Page:Complete Works of Count Tolstoy - 18.djvu/442

 sake of the health of one class of people it should be necessary to drink the blood of others.

The natural conclusion from this, it seems to me, is that it is not good to submit to this delusion and deception. And, in order not to submit, it is necessary, in the first place, not to believe in this immoral doctrine, no matter by what imaginary science it may be supported, and, in the second, to understand that such sexual intercourse, where people free themselves from its possible consequences, from children, or shift the whole burden of these consequences to the woman, or prevent the possibility of childbirth,—that such sexual intercourse is a transgression of the simplest requirement of morality, that it is base, and that, therefore, unmarried men, who do not wish to live basely, must not do it.

But, in order to be able to abstain, they must, in addition, lead a natural life, not drink, not stuff themselves, not eat meat, and not avoid labour (I do not mean gymnastics, nor play, but fatiguing labour); they must not permit themselves to think of the possibility of intercourse with strange women, just as all men exclude the possibility of intercourse between themselves and their mothers, sisters, relatives, and the wives of their friends. Any man may find a hundred proofs about him that continence is possible and less dangerous and injurious to him than non-continence.

So much in the first place.

Secondly, that in our society, on account of the current view in regard to carnal love as not only a necessary condition of health and as a pleasure, but also as a poetical, exalted good of life, marital infidelity has become in all strata of society (especially among the peasants, thanks to militarism) a most common phenomenon.

I assume that this is not good. The conclusion which springs from it is that one ought not to do it.

But, in order not to do it, it is necessary for the view