universe? J ‘ All and nothing 9; and to the 1 question 4 Why? 5 by 4 1 do not know/ So that however I may turn these replies of philosophy, I can never obtain anything like I an answer — and not because, as in the clear experimental sphere, the reply does not relate to my question, but because here, though all the! mental work is directed just to my question, A CONFESSION 35 there is no answer, but instead of an answer one gets the same question, only in a complex form.
VI In my search for answers to life’s questions I experienced just what is felt by a man lost in a forest.
He reaches a glade, climbs a tree, and clearly sees the limitless distance, but sees that his home is not and cannot be there; then he goes into the dark wood, and sees the darkness, but there also his home is not.
So I wandered in that wood of human know- ledge, amid the gleams of mathematical and experimental science which showed me clear horizons but in a direction where there could be no home, and also amid the darkness of the abstract sciences where I was immersed in deeper gloom the further I went, and where I finally convinced myself that there was, and could be, no exit.
Yielding myself to the bright side of know- ledge, 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 replied to my question.
4 1 know,’ said I to myself, 4 what science so persistently wishes to discover, and along that 36 A CONFESSION 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: 4 What is the meaning of my life? 5 4 There is none/ Or; 4 What will come of my life? 9 4 Nothing/ Or: 4 Why does everything exist that exists, and why do I exist? ' 4 Because it exists/ Enquiring 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? 5 was: 4 You are what you call your 44 life”; you are a transitory, casual cohesion of particles. The mutual interactions and changes of these particles produce in you what you call your 44 life.” That cohesion will last some time; afterwards the interaction of these particles will cease, and what you call 44 life ” will cease, and so will all your questions. You are an accidentally united little lump of something. That little lump ferments. The little lump calls that fermenting its 44 life.” The lump will disintegrate, and there will be an end of the fermenting and of all the questions/ A CONFESSION 37 So answers the clear side of science and cannot answer otherwise if it strictly follows its prin- ciples.
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 experi- mental exact science makes with abstract science, when it says that the meaning of life consists in development and in co-operation with development, owing to their inexactness and obscurity cannot be considered as replies.
The other side of science — the abstract side — when it holds strictly to its principles, replying directly to the question, always replies, and in all ages has replied, in one and the same way: ‘ The world is something infinite and incomprehen- sible. Human life is an incomprehensible part of that incomprehensible “ all/' ' Again I exclude all those compromises between abstract and experimental sciences which supply the whole ballast of the semi-sciences called juridical, political, and historical. In those semi-sciences the conception of development and progress is again wrongly introduced, only with this difference, that there it was the development of everything, while here it is the development of the life of mankind. The error is there as before: development and progress in infinity can have no aim or direction, and, as far as my question is concerned, no answer is given.
In truly abstract science, namely in genuine 38 A CONFESSION philosophy — not in that which Schopenhauer calls ‘ professorial philosophy/ which serves only to classify all existing phenomena in new philo- sophic categories and to call them by new names — where the philosopher does not lose sight of the essential question, the reply is always one and the same — the reply given by Socrates, Schopenhauer, Solomon, and Buddha.
4 We approach truth only inasmuch as we depart from life/ said Socrates when preparing for death. 4 For what do we, who love truth, strive after in life? To free ourselves from the body, and from all the evil that is caused by the life of the body! If so, then how can we fail to be glad when death comes to us?
4 The wise man seeks death all his life, and therefore death is not terrible to him/ And Schopenhauer says: 4 Having recognized the inmost nature of the world as will, and all its phenomena — from the unconscious working of the obscure forces of Nature up to the completely conscious action of man — as only the objectivity of that will, we shall by no means evade the consequence, that with the voluntary renunciation and surrender of the will, all those phenomena are also abol- ished: that constant stream and effort without end and without rest at all the grades of objec- tivity, in which and through which the world consists; the multifarious forms succeeding each other in gradation; together with the form will disappear all the manifestations of will; and finally also the universal forms of this manifestation, time and space, and its last A CONFESSION 39 A CONFESSION 39 fundamental form: subject and object, all are abolished. Where there is no will there is no presentation, and no world. Before us, cer- tainly, nothingness alone remains. But what resists this transition to nothingness, our nature, is indeed only that same will to live (Wille zum Leben), which we ourselves are, as it is our world. That we abhor annihilation so greatly, or, what is the same thing, our desire to live, is simply another expression of the fact that we strenuously will life, and are nothing but this will, and know nothing besides it. Therefore that which remains after the entire abolition of will, for us who are so full of will, is certainly nothing; but conversely, to those in whom the will has turned and has renounced itself, this our world, which is so real, with all its suns and milky ways — is nothing/ 4 Vanity of vanities,’ says Solomon— 4 vanity of vanities — all is vanity. What profit hath a man of all his labour which he taketh under the sun? One generation passeth away, I and another generation cometh: but the earth abideth for ever...The thing that hath been, is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun. Is there anything whereof it may be said, See, this is new? it hath been already of old time, which was before us. i There is no remembrance of former things; neither shall there be any remembrance of things that are to come with those that shall I, come after. I the Preacher was King over Israel in Jerusalem. And I gave my heart to 40 A CONFESSION 40 A CONFESSION seek and search out by wisdom concerning all that is done under heaven: this sore travail hath God given to the sons of man to be exer- cised therewith. I have seen all the works that are done under the sun; and behold, all is vanity and vexation of spirit...I com- muned with my own heart, saying, Lo, I am come to great estate, and have gotten more wisdom than all they that have been before me over Jerusalem: yea, my heart hath great experience of wisdom and knowledge. And I gave my heart to know wisdom, and to know madness and folly: I perceived that this also is vexation of spirit. For in much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow.
