Page:Complete Works of Count Tolstoy - 18.djvu/496

 necessary for them. Carnal love is necessary for no other reason than that there should be no interruption of the possibility of working out such beings from men.

The animals abandon themselves to sexual intercourse only when the progeny can be born. Unenlightened men, such as we all are, are ready for it at all times and have even invented the statement that this is a necessity. Through this invented necessity the activity of the mistress ruins the woman, by compelling her to do unnatural work, which is above her strength, during the time while she is pregnant or nursing. With this demand we have ourselves ruined this rational nature in woman, and then we complain of her irrationality, or develop it with books and university courses. Yes, in everything animal, man has still consciously to come up to the animal, and this takes place of itself when the comprehension begins to live, for otherwise the activity of the reason is directed only to the distortion of the animal life.

The question of the sexual relations between husband and wife, to what extent they are legitimate, is one of the most important practical Christian questions, something like the question of property, and never ceases to interest me. And, as always, this question is solved in the Gospel, and, as always, our life has been so remote from the solution which Christ has given that we have been unable not only to apply the Christian solution, but even to comprehend it. Matt. xix. 11, 12 But he said unto them, All men cannot receive the saying, save they to whom it is given. For there are some eunuchs, which were so born from their mother's womb: and there are some eunuchs, which were made eunuchs of men: and there be eunuchs, which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake. He that is able to receive it, let him receive it.