Page:Tolstoy - Demands of Love and Reason.djvu/35

 32 DEMANLa OF LOVE

called Father because man is conscious of it in himself.

On entering upon life it seems to man that his life consists in his animal being, that it is his animal being that is his ego ; but, as his reason develops, he sees that this animal being is not free, but suffers and perishes, whereas in his consciousness he feels that there is something which is liable neither to restriction, nor to suffering, nor to destruction; and man experiences a contradiction within himself, and falls into despair.

It is this inner contradiction that Christ's teachiog answers, even while developing it. His teaching says to man : " It appears to thee that thou livest in the animal being; but this only appears so, as it appears that the banks are receding when one is advancing in a boat, or that the sun moves. In man there lives only that spiritual, rational, righteous element, the Son of God. Man must transfer his ego from his animal being into his spiritual, and must satisfy the demands, not of his animal, but of his spiritual being. And it is sufficient for man to comprehend this for the contradiction of his life to disappear; all restriction, all suffering is annihilated, and he becomes perfectly free. Death is annihilated, because that which is spiritual, that which is God Himself, cannot be destroyed ; it always has been, is, and will be."