question presents itself first: why is the truth not in Lutheranism, not in Catholicism, but in Orthodoxy? He is taught in the gymnasium, and he cannot help knowing, as the peasant does not know it, that the Protestant and the Catholic assert in just the same way the sole truth of their faith. The historical proofs, bent by each confession its own way, are insufficient. Is it not possible, I said, to understand the teaching more highly, so that from the height of the teaching the differences should disappear, as they disappear for the true believer? Is it not possible to go further along the path along which we have gone with the Old Believers? They asserted that our cross, our alleluia and our walking round the altar are different. We said: you believe in the Nicene Creed, in the seven sacraments, and we believe. Let us then hold to this, and in the rest do as you wish. We united with them by placing the essential in faith above the unessential. Now, with the Catholics, is it not possible to say: you believe in this and that, in the chief thing, and as for the filioque [and the Son] and the pope, do as you wish. Is it not possible to say the same to the Protestants, uniting with them on the chief thing? My interlocutor agreed with my thought, but told me that such concessions would bring reproaches upon the spiritual authority for departing from the faith of the ancestors, and would produce a schism, whereas the vocation of the spiritual authority is to keep in all its purity the Greco-Russian Orthodox faith handed down to it from the ancestors.

And I understood it all. I am seeking faith, the force of life, and they are seeking the best means of performing before men certain human obligations. And, performing these human affairs, they perform them in a human way. However much they may speak of their pity for their erring brothers, of the prayers for them raised up at the throne of the Most High — for the performance of human affairs violence is needed, and it always has been applied, is applied and will be applied. If two confessions consider themselves to be in the truth and each other in falsehood, then, wishing to draw their brothers to the truth, they will preach their own teaching. And if a false teaching is preached to the inexperienced sons of the church which is in the truth, then this church cannot but burn the books, cannot but remove the man who tempts her sons. What then is to be done with that sectarian, burning with the fire of a faith false in the opinion of Orthodoxy, who in the most important business of life, in faith, tempts the sons of the church? What is to be done with him but cut off his head or lock him up? Under Alexei Mikhailovich they burned at the stake, that is, applied the highest measure of punishment for that time; in our time they apply the highest measure too — they lock a man up in solitary confinement. And I turned my attention to what is done in the name of religious confession, and was horrified, and almost entirely renounced Orthodoxy. The second relation of the church to the questions of life was its relation to war and to executions.

At this time there was a war in Russia. And Russians in the name of Christian love began to kill their brothers. Not to think about this was impossible. Not to see that killing is an evil, contrary to the very first foundations of every faith, was impossible. And at the same time in the churches they prayed for the success of our arms, and the teachers of the faith acknowledged this killing to be a deed flowing from faith. And not only these killings in the war, but during the disorders which followed the war, I saw members of the church, its teachers, monks, schema-monks, who approved the killing of erring, helpless youths. And I turned my attention to all that is done by people who profess Christianity, and was horrified.

XVI

And I ceased to doubt, but became fully convinced that in that knowledge of faith to which I had joined myself not all is truth. Formerly I should have said that the whole religious teaching is false; but now it was impossible to say this. The whole people had knowledge of the truth, this was indubitable, because otherwise they would not have lived. Besides this, this knowledge of the truth was already accessible to me, I already lived by it and felt all its rightness; but in this same knowledge there was falsehood too. And of this I could not doubt. And all that had formerly repelled me now stood vividly before me. Although I saw that in the whole people there was less of that admixture of the falsehood which repelled me than in the representatives of the church — I nevertheless saw that in the beliefs of the people too falsehood was mixed with truth.

But where did the falsehood come from and where did the truth come from? Both the falsehood and the truth have been handed down by what is called the church. Both the falsehood and the truth are contained in the tradition, in the so-called sacred tradition and scripture.

And willy-nilly I am brought to the study, the investigation of this scripture and tradition — the investigation which I have so feared until now.

And I turned to the study of that very theology which I had once cast aside with such contempt as unnecessary. Then it seemed to me a series of unnecessary senselessnesses; then on all sides I was surrounded by the phenomena of life, which seemed to me clear and full of meaning; but now I should be glad to cast aside what will not go into a sound head, but there is nowhere to go. On this religious teaching rests, or at least is inseparably bound up with it, that one knowledge of the meaning of life which was revealed to me. However wild it seems to my old firm intellect, it is the one hope of salvation. It must be examined cautiously, attentively, in order to understand it — and not even to understand it as I understand a proposition of science. This I do not seek and cannot seek, knowing the peculiarity of the knowledge of faith. I shall not seek an explanation of everything. I know that the explanation of everything must be hidden, like the beginning of everything, in infinity. But I want to understand in such a way as to be brought to the inevitably inexplicable; I want everything that is inexplicable to be so not because the demands of my intellect are wrong (they are right, and outside them I can understand nothing), but because I see the limits of my intellect. I want to understand in such a way that every inexplicable proposition should present itself to me as a necessity of reason itself, and not as an obligation to believe.

