man pays no attention; then these signs reappear more and more often and
merge into one uninterrupted period of suffering. The suffering increases,
and before the sick man can look round, what he took for a mere indispo-
sition has already become more important to him than anything else in the
world— it is death!
That is what happened to me. I understood that it was no casual indispo-
sition but something very important, and that if these questions constantly
repeated themselves they would have to be answered. And I tried to answer
them. The questions seemed such stupid, simple, childish ones; but as soon
as I touched them and tried to solve them I at once became convinced, first,
that they are not childish and stupid but the most important and profound
of life’s questions; and secondly that, occupying myself with my Samara
estate, the education of my son, or the writing of a book, I had to know why
I was doing it. As long as I did not know why, I could do nothing and could
not live. Amid the thoughts of estate management which greatly occupied
me at that time, the question would suddenly occur: “Well, you will have
6,000 desyatinas of land in Samara Government and 300 horses, and what
then?”. . . And I was quite disconcerted and did not know what to think. Or
when considering plans for the education of my children, I would say to
myself: “What for?” Or when considering how the peasants might become
prosperous, I would suddenly say to myself: “But what does it matter to
me?” Or when thinking of the fame my works would bring me, I would
say to myself, “Very well; you will be more famous than Gogol or Pushkin
or Shakespeare or Moliere, or than all the writers in the world—and what
92
Reading For Philosophical Inquiry: A Brief Introduction
Chapter 7. "Only Faith Can Give Truth" by Leo Tolstoy
of it?” And I could find no reply at all. The questions would not wait, they
had to be answered at once, and if I did not answer them it was impossible
to live. But there was no answer.
I felt that what I had been standing on had collapsed and that I had nothing
left under my feet. What I had lived on no longer existed, and there was
nothing left.. . .
And all this befell me at a time when all around me I had what is con-
sidered complete good fortune. I was not yet fifty; I had a good wife who
loved me and whom I loved, good children, and a large estate which with-
out much effort on my part improved and increased. I was respected by my
relations and acquaintances more than at any previous time. I was praised
by others and without much self- deception could consider that my name
was famous. And far from being insane or mentally diseased, I enjoyed
on the contrary a strength of mind and body such as I have seldom met
with among men of my kind; physically I could keep up with the peas-
ants at mowing, and mentally I could work for eight and ten hours at a
stretch without experiencing any ill results from such exertion. And in this
situation I came to this—that I could not live, and, fearing death, had to
employ cunning with myself to avoid taking my own life.
Reading For Philosophical Inquiry: A Brief Introduction
93
Chapter 7. "Only Faith Can Give Truth" by Leo Tolstoy
L.N. Tolstoi v kabinetie. V IAsnoi polianie, (L.N. Tolstoi in his study),
Library of Congress
My mental condition presented itself to me in this way: my life is a stupid
and spiteful joke someone has played on me. Though I did not acknowl-
edge a “someone” who created me, yet such a presentation—that someone
had played an evil and stupid joke on my by placing me in the world—was
the form of expression that suggested itself most naturally to me.
Peasants Haying. Russian Empire, Library of Congress
Involuntarily it appeared to me that there, somewhere, was someone who
amused himself by watching how I lived for thirty or forty years: learning,
developing, maturing in body and mind, and how, having with matured
mental powers reached the summit of life from which it all lay before
me, I stood on that summit—like an arch-fool—seeing clearly that there
is nothing in life, and that there has been and will be nothing. And he was
amused.. . .
But whether that “someone” laughing at me existed or not, I was none the
better off. I could give no reasonable meaning to any single action or to my
whole life. I was only surprised that I could have avoided understanding
this from the very beginning—it has been so long known to all. Today or
tomorrow sickness and death will come (they had come already) to those
94
Reading For Philosophical Inquiry: A Brief Introduction
Chapter 7. "Only Faith Can Give Truth" by Leo Tolstoy
I love or to me; nothing will remain but stench and worms. Sooner or later
my affairs, whatever they may be, will be forgotten, and I shall not exist.
Then why go on making any effort?. . . How can man fail to see this? And
how go on living? That is what is surprising! One can only live while one
is intoxicated with life; as soon as one is sober it is impossible not to see
that it is all a mere fraud and a stupid fraud! That is precisely what it is:
there is nothing either amusing or witty about it, it is simply cruel and
stupid.
From the reading. . .
“Loving them, I could not hold the truth from them: each step in
knowledge leads them to the truth. And the truth is death.”