6 1 said in my heart, Go to now, I will prove thee with mirth, therefore enjoy pleasure: and behold this also is vanity. I said of laughter: It is mad: and of mirth, What doeth it? I sought in my heart how to cheer my flesh with wine, and while my heart was guided by wisdom, to lay hold on folly, till I might see what it was good for the sons of men that they should do under heaven the number of the days of their life. I made me great works; I builded me houses; I planted me vineyards: I made me gardens and orchards, and I planted trees in them of all kinds of fruits: I made me pools of water, to water therefrom the forest where trees were reared: I got me servants and maidens, and had servants bom in my house; also I had great possessions of herds and flocks above all that were before me A CONFESSION 41 in Jerusalem: I gathered me also silver and gold and the peculiar treasure from kings and from the provinces: I got me men singers and women singers; and the delights of the sons of men, as musical instruments and that of all sorts. So I was great, and increased more than all that were before me in Jerusalem: also my wisdom remained with me. And whatever mine eyes desired I kept not from them. I withheld not my heart from any joy...Then X looked on all the works that my hands had wrought, and on the labour that I had laboured to do: and, behold, all was vanity and vexation of spirit, and there was no profit from them under the sun. And I turned myself to behold wisdom, and madness, and folly...But I perceived that one event happeneth to them all. Then said I in my heart, As it happeneth to the fool, so it happeneth even to me, and why was I then more wise? Then I said in my heart, that this also is vanity. For there is no remembrance of the wise more than of the fool for ever; seeing that which now is in the days to come shall all be forgotten. And how dieth the wise man? as the fool. Therefore I hated life; because the work that is wrought under the sun is grievous unto me: for all is vanity and vexation of spirit. Yea, I hated all my labour which I had taken under the sun: seeing that I must leave it unto the man that shall be after me...For what hath man of all his labour, and of the vexation of his heart, wherein he hath laboured under the sun? For all his days are sorrows, and his travail c* 42 A CONFESSION grief; yea, even in the night his heart taketh no rest. This is also vanity. Man is not blessed with security that he should eat and drink and cheer his soul from his own labour...All things come alike to all: there is one event to the righteous, and to the wicked; to the good and to the evil: to the clean and to the unclean; to him that sacrifice th, and to him that sacrificeth not; as is the good, so is the sinner; and he that sweareth, as he that feareth an oath. This is an evil in all that is done under the sun, that there is one event unto all; yea, also the heart of the sons of men is full of evil, and madness is in their heart while they live, and after that they go to the dead. For him that is among the living there is hope: for a living dog is better than a dead lion. For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten. Also their love, and their hatred, and their envy, is now perished; neither have they any more a portion for ever in any thing that is done under the sun.'
So said Solomon, or whoever wrote those words.1 And this is what the Indian wisdom tells: Sakya Muni, a young, happy prince, from whom the existence of sickness, old age, and 1 Tolstoy’s version differs slightly in a few places from our own Authorized or Revised version. I have followed his text, for in a letter to Fet, quoted on p. 11, vol. ii, of my Life of Tolstoy, he says that ‘ The Authorized English version [of Ecclesiastes] is bad.’
