Page:Tolstoy - Essays and Letters.djvu/159

 RELIGION AND MORALITY 143

such human activity as naturally results from men holding this or that relation towards the universe. And as only two sucli fundamental relations are known to us, if we consider the pagan, social relation as an enlargement of the personal ; or three, if we count the social, pagan relation as a separate one — it follows that but three moral teachings exist : the primitive, savage, personal ; the pagan, family. State, or social ; and tlie Christian or divine teaching, of service to man or to God.

From tlie first of these relations of man to the universe flows the teaching of morality common to all pagan religions that have at their base the striving after welfare for the separate individual, and that there- fore define all the conditions yielding most welfare to the individual, and indicate means to obtain such welfare. From tliis relation to tlie world flow the pagan teachings : the Epicurean in its lowest form ; the Mohammedan teaching of morality, which promises coarse, personal welfare in this and the next world ; the Church-Cliristian teaching of morality, aiming at salvation — that is, at the welfare of one's personality, especially in the other world ; and also the worldly utilitarian morality, aiming at the welfare of the indi- vidual only in this world.

From the same teaching, which places the aim of life in personal welfare, and, therefore, in freedom from personal sufl"ering, flow the moral teaching of Buddhism in its crude form, and the worldly doctrine of the pessimist.

From the second, pagan relation of man to the universe, which sees the aim of life in securing welfare for a group of individuals, flow the moral teachings which demand that man should serve the group whose welfare is regarded as the aim of life. According to that teaching, personal welfare is only allowable to the extent to which it can be obtained for the whole group of people who form the religious basis of life. From that relation to the universe flow the well-known Roman and Greek moral teachings, in which person-