[Truth of Death]
There is an Eastern fable, told long ago, of a traveler overtaken on a plain
by an enraged beast. Escaping from the beast he gets into a dry well, but
sees at the bottom of the well a dragon that has opened its jaws to swallow
him. And the unfortunate man, not daring to climb out lest he should be
destroyed by the enraged beast, and not daring to leap to the bottom of
the well lest he should be eaten by the dragon, seizes twig growing in a
crack in the well and clings to it. His hands are growing weaker and he
feels he will soon have to resign himself to the destruction that awaits him
above or below, but still he clings on. Then he sees that two mice, a black
one and a white one, go regularly round and round the stem of the twig to
which he is clinging and gnaw at it. And soon the twig itself will snap and
he will fall into the dragon’s jaws. The traveler sees this and knows that he
will inevitably perish; but while still hanging he looks around, sees some
drops of honey on the leaves of the twig, reaches them with his tongue and
licks them. So I too clung to the twig of life, knowing that the dragon of
death was inevitably awaiting me, ready to tear me to pieces; and I could
not understand why I had fallen into such torment. I tried to lick the honey
which formerly consoled me, but the honey no longer gave me pleasure,
and the white and black mice of day and night gnawed at the branch by
which I hung. I saw the dragon clearly and the honey no longer tasted
Reading For Philosophical Inquiry: A Brief Introduction
95
Chapter 7. "Only Faith Can Give Truth" by Leo Tolstoy
sweet. I only saw the unescapable dragon and the mice, and I could not
tear my gaze from them. and this is not a fable but the real unanswerable
truth intelligible to all.
The deception of the joys of life which formerly allayed my terror of the
dragon now no longer deceived me. No matter how often I may be told,
“You cannot understand the meaning of life so do not think about it, but
live,” I can no longer do it: I have already done it too long. I cannot now
help seeing day and night going round and bringing me to death. That is
all I see, for that alone is true. All else is false.
The two drops of honey which diverted my eyes from the cruel truth longer
than the rest: my love of family, and of writing—art as I called it—were
no longer sweet to me.
“Family”. . . said I to myself. But my family—wife and children—are also
human. They are placed just as I am: they must either live in a lie or see the
terrible truth. Why should they live? Why should I love them, guard them,
bring them up, or watch them? That they may come to the despair that I
feel, or else be stupid? Loving them, I cannot hide the truth from them:
each step in knowledge leads them to the truth. And the truth is death.
From the reading. . .
“If one turns to the branches of science. . . one knows in advance that
they give no reply to life’s problems.”
[Art Is a Decoy]
“Art, poetry?”. . . Under the influence of success and the praise of men, I
had long assured myself that this was a thing one could do though death
was drawing near—death which destroys all things, including my work
and its remembrance; but soon I saw that that too was a fraud. It was plain
to me that art is an adornment of life, an allurement to life. But life had
lost its attraction for me, so how could I attract others? As long as I was not
living my own life but was borne on the waves of some other life—as long
as I believed that life had a meaning, though one I could not express—the
reflection of life in poetry and art of all kinds afforded me pleasure: it was
96
Reading For Philosophical Inquiry: A Brief Introduction
Chapter 7. "Only Faith Can Give Truth" by Leo Tolstoy
pleasant to look at life in the mirror of art. But when I began to seek the
meaning of life and felt the necessity of living my own life, that mirror
became for me unnecessary, superfluous, ridiculous, or painful. I could no
longer soothe myself with what I now saw in the mirror, namely, that my
position was stupid and desperate. It was all very well to enjoy the sight
when in the depth of my soul I believed that my life had a meaning. Then
the play of lights—comic, tragic, touching, beautiful, and terrible—in life
amused me. No sweetness of honey could be sweet to me when I saw the
dragon and saw the mice gnawing away my support.
Nor was that all. Had I simply understood that life had no meaning I could
have borne it quietly, knowing that that was my lot. But I could not satisfy
myself with that. Had I been like a man living in a wood from which he
knows there is no exit, I could have lived; but I was like one lost in a wood
who, horrified at having lost his way, rushes about wishing to find the road.
He knows that each step he takes confuses him more and more, but still he
cannot help rushing about. . .
[Science Renders Life Meaningless]
If one turns to the division of sciences which attempt to reply to the ques-
tions of life—to physiology, psychology, biology, sociology—one encoun-
ters an appalling poverty of thought, the greatest obscurity, a quite unjus-
tifiable pretension to solve irrelevant question, and a continual contradic-
tion of each authority by others and even by himself. If one turns to the
branches of science which are not concerned with the solution of the ques-
tions of life, but which reply to their own special scientific questions, one
is enraptured by the power of man’s mind, but one knows in advance that
they give no reply to life’s questions. Those sciences simply ignore life’s
questions. They say: “To the question of what you are and why you live
we have no reply, and are not occupied with that; but if you want to know
the laws of light, of chemical combinations, the laws of development of
organisms, if you want to know the laws of bodies and their form, and the
relation of numbers and quantities, if you want to know the laws of your
mind, to all that we have clear, exact and unquestionable replies.”
