Page:The Complete Works of Lyof N. Tolstoi - 11 (Crowell, 1899).djvu/165

 Rh self in the customary condition of headachiness or depression which follows exhilaration, and therefore in a condition of intellectual debasement, which is still further increased by smoking.

For a man who constantly smokes and drinks in moderation to bring his brain into a normal condition, he must go for a week, or even more, without drinking or smoking, and this rarely happens.

Thus the large part of all that is produced in our world, both by men that direct and teach others and by those directed and taught, is accomplished in a non-sober condition.

Now do not let this be taken as a jest or as an exaggeration—the ugliness, and above all the senselessness, of our lives proceed, primarily, from the constant condition of intoxication in which the majority of men find themselves. How would it be possible for men not intoxicated calmly to do all that is done in our world, from the Eiffel tower to the general war debt?

Without the slightest necessity a society is formed; capital is paid in, men work, enter into calculations, form plans; millions of work-days, millions of puds of iron, are consumed in building a tower; and millions of men consider it their duty to climb up the tower, stay there a while, and go down again; and the construction and