Page:Tolstoy - Pamphlets.djvu/211

26 Stoic, Buddhist, Brahmin, and Taoist—in their best aspects, and the Christian teaching in its real sense, which demands the renunciation of the individual will, and of the welfare, not only of the individual, but of family, society, and State, in the name of the fulfilment of His will who gave us the existence which our consciousness has disclosed.

From one of these perceptions of man's relationship to the infinite universe or its first cause proceeds the true, sincere morality of every man, in spite of what he nominally professes or preaches as morality or the appearance he desires to convey.

So that a man who acknowledges that the essence of his relation to the universe consists in the acquirement of the greatest welfare for himself, however much he may prate of the morality of living for family, society. State, humanity, or the accomplishment of the will of God (though he may be clever enough by feigning to deceive his fellows), the real motive of his activity will always be the welfare of himself, so that, when occasion arises for choice, he will sacrifice, not himself for his family, nation, or the accomplishment of God's will, but everything for himself, because his conception of existence being centred in his own welfare, he cannot act otherwise till the conception of his relation to the universe undergoes a change.

In the same way, however much a man, the conception of whose relation to the universe consists in the service of his