A Confession by Leo Tolstoy - Chapter 9

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Chapter nine of a confession by Leo Tolstoy, translated by
Almer Maud. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.
A contradiction arose, from which there were two exits. Either
that which I called reason was not so rational as
I supposed, or that which seemed to me irrational was
not so irrational as I suppose. And I began to
verify the line of argument of my rational knowledge. Verifying

(00:22):
the line of argument of rational knowledge, I found it
quite correct. 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

(00:42):
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 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

(01:04):
I replied to quite another question, what is the meaning
of my life within time, cause, and space, with the
result that, after a long effort 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 reached the inevitable result forces, force, matters, matter, wills, will,

(01:26):
the infinite is the infinite. Nothing is nothing, and that
was all that could result. It was something like what
happens in mathematics. When thinking to solve an equation, we
find we are working on an identity. The line of
reasoning is correct, but the result is the answer that
A equals A, or X equals x, or zero equals zero.
The same thing happened with my reasoning and relation to
the question of the meaning of my life. The reply

(01:48):
given by all science to the question only result in
identity and really strictly scientific knowledge. That knowledge which begins,
as Descart did, with complete doubt about everything, rejects all
knowledge admitted on faith, and build everything afresh on the
laws of reason and experience, and cannot give any other
reply to the question of life than that which I
obtained an indefinite reply. Only at first had it seemed

(02:11):
to me that knowledge had given a positive reply the
reply of Schopenhauer that life has no meaning, it is
an evil. But on examining the matter, I understood that
the reply is not positive. It was only my feeling
that so expressed it. Strictly expressed as it is by
Brahmins and by Solomon and Schopenhauer, the reply is merely indefinite,
or an identity null equals null. Life is nothing, so

(02:33):
that philosophic knowledge denies nothing, but only replies that the
question cannot be solved by it, that for it the
solution remains indefinite. Having understood this, I understood that it
was not possible to seek i rational knowledge for a
reply to my question, and that the reply given by
rational knowledge is a mere indication that a reply can
only be obtained by a different statement of the question,

(02:53):
and only when the relation of the finite to the
infinite is included in that question. And I understood that, however,
a rationtional and distorted might be the replies given by
faith that have this advantage that they introduced into every answer,
or a relation between the finite and the infinite, without
which there can be no solution. In whatever way I
stated the question, that relation appeared in the answer. How

(03:15):
am I to live according to the law of God?
What real result will come of my life? Eternal torment
or eternal bliss? What meaning has life? That death does
not destroy union with the eternal God Heaven. So that,
besides rational knowledge, which it seemed to me the only knowledge,
I was inevitably brought to acknowledge that all live humanity
has another irrational knowledge, faith, which makes it possible to live.

(03:39):
Faith still remained to me as irrational as it was before,
but I could not but admit that it alone gives
mankind or reply to the questions of life, and that
consequently it makes life possible. Reasonable knowledge had brought me
to acknowledge that life is senseless, and my life had
come to a halt, and I wished to destroy myself.
Looking around on the whole of mankind, I saw that
people live and declare that they know the me of life.

(04:01):
I looked at myself. I had lived as long as
I knew a meaning of life, and had made life possible.
Looking again at people of other lands, and my contemporaries
and their predecessors. I saw the same thing where there
is life there. Since man began, faith has made life
possible for him. And the chief outline of that faith
is everywhere and always identical. Whatever that faith may be,
and whatever answers it might give, to whomsoever it gives them,

(04:24):
every such answer gives to the finite existence of man,
an infinite meaning, a meaning not destroyed by sufferings, deprivations,
or death. That means that only in faith can we
find for life a meaning and a possibility. What then,
is this faith? And I understood that faith is not
merely the evidence of things not seen, et cetera. And
it is not a revelation that defines only one of

(04:45):
the indications of faith. Is not a relation of man
to God. One has first to define faith and then God,
and not faith through God. It is not only the
agreement with what one has been told, but faith is
a knowledge of the meaning of human life and consequence
of which man does not destroy himself but lives. Faith
is the strength of life. If a man lives, he
believes in something. If he did not believe that one

