Page:Tolstoy - Essays and Letters.djvu/164

 U8 ESSAYS AND LETFERS

exposure of thijj contradiction. He is incontrovertible when lie says tliat all rules of morality, from the point of view of the current non-Christian philosoj)hy, are mere lies and hypocrisy, and that it is much more profitable, pleasanter and more reasonable, for a man to devise his own Su|)er-mcn (lebermensch) and be one of them, than to be one of the mass which has to serve as the scaffold for these Super-men. No philosophical constructions founded on the fki^an-relig-ious view of life can prove to anyone tliat it is more profitable or wiser for him to live, not for a welfare he desires, com- prehends, and sees to be ]»ossible for himself or for his family or his society, but for another^s welfare — un- desired, not understood, and unattainable by his puny human power. Philosophy founded on an understand- ing of life limited to the welfare of man, will never be able to i>rove to a rational man, wlio knows that he may die at any moment, that it is ^rood for him, and that he ought, to forego his own desired, understood, and un- doubted welfare — not even for any certain welfare to others (for he can never know wliat will result from his sacrifices), but — merely because it is right or good to do so : that it is a categorical imperative.

To prove this from the point of view of pagan philo- sophy is imjmssible. To prove that people are all equal — that it is better for a man to sacrifice his life in the service of others than to trample on the lives of others, making them serve him — one must redefine one's relation to the universe : one must prove that man's position is such that he has no option, since tlie meaning of his life lies only in the execution of tlie will of Him that sent him ; and the will of Him that sent him is, that he should give his life to the service of men. And such a change in man's relation to the universe comes only from religion.

Tlius it is with the attempts to deduce Christian morality from, and to reconcile it with, the funda- mental positions of pagan science. No sophistries or subtleties of thought can destroy this simple and clear position, that the law of evolution, which lies at the