Page:Complete Works of Count Tolstoy - 13.djvu/67



resulted a contradiction, from which there were two ways out: either what I called rational was not so rational as I had thought; or that which to me appeared irrational was not so irrational as I had thought. And I began to verify the train of thoughts of my rational knowledge.

In verifying the train of thoughts of my rational knowledge, I found that it was quite correct. The deduction that life was nothing was inevitable; but I saw a mistake. The mistake was that I had not reasoned in conformity with the question put by me. The question was, “Why should I live?” that is, “What real, indestructible essence will come from my phantasmal, destructible life? What meaning has my finite existence in this infinite world?” And in order to answer this question, I studied life.

The solutions of all possible questions of life apparently could not satisfy me, because my question, no matter how simple it appeared in the beginning, included the necessity of explaining the finite through the infinite, and vice versa.

I asked, “What is the extra-temporal, extra-causal, extra-spatial meaning of life?” But I gave an answer to the question, “What is the temporal, causal, spatial meaning of my life?” The result was that after a long labour of mind I answered, “None.”

In my reflections I constantly equated, nor could I do otherwise, the finite with the finite, the infinite with the