Page:Complete Works of Count Tolstoy - 13.djvu/23

 Christ and his teaching, but what his teaching consisted in, I should also have been at a loss to say.

Now, as I recall that time, I see clearly that my faith, that something which, outside the animal instincts, moved my life, my only, real faith at that time was a belief in perfection. But what that perfection consisted in, or what its aims were, I should have been unable to say. I tried to perfect myself mentally,—I studied everything that I could and that life brought me in contact with; I tried to perfect my will and formed rules which I tried to follow; I perfected myself physically, prompting my strength and agility with all kinds of exercises, and practising endurance and patience in all kinds of privations. All that I regarded as perfection. At first it was, of course, moral perfection, but soon it was changed to perfection in general, that is, to a desire to be better, not before myself or before God, but before other people. And soon that tendency to be better before people gave place to a desire to be stronger than other people, that is, more famous, more influential, richer than others.