Page:Complete Works of Count Tolstoy - 13.djvu/71

 an answer in the experimental sciences? I wanted to find out why I lived, and for this I studied everything which was outside of me. It is clear that I could have learned many things, but certainly nothing which I needed.

What had I been doing when I searched for an answer in the philosophical sciences? I had studied the thoughts of those beings who had been in the same condition that I was in, and who had no answer to the question of why I lived. It is clear that I could not have learned anything but what I already knew, that it was impossible to know anything.

What am I? A part of the infinite. A part of the infinite. In these few words lies the whole problem.

Is it possible humanity has begun only yesterday to put this question? And has no one before me put this question, which is so simple that it is on the tip of the tongue of every intelligent child?

This question has been put ever since men have existed; and ever since men have existed, it has been clear that for the solution of this question it is equally insufficient to equate the infinite to the infinite and the finite to the finite, and ever since men have existed the relations of the finite to the infinite have been found and expressed.

All these concepts, with which we equate the finite to the infinite and receive a meaning of life and a concept of God, freedom, goodness, we subject to logical investigation. And these concepts do not stand the critique of reason.

If it were not so terrible it would be ridiculous, with what pride and self-contentment we, like children, take a watch to pieces, pull out the spring, make a toy from it, and then wonder why the watch has stopped going.

What is necessary and precious is a solution of the contradiction of the finite and the infinite and an answer to the question of life, such as would make life possible.