Page:Complete Works of Count Tolstoy - 13.djvu/134

 Christ of what God is is the same as the comprehensibility of God. In the discussions of either point there is not only obscurity, but even unscrupulousness. No matter what subject I may wish to expound, no matter how convinced I may be of my incontestable knowledge of the whole truth in expounding the subject, I cannot act otherwise than say, “I am going to expound this and that, and this I consider the truth, and for this reason,” but I will not say that everything which I am going to say is an incontestable truth. And no matter what subject I may be expounding, I cannot do otherwise than say, “The subject which I am going to expound is not fully comprehensible.” My whole exposition will consist in making it more comprehensible, and the greater comprehensibility of the subject will be a sign of the correctness of my exposition. But if I say, “The subject which I am going to expound is comprehensible only in part and its comprehensibility is given to me by a certain tradition, and everything which this tradition says, even when it makes the subject more incomprehensible still, and only what this tradition says, is the truth,” then it is evident that nobody will believe me.

But maybe the method of this Introduction was irregular, and the exposition of the revealed truths may still be regular. We shall listen to this revelation.