A CONFESSION 43 death had been hidden, went out to drive and saw a terrible old man, toothless and slobbering. The prince, from whom till then old age had been concealed, was amazed, and asked his driver what it was, and how that man had come to such a wretched and disgusting condition, and when he learnt that this was the common fate of all men, that the same thing inevitably awaited him, the young prince, he could not continue his drive, but gave orders to go home, that he might consider this fact. So he shut himself up alone and considered it. And he probably devised some consolation for him- self, for he. subsequently again went out to drive, feeling merry and happy. But this time he saw a sick man. He saw an emaciated, livid, trembling man with dim eyes. The prince, from whom sickness had been concealed, stopped and asked what this was. And when he learnt that this was sickness, to which all men are liable, and that he himself, the healthy and happy prince, might himself fall ill to- morrow, he again was in no mood to enjoy himself, but gave orders to drive home, and again sought some solace, and probably found it, for he drove out a third time for pleasure. But this third time he saw another new sight: he saw men carrying something. 4 What is that? 5 4 A dead man.5 4 What does dead mean? 5 asked the prince. He was told that to become dead means to become like that man. The prince approached the corpse, uncovered it, and looked at it. 4 What will happen to him now? 5 asked the prince. He was told 44 A CONFESSION that the corpse would be buried in the ground. 4 Why? ’ 4 Because he will certainly not return to life, and will only produce a stench and worms.’ 6 And is that the fate of all men? Will the same thing happen to me? Will they bury me, and shall I cause a stench and be eaten by worms? ’ 4 Yes.’ £ Home! I shall not drive out for pleasure, and never will so drive out again! 5 And Sakya Muni could find no consolation in life, and decided that life is the greatest of evils; and he devoted all the strength of his soul to free himself from it, and to free others; and to do this so that even after death, life shall not be renewed any more, but be com- pletely destroyed at its very roots. So speaks all the wisdom of India.
These, then, are the direct replies that human wisdom gives, when it replies to life’s question.
4 The life of the body is an evil and a lie. Therefore the destruction of the life of the body is a blessing, and we should desire it,’ says Socrates.
4 Life is that which should not be — an evil; and the passage into Nothingness is the only good in life,’ says Schopenhauer.
4 All that is in the world — folly and wisdom and riches and poverty and mirth and grief — is vanity and emptiness. Man dies and nothing is left of him. And that is stupid,’ says Solomon.
4 To live in the consciousness of the inevi- tability of suffering, of becoming enfeebled, of old age and of death, is impossible — we must A CONFESSION 45 free ourselves from life, from all possible life/ says Buddha.
And what these strong minds said has been said and thought and felt by millions upon millions of people like them. And I have thought it and felt it.
So my wandering among the sciences, far from freeing me from my despair, only strength- ened it. One kind of knowledge did not reply to life’s question, the other kind replied directly confirming my despair, indicating not that the result at which I had arrived was the fruit of error or of a diseased state of my mind, but on the contrary, that I had thought correctly, and that my thoughts coincided with the conclusions of the most powerful of human minds.
It is no good deceiving oneself. It is all — vanity! Happy is he who has not been bom: death is better than life, and one must free oneself from life.
VII 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 46 A CONFESSION were in the same position as myself in regard to 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 understanding, 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 gnawing 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.
The second way out is epicureanism. It consists, while knowing the hopelessness of life, in making use meanwhile of the advantages one has, disregarding 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 com- mended 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 accom- pany him in his labour the days of his life, which God giveth him under the sun.
‘ Therefore eat thy bread with joy and drink A CONFESSION 47 thy wine with a merry heart...Live joyfully with the wife whom thou lovest all the days of the life of thy vanity...for this is thy portion in life and in thy labours which thou takest under the sun...Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might, for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest.’
That is the way in which the majority of people of our circle make life possible for them- selves. Their circumstances furnish them with more of welfare than of hardship, and their moral dullness makes it possible for them to forget that the advantage of their position is accidental, and that not every one can have a thousand wives and palaces like Solomon, that for every one who has a thousand wives there are a thou- sand without a wife, and that for each palace there are a thousand people who have to build it in the sweat of their brows; and that the accident that has to-day made me a Solomon may to-morrow make me a Solomon's slave. The dullness of these people's imagination enables them to forget the things that gave Buddha no peace — the inevitability of sickness; old age, and death, which to-day or to-morrow will destroy all these pleasures.
So think and feel the majority of people of our day and our manner of life. The fact that some of these people declare the dullness of their thoughts and imaginations to be a philosophy, which they call Positive, does not remove them, in my opinion, from the ranks of those who, to avoid seeing the question, lick the honey.
48 A CONFESSION 48 A CONFESSION I could not imitate these people; not having their dullness of imagination, I could not arti- ficially produce it in myself. I could not tear my eyes from the mice and the dragon, as no vital man can after he has once seen them.
The third escape is that of strength and energy. It consists, when one has understood that life is an evil and an absurdity, in destroying it. 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 man's mind have as yet been acquired.
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 wai $ for something. This is the escape of weakness, for if I know what is best, and it A CONFESSION 49 t 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 con- tradiction in four ways. Strain my attention as I would, I saw no way except those four. One way was not to understand that life is senseless, vanity, and an evil, and that it is better not to live. I could not help knowing this, and when I once knew it, could not shut my eyes to it. The second way was to use life such as it is with- out thinking of the future. And I could not do that. I, like Sakya Muni, could not ride out hunting when I knew that old age, suffering, and death exist. My imagination was too vivid. Nor could I rejoice in the momentary accidents that for an instant threw pleasure to my lot. The third way was, having understood that life is evil and stupid, to end it by killing oneself. I understood that, but somehow still did not kill myself. The fourth way is to live like Solomon and Schopenhauer — knowing that life is a stupid joke played upon us, and still to go on living, washing oneself, dressing, dining, talking, and even writing books. This was to me repul- sive and tormenting, but I remained in that position.
