Page:Tolstoy - Essays and Letters.djvu/149

 RELIGION AND MORALITY 133

existence, amid this eternal, firmly defined and unend- ing universe?^ Entering on truly human life, a man cannot evade that question.

That question faces every man, and, in one way or other, every man answers it. And in the rejdy to that question lies the essence of every religion. 'I'he essence of religion consists solely in the answer to the question, ' Why do I live, and wliat is my relation to the infinite universe* around me }'

All the metaphysics of religion, all the doctrines ahout deities, and about the origin of the world, and all external worship — which are usually supposed to be religion — are but indications (differing according to geographical, ethnographical, and historical circum- stances) of the existence of religion. There is no religion, from the most elevated to the coarsest, that has not at its root this estahlisliing of man's relation to the surrounding universe or to its first cause. Tliere is no religious rite, however coarse, nor any cult, how- ever refined, that has not this at its root. Every reli- gious teaching is the expression wliich the founder of that religion has given, of the relation he considered himself as a man (and consequently all other people also) to occupy towards the universe and its origin and first cause.

Tlie expressions of these relations are very numerous, corresponding to the different ethnograpliical and his- torical conditions of the founders of these religions, and the nations that adopted them. Moreover, all tliese expressions are variously interpreted and per- verted by the followers of teachers who were usually hundreds, and sometimes thousands, of years ahead of the comprehension of the masses. And so these rela- tions of man to the universe — i.e., to religion — appear to be very numerous, though, in reality, there are only three fundamental relations in which men stand towards the universe and its author. Tliey are : (1) llie primi-

significance, embracing the totality of existing things, spiritual or material.
 * ' Universe ' is used here and elsewhere in its primary