Page:Tolstoy - Essays and Letters.djvu/26

 10 life can be a blessing only when this truth is understood. And, therefore, the whole positive teaching of Christ is expressed in this one thing: Love God, and thy neighbour as thyself. And no expositions of that precept are possible. It is one, because it contains all. The law and commandments of Christ, like the Jewish and Buddhist laws and commandments, are but indications of cases in which the snares of the world turn men aside from a true understanding of life. And that is why there may be many laws and many commandments, but the positive teaching of life—of what should be done—must and can be only one.

The life of each man is a movement somewhere: whether he will or not, he moves, he lives. Christ shows man the road, and at the same time indicates the paths leading from the right road—paths which lead astray. Of such indications there may be many—they are the commandments.

Christ gives five such commandments, and those He gave are such that up to the present not one can with advantage be added or spared. But only one direction showing the road is given, for there can be but one straight line showing a certain direction.

Therefore the idea that in Christ's teaching there are only negative commands and no positive ones seems true only to those who do not know, or do not believe, in the teaching of truth itself—the direction of the true path of life indicated by Christ. Believers in the truth of the path of life shown by Jesus will not seek for positive commandments in His teaching. All positive activity flowing from the teaching of the true path of life—most diverse as that activity may be—is always clearly and indubitably defined for them.

Believers in that path of life are, in Christ's simile, like an abundant spring of living water. All their activity is like the course of water, which flows everywhere regardless of obstacles. A man believing in the teaching of Christ can as little ask what positive commands he is to obey as a stream of water, bursting from the ground, could ask the question. It flows, watering