Page:The Relations Tolstoy.pdf/61

 are eunuchs, which made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake. He that is able to receive it, let him receive it." Why, this passage which has been so much and so falsely interpreted signifies nothing else than that if man asks what he should do with regard to the sex instinct? towards what he should aspire? in what, speaking in our present language, consists the ideal for man? he answers: To become a eunuch for the kingdom of heaven. And he who attains this will have attained the highest, and he who does not attain it, for him also it will be well that he strived thereunto. He that is able to receive it, let him receive it. I think that for the welfare of man, he, both man and woman, should strive towards complete celibacy, i.e., he should deliberately seek celibacy, and then that will happen with him which should happen. One should aim above the target to hit the target. If on the other hand man deliberately strives, as is the case among us, towards sexual relation, although in wedlock, then he will inevitably fall into what is unlawful, dissipated. If a man deliberately strive to live not for his stomach, but for the Spirit, then his attitude towards food will be as it should. But if a man beforehand prepare for himself tasteful dinners, then inevitably he will fall into unlawfulness and depravity.

... About married life I have been, and am thinking much, and, which has always been the case with me whenever I have begun to think of any subject seriously, I am stimulated and assisted without. The day before yesterday I received from America a book from a woman doctor, entitled "Tokology, a book for every woman," by Alice Stockham, M.D. It is an excellent book from the hygienic point of view, and, what is most important, it treats in one chapter of the very subject on which we have been corresponding, solving the