Page:The Relations Tolstoy.pdf/19

 The misfortune is just this, that, having once allowed oneself to lower the ideal to suit one's weakness, the line at which one should stop cannot be drawn.

But such reasoning is false from the beginning. First of all it is false that the ideal of infinite perfection cannot be a guide in life; and it is also false that I must either despair and say "I must give it up; it is of no use to me as I can never attain to it"; or must lower the ideal to the level to which, in my weakness, I wish to stay.

The mariner who should say to himself, "Because I cannot advance in the direction indicated by the compass, I will throw it overboard or cease to look at it" (i.e., reject the ideal); or else, "I will fasten the needle in the position corresponding to the direction in which my ship is now advancing" (i.e., will lower the ideal to my weakness), would be reasoning in the same way.

The ideal of perfection given by Jesus is neither fancy, nor a subject for rhetorical sermons, but it is the most indispensable guide, accessible to everyone, for the moral life of men, -just as the compass is the indispensable and accessible instrument for the guidance of the mariner. But the one must be believed as much as the other.

In whatever position a man may find himself, the teaching of the ideal given by Jesus is always sufficient to provide the surest indication of what he should and should not do. But he must believe this teaching entirely, this teaching alone, he must cease to believe all others; just as the mariner must believe in the compass and desist from guiding himself by what he sees on either hand.

One must know how to guide oneself by Christ's teaching as completely as by the compass; and to this end it is above all necessary to realize one's position. We must not be afraid of defining