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 NON-ACTING 121

the more I strive to reach it, the more I find myself in conflict with my reason and with my wish to love and be loved, and the more I experience disenchantment and suffering?

Is it not more probable that, not having come into the world by my own will, but by the will of him who sent me, my reason and my wisli to love and be loved were given to f;fuide me in doin^ that will ?

Once this fierdvoia is accomplished in men's thouglit, and the pagan and egotistic conception of life has been replaced by the Christian conception, the love of one's neighbour will become more natural than struggle and egotism now are. And once the love of one's neigh- bour becomes natural to man, the new conditions of Christian life will come about spontaneously, just as, in a liquid saturated with salt, the crystals begin to form as soon as one ceases to stir it.

And in order that this may result, and that men may organize their life in conformity with their consciences, they need expend no positive effort ; they need only pause in efforts they are now making. If men spent but a liundredth part of the energy they now devote to material activities — disapproved of by their own con- sciences — to elucidating as completely as possible the demands of that conscience, expressing them clearly, spreading them abroad, and, above all, putting them in practice, the change which M. Dumas and all the propliets have foretold would be accomplished among us much sooner and more easily than we suppose, and men would acquire the good that Jesus promised them in his glad tidings : ' Seek the Kingdom of Heaven, and all these things shall be added unto you.'

[August 9, O.S., 1893.]

This essay was written first in Russian, and then (after a misleading translation had appeared in Fiance) in French also, by Tolstoy. The second version differed in arrange- ment from the first, and has, at Tolstoy's own request, been relied upon in preparing the present translation. In a few places, however — and especially by including