In general the relation of the experimental sciences to life’s question may
be expressed thus: Question: “Why do I live?” Answer: “In infinite space,
in infinite time, infinitely small particles change their forms in infinite
Reading For Philosophical Inquiry: A Brief Introduction
97
Chapter 7. "Only Faith Can Give Truth" by Leo Tolstoy
complexity, and when you have under stood the laws of those mutations
of form you will understand why you live on the earth.”. . .
Yielding myself to the bright side of knowledge, I understood that I was
only diverting my gaze from the question. However alluringly clear those
horizons which opened out before me might be, however alluring it might
be to immerse oneself in the limitless expanse of those sciences, I already
understood that the clearer they were the less they met my need and the
less they applied to my question.
“I know,” said I to myself, “what science so persistently tries to discover,
and along that road there is no reply to the question as to the meaning
of my life.” In the abstract sphere I understood that notwithstanding the
fact, or just because of the fact, that the direct aim of science is to reply to
my question, there is no reply but that which I have myself already given:
“What is the meaning of my life?” “There is none.” Or: “What will come
of my life?” “Nothing.” Or: “Why does everything exist that exists, and
why do I exist?” “Because it exists.”
Dom L.N. Tolstogo, V IAsnoi polianie (Tolstoy’s Estate), (crop) Library of
Congress
Inquiring for one region of human knowledge, I received an innumerable
quantity of exact replies concerning matters about which I had not asked:
about the chemical constituents of the stars, about the movement of the
sun towards the constellation Hercules, about the origin of species and of
man, about the forms of infinitely minute imponderable particles of ether;
but in this sphere of knowledge the only answer to my question, “What
is the meaning of my life?” was: “You are what you call your ‘life’; you
are a transitory, casual cohesion of particles. The mutual interactions and
98
Reading For Philosophical Inquiry: A Brief Introduction
Chapter 7. "Only Faith Can Give Truth" by Leo Tolstoy
changes of these particles produce in you what you call your ‘life’. That
cohesion will last some time; afterwards the interaction of these particles
will cease and what you call ‘life’ will cease, and so will all your ques-
tions. You are an accidentally united little lump of something. that little
lump ferments. The little lump calls that fermenting its ‘life’. The lump
will disintegrate and there will be an end of the fermenting and of all the
questions.” So answers the clear side of science and cannot answer other-
wise if it strictly follows its principles.
From such a reply one sees that the reply does not answer the question.
I want to know the meaning of my life, but that it is a fragment of the
infinite, far from giving it a meaning destroys its every possible meaning.
The obscure compromises which that side of experimental exact science
makes with abstract science when it says that the meaning of life con-
sists in development and in cooperation with development, owing to their
inexactness and obscurity cannot be considered as replies. . .
[Four Common Solutions]
Not finding an explanation in science I began to seek for it in life, hoping
to find it among the people around me. And I began to observe how the
people around me—people like myself—lived, and what their attitude was
to this question which had brought me to despair.
And this is what I found among people who were in the same position as
myself as regards education and manner of life.
I found that for people of my circle there were four ways out of the terrible
position in which we are all placed.
The first was that of ignorance. It consists in not knowing, not under-
standing, that life is an evil and an absurdity. People of this sort—chiefly
women, or very young or very dull people—have not yet understood that
question of life which presented itself to Schopenhauer, Solomon, and
Buddha. They see neither the dragon that awaits them nor the mice gnaw-
ing the shrub by which they are hanging, and they lick the drops of honey.
but they lick those drops of honey only for a while: something will turn
their attention to the dragon and the mice, and there will be an end to their
licking. From them I had nothing to learn—one cannot cease to know what
one does know.
Reading For Philosophical Inquiry: A Brief Introduction
99
Chapter 7. "Only Faith Can Give Truth" by Leo Tolstoy
The second way out is epicureanism. It consists, while knowing the hope-
lessness of life, in making use meanwhile of the advantages one has, dis-
regarding the dragon and the mice, and licking the honey in the best way,
especially if there is much of it within reach. Solomon expresses this way
out thus: “Then I commended mirth, because a man hath no better thing
under the sun, than to eat, and to drink, and to be merry: and that this
should accompany him in his labour the days of his life, which God giveth
him under the sun.”
