Page:The Complete Works of Lyof N. Tolstoi - 09 (Crowell, 1899).djvu/488

xiv environment allow, carries out his precepts in practical life.

Whatever one may think of this radical and far-reaching criterion of life, one cannot doubt the author's sincerity or the genuineness of his desire to help his fellow-men. Like Sakya Muni, he has renounced what the majority of men, what he himself formerly, considered the chief object of living—pleasure and self-seeking. He found that wealth, title, position, fame, amusements, were only apples of Sodom. He discovered that the greatest happiness comes from giving happiness to others. Like the Nirvana of the Buddhist, entire self-abnegation and self-forgetfulness is the highest state of happiness for man. As one's physical condition is most perfect when one is least conscious of one's vital functions, so must one seek mental and spiritual annihilation in living wholly for others. That is the key to Count Tolstoï's philosophy, and he expounds it with eloquence and conviction in these pages.