(05:07):
muscle live for something, he would not live. If he
does not see and recognize the illusory nature of the finite,
he believes in the finite. If he understands the illusory
nature of the finite, he must believe in the infinite.
Without faith, he cannot live. And I recalled the whole
course of my mental labor and was horrified. It was
now clear to me that for man to be able
to live, he must either not see the infinite or

(05:28):
have such an explanation of the meaning of life as
will connect the finite with the infinite. Such an explanation
I had had, But as long as I believed in
the finite, I did not need the explanation, and I
began to verify it by reason, and in the light
of reason, the whole of my former explanation flew to Adams.
But a time came when I ceased to believe in
the finite, and then I began to build up rational

(05:50):
foundations out of which I knew an explanation would bring
me to the meaning of life. But nothing could I
build together with the best of human intellect. I reached
the conclusion that all equals know, and was much astonished
at that conclusion, though nothing else could have resulted. What
was I doing when I sought an answer? In the
experimental sciences? I wish to know why I lived, and

(06:10):
for this purpose studied all that is outside me. Evidently
I might learn much, but nothing of what I needed.
What was I doing when I sought an answer in
philosophical knowledge? I was studying the thoughts of those who
had found themselves in the same position as I, lacking
a reply to the question why do I live? Evidently
I could learn nothing but what I knew myself, namely,
that nothing can be known. What am I? A part

(06:33):
of the infinite? And those few words lie the whole problem.
Is it possible that humanity has only put that question
to itself since yesterday? And can no one before me
have set himself that question, a question so simple and
one that springs to the tongue of every wise child.
Surely that question has been asked since man began, and naturally,
for the solution of that question, since man began, it

(06:55):
has been equally insufficient to compare the finite with the finite,
and the infinite with the infinite. Since man began, the
relation of the infinite to the finite has been sought
out and expressed. All these conceptions in which the finite
has been adjusted to the infinite, and a meaning found
for life, the conception of God, of will, of goodness.
We submit to logical examination, and all those conceptions fail

(07:16):
to stand to reason's criticism. Were it not so terrible,
it would be ludicrous. With what pride and self satisfaction,
we like children, pull the watch to pieces, take out
the spring, and make a toy of it, and are
then surprised when the watch does not go. A solution
of the contradiction between the finite and the infinite, and
such a reply of the question of life, as will
make it possible to live, is necessary and precious. And

(07:39):
that is the only solution where we find, everywhere, always,
and among all people, a solution descending from times in
which we lose sight of the life of man, a
solution so difficult that we can compose nothing like it.
And this solution we lightheartedly destroy in order it again
to set the same question which is natural to everyone,
into which we have no answer. The conception of an
infinite God, the divinity of the soul, the connection of

(08:01):
human affairs with God, the unity and existence of the soul.
Man's conception of moral goodness and of evil are conceptions
formulated in the hidden infinity of human thought. They are
those conceptions without which neither life nor I should exist. Yet,
rejecting all that labor of the whole of humanity, I
wished to make it afresh myself, and in my own manner.
I did not then think like that, But the germs

(08:23):
of these thoughts were already in me. I understood in
the first place that my position with Schopenhauer and Solomon,
notwithstanding our wisdom, was stupid. We see that life is
an evil, and yet continue to live. That is evidently stupid.
For if life is senseless, and I am so fond
of what is reasonable, it should be destroyed, and then
there would be no one to challenge it. Secondly, I
understood that all one's reasonings turned in a vicious cycle,

(08:45):
like a wheel out of gear with its opinion. However
much and however well we may reason, we cannot obtain
a reply to the question, and gaul will always equal null,
and therefore our path is probably erroneous. Thirdly, I began
to understand that in the replies given by faith stored
up the deepest of human wisdom, and that I had
no right to deny them on the ground of reason,
and that those answers are the only ones which reply

(09:07):
to life's question. End of Chapter nine