I see now that if I did not kill myself, it was due to some dim consciousness of the invalidity of my thoughts. However convincing and in- dubitable appeared to me the sequence of my thoughts and of those of the wise, that have brought us to the admission of the senselessness of life, there remained in me a vague doubt of the justice of my conclusion.
50 A CONFESSION It was like this: I, my reason, have acknow- jig ledged that life is senseless. If there is nothing; t higher than reason (and there is not: nothing can! s prove that there is), then reason is the creator of 1 life for me. If reason did not exist, there would i 1 be for me no life. How can reason deny life, j i when it is the creator of life? Or to put it the j i other way: were there no life, my reason would j i not exist; therefore reason is life's son. Life is, all. Reason isT its fruit; yet reason rejects life itself! I felt that there was something wrong here.
Life is a senseless evil, that is certain, said I to myself. Yet I have lived and am still living, and all mankind lived and lives. How is that? Why does it live, when it is possible not to live?
Is it that only I and Schopenhauer are wise enough to understand the senselessness and evil of life?
The reasoning showing the vanity of life is not so difficult, and has long been familiar to the very simplest folk; yet they have lived and still live. How is it they all live and never think of doubting the reasonableness of life?
My knowledge, confirmed by the wisdom of the sages, has shown me that everything on earth — organic and inorganic — is all most cleverly arranged — only my own position is stupid. And those fools — the enormous masses of people — know nothing about how everything organic and inorganic in the world is arranged; but they live, and it seems to them that their life is very wisely arranged!...And it struck me: 4 But what if there is A CONFESSION 51 something I do not yet know? Ignorance behaves just in that way. Ignorance always says just what I am saying. When it does not know something, it says that what it does not know is stupid. Indeed, it appears that there is a whole humanity that lived and lives as if it understood the meaning of its life, for without understanding it it could not live; but I say that all this life is senseless and that I cannot live.
£ Nothing prevents our denying life by suicide. Well, then, kill yourself, and you won't discuss. If life displeases you, kill yourself! You live, and cannot understand the meaning of life — then finish it; and do not fool about in life, saying and writing that you do not understand it. You have come into good company, where people are contented and know what they are doing; if you find it dull and repulsive — go away! ' Indeed, what are we who are convinced of the necessity of suicide, yet do not decide to commit it, but the weakest, most inconsistent, and to put it plainly, the stupidest of men, fussing about with our own stupidity as a fool fusses about with a painted hussy? For our wisdom, however indubitable it may be, has not given us the knowledge of the meaning of our life. But all mankind, who sustain life — millions of them — do not doubt the meaning of life.
Indeed, from the most distant times of which I know anything, when life began, people have lived, knowing the argument about the vanity of life, which has shown me its senser 52 A CONFESSION lessness, and yet they lived attributing somejth meaning to it. co From the time when any life began among fo men they had that meaning of life, and they led m that life, which has descended to me. All that h is in me and around me, all, corporeal and in- fo corporeal, is the fruit of their knowledge of life. R Those very instruments of thought with which « I consider this life and condemn it were all oi devised not by me but by them. I myself was n born, taught, and brought up thanks to them. a: They dug out the iron, taught us to cut down the j D forests, tamed the cows and horses, taught us q to sow corn and to live together, organized our D life, and taught me to think and speak. And I, a their product, fed, supplied with drink, taught o by them, thinking with their thoughts and words, ]j have argued that they are an absurdity! j 4 There is something wrong/ said I to myself. I ■ I have blundered somewhere.’ But where the q mistake was, it was long before I could find out. [\ e VIII f 1 e VIII f 1 All these doubts, which I am now able to \ express more or less systematically, I could not \ then have expressed. I then only felt that 1 however logically inevitable were my conclu- ( sions concerning the vanity of life, confirmed as ( they were by the greatest thinkers, there was i something not right about them. Whether it s was in the reasoning itself or in the statement ] of the question I did not know — I only felt that | s the conclusion was rationally convincing, but t A CONFESSION 53 that that was insufficient. All these conclusions could not so convince me as to make me do what followed from my reasoning, that is to say, kill myself. And I should have told an untruth had I, without killing myself, said that reasoii had brought me to the point I had reached. Reason worked, but something else was also working which I can only call a consciousness of life. A force was working which compelled me to turn my attention to this and not to that; and it was this force which extricated me from my desperate situation and turned my mind in quite another direction. This force compelled me to turn my attention to the fact that I and a few hundred similar people are not the whole of mankind, and that I did not yet know the life of mankind.