The third escape is that of strength and energy. It consists in destroying
life, when one has understood that it is an evil and an absurdity. A few
exceptionally strong and consistent people act so. Having understood the
stupidity of the joke that has been played on them, and having understood
that it is better to be dead than to be alive, and that it is best of all not to
exist, they act accordingly and promptly end this stupid joke, since there
are means: a rope round one’s neck, water, a knife to stick into one’s heart,
or the trains on the railways; and the number of those of our circle who
act in this way becomes greater and greater, and for the most part they act
so at the best time of their life, when the strength of their mind is in full
bloom and few habits degrading to the mind have as yet been acquired.
From the reading. . .
“Rational knowledge. . . denies the meaning of life, but the enormous
masses of men, the whole of mankind receive that meaning in irrational
knowledge.”
I saw that this was the worthiest way of escape and I wished to adopt it.
The fourth way out is that of weakness. It consists in seeing the truth
of the situation and yet clinging to life, knowing in advance that nothing
can come of it. People of this kind know that death is better than life, but
not having the strength to act rationally—to end the deception quickly and
kill themselves—they seem to wait for something. This is the escape of
weakness, for if I know what is best and it is within my power, why not
yield to what is best?. . . I found myself in that category.
So people of my class evade the terrible contradiction in four ways. Strain
my attention as I would, I saw no way except those four. . .
100
Reading For Philosophical Inquiry: A Brief Introduction
Chapter 7. "Only Faith Can Give Truth" by Leo Tolstoy
I long lived in this state of lunacy, which, in fact if not in words, is particu-
larly characteristic of us very liberal and learned people. But thanks either
to the strange physical affection I have for the real labouring people, which
compelled me to understand them and to see that they are not so stupid as
we suppose, or thanks to the sincerity of my conviction that I could know
nothing beyond the fact that the best I could do was to hang myself, at any
rate I instinctively felt that if I wished to live and understand the mean-
ing of life, I must seek this meaning not among those who have lost it
and wish to kill themselves, but among those milliards of the past and
the present who make life and who support the burden of their own lives
and of ours also. And I considered the enormous masses of those simple,
unlearned, and poor people who have lived and are living and I saw some-
thing quite different. I saw that, with rare exceptions, all those milliards
who have lived and are living do not fit into my divisions, and that I could
not class them as not understanding the question, for they themselves state
it and reply to it with extraordinary clearness. Nor could I consider them
epicureans, for their life consists more of privations and sufferings than
of enjoyments. Still less could I consider them as irrationally dragging
on a meaningless existence, for every act of their life, as well as death
itself, is explained by them. To kill themselves they consider the great-
est evil. It appeared that all mankind had a knowledge, unacknowledged
and despised by me, of the meaning of life. It appeared that reasonable
knowledge does not give the meaning of life, but excludes life: while the
meaning attributed to life by milliards of people, by all humanity, rests on
some despised pseudo-knowledge.. . .
[Rational Knowledge Is Indefinite]
My position was terrible. I knew I could find nothing along the path of
reasonable knowledge except a denial of life; and there—in faith—was
nothing but a denial of reason, which was yet more impossible for me
than a denial of life. From rational knowledge it appeared that life is an
evil, people know this and it is in their power to end life; yet they lived and
still live, and I myself live, though I have long known that life is senseless
and an evil. By faith it appears that in order to understand the meaning of
life I must renounce my reason, the very thing for which alone a meaning
is required.
A contradiction arose from which there were two exits. Either that which
Reading For Philosophical Inquiry: A Brief Introduction
101
Chapter 7. "Only Faith Can Give Truth" by Leo Tolstoy
I called reason was not so rational as I supposed, or that which seemed to
me irrational was not so irrational as I supposed. And I began to verify the
line of argument of my rational knowledge.
L. N. Tolstoi’s Study, Library of Congress
Verifying the line of argument of rational knowledge I found it quite cor-
rect. The conclusion that life is nothing was inevitable; but I noticed a
mistake. The mistake lay in this, that my reasoning was not in accord with
the question I had put. The question was: “Why should I live, that is to
say, what real, permanent result will come out of my illusory transitory
life—what meaning has my finite existence in this infinite world?” And to
reply to that question I had studied life.
The solution of all the possible questions of life could evidently not satisfy
me, for my question, simple as it at first appeared, included a demand for
an explanation of the finite in terms of the infinite, and vice versa.
I asked: “What is the meaning of my life, beyond time, cause, and space?”
And I replied to quite another question: “What is the meaning of my life
within time, cause, and space?” With the result that, after long efforts of
thought, the answer I reached was: “None.”
In my reasonings I constantly compared (nor could I do otherwise) the
finite with the finite, and the infinite with the infinite; but for that reason I
102
Reading For Philosophical Inquiry: A Brief Introduction
Chapter 7. "Only Faith Can Give Truth" by Leo Tolstoy
reached the inevitable result: force is force, matter is matter, will is will,
the infinite is the infinite, nothing is nothing—and that was all that could
result. It w