Page:The life of Tolstoy.djvu/163

Rh There is no way out of it. Life becomes paralysed, and what remains—the inertia of life—may suffice only to make an end of this absurd contradiction of life.

There is only one way of salvation—to renounce material pleasures, to be re-born, and to adopt love as the principle of life. Love—not in the sense of a physical preference for one over another, but a love which has as its dominating impulse the welfare of others and loving service to them rather than making one’s own personal happiness the chief end. Such love solves all contradictions of life. Love ends the struggle, and replaces it by mutual concessions and brotherly assistance. Love’s realm is unlimited and without disillusion and satiety, because moral happiness is independent of our physical personality. Love does not fear death, because the aim of love, service to others, is immortal and cannot be interrupted by one of the disciples falling out of the ranks. Love, by its substance, unites man to eternity.

This idea is developed by Tolstoy with a deep, psychological analysis, and, demonstrating the groundlessness of the fear of death, he concludes by saying:

“What man needs is given to him—life which