Confession
by Leo Tolstoy
X
I understood this, but it made matters no better for me. I was
now ready to accept any faith if only it did not demand of me a
direct denial of reason — which would be a falsehood. And I
studied Buddhism and Mohammedanism from books, and most of all I
studied Christianity both from books and from the people around
me.
Naturally I first of all turned to the orthodox of my circle,
to people who were learned: to Church theologians, monks, to
theologians of the newest shade, and even to Evangelicals who
profess salvation by belief in the Redemption. And I seized on
these believers and questioned them as to their beliefs and their
understanding of the meaning of life.
But though I made all possible concessions, and avoided all
disputes, I could not accept the faith of these people. I saw
that what they gave out as their faith did not explain the
meaning of life but obscured it, and that they themselves affirm
their belief not to answer that question of life which brought me
to faith, but for some other aims alien to me.
I remember the painful feeling of fear of being thrown back
into my former state of despair, after the hope I often and often
experienced in my intercourse with these people.
The more fully they explained to me their doctrines, the more
clearly did I perceive their error and realized that my hope of
finding in their belief an explanation of the meaning of life was
vain.
It was not that in their doctrines they mixed many unnecessary
and unreasonable things with the Christian truths that had always
been near to me: that was not what repelled me. I was repelled by
the fact that these people's lives were like my own, with only
this difference — that such a life did not correspond to the
principles they expounded in their teachings. I clearly felt that
they deceived themselves and that they, like myself found no
other meaning in life than to live while life lasts, taking all
one's hands can seize. I saw this because if they had had a
meaning which destroyed the fear of loss, suffering, and death,
they would not have feared these things. But they, these
believers of our circle, just like myself, living in sufficiency
and superfluity, tried to increase or preserve them, feared
privations, suffering, and death, and just like myself and all of
us unbelievers, lived to satisfy their desires, and lived just as
badly, if not worse, than the unbelievers.
No arguments could convince me of the truth of their faith.
Only deeds which showed that they saw a meaning in life making
what was so dreadful to me — poverty, sickness, and death — not
dreadful to them, could convince me. And such deeds I did not see
among the various believers in our circle. On the contrary, I saw
such deeds done [8] by people of our circle who were the most
unbelieving, but never by our so- called believers.
Note 8. This passage is noteworthy as being one of the few
references made by Tolstoy at this period to the revolutionary or
"Back-to-the-People" movement, in which many young men
and women were risking and sacrificing home, property, and life
itself from motives which had much in common with his own
perception that the upper layers of Society are parasitic and
prey on the vitals of the people who support them. —A.M.
And I understood that the belief of these people was not the
faith I sought, and that their faith is not a real faith but an
epicurean consolation in life.
I understood that that faith may perhaps serve, if not for a
consolation at least for some distraction for a repentant Solomon
on his death-bed, but it cannot serve for the great majority of
mankind, who are called on not to amuse themselves while
consuming the labour of others but to create life.
For all humanity to be able to live, and continue to live
attributing a meaning to life, they, those milliards, must have a
different, a real, knowledge of faith. Indeed, it was not the
fact that we, with Solomon and Schopenhauer, did not kill
ourselves that convinced me of the existence of faith, but the
fact that those milliards of people have lived and are living,
and have borne Solomon and us on the current of their lives.
And I began to draw near to the believers among the poor,
simple, unlettered folk: pilgrims, monks, sectarians, and
peasants. The faith of these common people was the same Christian
faith as was professed by the pseudo-believers of our circle.
Among them, too, I found a great deal of superstition mixed with
the Christian truths; but the difference was that the
superstitions of the believers of our circle were quite
unnecessary to them and were not in conformity with their lives,
being merely a kind of epicurean diversion; but the superstitions
of the believers among the labouring masses conformed so with
their lives that it was impossible to imagine them to oneself
without those superstitions, which were a necessary condition of
their life. the whole life of believers in our circle was a
contradiction of their faith, but the whole life of the working-folk
believers was a confirmation of the meaning of life which their
faith gave them. And I began to look well into the life and faith
of these people, and the more I considered it the more I became
convinced that they have a real faith which is a necessity to
them and alone gives their life a meaning and makes it possible
for them to live. In contrast with what I had seen in our circle
— where life without faith is possible and where hardly one in a
thousand acknowledges himself to be a believer — among them
there is hardly one unbeliever in a thousand. In contrast with
what I had seen in our circle, where the whole of life is passed
in idleness, amusement, and dissatisfaction, I saw that the whole
life of these people was passed in heavy labour, and that they
were content with life. In contradistinction to the way in which
people of our circle oppose fate and complain of it on account of
deprivations and sufferings, these people accepted illness and
sorrow without any perplexity or opposition, and with a quiet and
firm conviction that all is good. In contradistinction to us, who
the wiser we are the less we understand the meaning of life, and
see some evil irony in the fact that we suffer and die, these
folk live and suffer, and they approach death and suffering with
tranquillity and in most cases gladly. In contrast to the fact
that a tranquil death, a death without horror and despair, is a
very rare exception in our circle, a troubled, rebellious, and
unhappy death is the rarest exception among the people. and such
people, lacking all that for us and for Solomon is the only good
of life and yet experiencing the greatest happiness, are a great
multitude. I looked more widely around me. I considered the life
of the enormous mass of the people in the past and the present.
And of such people, understanding the meaning of life and able to
live and to die, I saw not two or three, or tens, but hundreds,
thousands, and millions. and they all — endlessly different in
their manners, minds, education, and position, as they were —
all alike, in complete contrast to my ignorance, knew the meaning
of life and death, laboured quietly, endured deprivations and
sufferings, and lived and died seeing therein not vanity but good.
And I learnt to love these people. The more I came to know
their life, the life of those who are living and of others who
are dead of whom I read and heard, the more I loved them and the
easier it became for me to live. So I went on for about two
years, and a change took place in me which had long been
preparing and the promise of which had always been in me. It came
about that the life of our circle, the rich and learned, not
merely became distasteful to me, but lost all meaning in my eyes.
All our actions, discussions, science and art, presented itself
to me in a new light. I understood that it is all merely self-indulgence,
and the to find a meaning in it is impossible; while the life of
the whole labouring people, the whole of mankind who produce
life, appeared to me in its true significance. I understood that
that is life itself, and that the meaning given to that life is
true: and I accepted it.
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