Page:Tolstoy - Essays and Letters.djvu/170

 1-.4 ESSAYS AND LEITERS

leading men to teach people a morality not foiiiule*! on that lii^j^hest relipon which hegins to be assimilated, and has already been y)artly assimilated, by Christian humanity.

It is indeed desirable to have moral teachini; unmixed with sui»erstition, but the fact is that moral teacliin:: is a result of a certain relation man hohls towards the universe or towards God. If that relation is expressed in forms which seem to us superstitious, we should, to rig'ht the matter, try to express that relation more reasonably, clearly, and exactly, or even to destroy the former relation (now become inadequate) of man to the universe, an<l to substitute for it one that is hiirher clearer, and more reasonable ; but we should in no case devise a so-called secular, non-reliifious morality founded on sophistry, or simply founded on nothing at all.

The attempts to found a morality apart from reli^non, are like what children do when, wishina: to transplant a flower tliat jdeases them — thoy pluck it from the roots tliat do not please, and seem to them superfluous, and stick it rootless into the £rround. A'ithout reliifious roots there can be no real, sincere morality, just as without roots there can be no real rtower.

So in answer to your two questions, I say : * Rt;lighn is a certain relation estahlished fty man between hift separate personality and the infinite universe or its Source. And morality is the ever-present guide to lije which results from that relation.'

[December 28, o.s., 189i.]