That there is truth in the teaching is indubitable to me; but it is indubitable too that there is falsehood in it, and I must find the truth and the falsehood and separate the one from the other. And so I have set about this. What I found false in this teaching, what I found true, and to what conclusions I came, make up the following parts of the work, which, if it is worth it and is needed by anyone, will probably some day and somewhere be printed.

This was written by me three years ago.

Now, going over this part that is being printed and returning to that course of thought and to those feelings which were in me when I was living through it, I had a dream the other day. This dream expressed for me in a condensed image all that I have lived through and described, and therefore I think that for those who have understood me the description of this dream will freshen, clarify and gather into one all that has been told at such length on these pages. Here is the dream: I see that I am lying on a bed. And I am neither well nor ill, I am lying on my back. But I begin to think about whether it is good for me to lie so; and something, it seems to me, is uncomfortable for my legs: whether it is short, or uneven, but something is uncomfortable; I move my legs and at the same time begin to consider how and on what I am lying, which had not occurred to me until then. And observing my bed, I see that I am lying on plaited rope straps fastened to the sides of the bedstead. My feet lie on one such strap, my shins on another, and my legs are uncomfortable. I know for some reason that these straps can be shifted. And with a movement of my legs I push away the outermost strap under my feet. It seems to me that it will be more comfortable so. But I have pushed it too far away, I want to catch it with my legs, but with this movement another strap slips out from under my shins, and my legs hang down. I make a movement with my whole body to right myself, fully certain that I shall settle myself at once; but with this movement still other straps slip and shift under me, and I see that the matter is going quite wrong: the whole lower part of my body is sinking and hanging, my feet do not reach the ground. I am holding on only by the upper part of my back, and it becomes not only uncomfortable but somehow terrifying. — Only then do I ask myself what had not even occurred to me before. I ask myself: where am I and on what am I lying? And I begin to look about me, and first of all I look down, to where my body has sunk and where I feel that I must fall at once. I look down and cannot believe my eyes. Not only am I at a height like the height of the highest tower or mountain, but I am at such a height as I could never have imagined to myself.

I cannot even make out whether I see anything there, below, in that bottomless abyss over which I hang and into which I am drawn. My heart contracts, and I feel horror. To look there is terrible. If I look there, I feel that I shall slip at once off the last straps and perish. I do not look, but not to look is still worse, because I think about what will happen to me at once when I break loose from the last straps. And I feel that from horror I am losing my last hold and am slowly sliding down my back, lower and lower. Another instant and I shall break away. And then the thought comes to me: this cannot be true. This is a dream. Wake up. I try to wake and cannot. What is to be done, what is to be done? — I ask myself and look upwards. Above there is an abyss too. I look into this abyss of the sky and try to forget about the abyss below, and indeed I do forget. The infinity below repels and horrifies me; the infinity above draws me and confirms me. I hang in the same way over the abyss on the last straps that have not yet slipped out from under me; I know that I hang, but I look only upwards, and my fear passes. As happens in a dream, some voice says: “Mark this, this is it!” and I look further and further into the infinity above and feel that I am growing calm, I remember all that was and recall how it all happened: how I moved my legs, how I came to hang, how I was horrified and how I was saved from the horror by beginning to look upwards. And I ask myself: well, and now, am I still hanging just the same? And I do not so much look about me as feel with my whole body that point of support on which I am holding. And I see that I am no longer hanging or falling, but am holding firmly. I ask myself how I am holding, feel about, look about me and see that beneath me, under the middle of my body, there is one strap, and that, looking upwards, I lie on it in the most stable equilibrium, and that it alone held me before. And here, as happens in a dream, the mechanism by means of which I am holding presents itself to me as very natural, comprehensible and indubitable, in spite of the fact that in waking life this mechanism has no sense at all. I am even surprised in the dream that I did not understand this earlier. It turns out that at my head stands a pillar, and the firmness of this pillar is not subject to any doubt, in spite of the fact that this thin pillar has nothing to stand on. Then from the pillar a loop is led somehow very cunningly and at the same time simply, and if you lie on this loop with the middle of your body and look upwards, then there cannot even be a question of falling. All this was clear to me, and I was glad and calm. And it is as though someone says to me: mind now, remember. And I woke up.