i) Life for oneself is a torture, because you want to live for an illusion, for that which does not exist, and it not only cannot be happy, but it cannot be at all. It is the same as dressing and
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feeding a shadow. Life exists only outside of oneself, in the service of others, and not in the service of one’s near ones, beloved ones that is again for oneself but in the service of those whom we do not love, and better still, in the ser-vice of enemies. Help, Father. The terrible error is that one confuses sex-love, love for chil-dren, for friends, with love of people through God, of people to whom you are indifferent, and still more of enemies, that is, of erring people.
Aug. 3. Pirogovo.
Again everything is in the old way, again my life is horrid. I have lived through very much; I haven’t passed the examination. But I do not de-spair and I want a re-examination. I passed the examination exceptionally badly, because I had the intention of going over to another institution. It is just these thoughts one must throw away, then one will learn better.
During this time Sonya returned and dear Tania Kuzminsky was here. The work on Resurrection goes very badly, although it seems to me I have thought it out much better. The 3rd day in Piro-govo. Uncle Serezha 351 is not as good as he was before : he is not in the mood. Maria Nicho-laievna. 352 For two days nothing has come into my head.
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the condition of the Dukhobors 353 and that Mme. M. N. Rostovtzev was put in prison. 334 For a long time there has been no letter from Chertkov. Perhaps they intercept them. 355
Am going to continue to write out that which I had not written out :
i) …
2) There are two methods of human activity and according to which one of these two kinds of activity people mainly follow, are there two kinds of people : one use their reason to learn what is good and what is bad and they act according to this knowledge; the other act as they want to and then they use their reason to prove that that which they did was good and that which they didn’t do was bad.
3) It is absolutely clear that it is much more profitable to do everything in common, but the reasoning about this is insufficient. If the reason-ing were sufficient then it would have happened long ago. The fact that it is seen among Capi-talists is unable to convince people to live in com-mon. Besides the reasoning that this is profit-able, it is necessary that the heart be ready to live like that (that the world point of view should be such that it would harmonise with the indications of the reason) , but this is not so and will not be so until the desires of the heart are changed, i.e., the world point of view of people.
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4) Even if that which Marx predicted should happen, then the only thing that will happen, is that despotism will be passed on. Now the capi-talists rule, but then the directors of the working people will rule.
5) The mistake of the Marxists (and not only they, but the whole materialistic school) lies in the fact that they do not see that the life of humanity is moved by the growth of consciousness, by the movement of religion, by an understanding of life becoming more and more clear, general, meeting all problems and not by an economic cause.
6) The most unthought thing, the error, of the theory of Marx is in the supposition that capital will pass from the hands of private people into the hands of the government, and from the govern-ment, representing the people, into the hands of the workers. . . .
7) There is nothing that softens the heart so much as the consciousness of one’s guilt, and noth-ing hardens it so much as the consciousness of one’s right.
8) Working people are so … that it seems to them they have no outlet. Salvation lies in truth, in preaching and professing it.
9) They prove the law of the conservation of energy; but energy is nothing else than an abstract notion, just the same as matter. But an abstract notion is always equal to itself. In fact, this is
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nothing else than as if we were to begin to prove that the law of gravitation, notwithstanding seem-ing departures, exists unchangingly in everything. (Unclear and perhaps untrue.)
10) The belief in miracles has for its basis the consciousness that our world just as it is, is the product of our senses. But the error lies only in supposing that the miraculous, that is, that some-thing which is against the laws of reason, when applied to our senses, can happen for us with our tool of consciousness, i.e., with our senses. That which is against our laws of reason, when applied to our senses, can happen for other beings, for be-ings with other “senses, just as our tool of con-sciousness, our sense, is only one particular in-stance from the innumerable quantity of other pos-sibilities.
1 1 ) It is a great error to think that the reason of man is perfect and can disclose everything to him. The limitation of reason is best seen and most obvious from the fact that a man cannot solve (he clearly sees that he cannot) the problems of infinity: for each time there is still more time, for each space there is still more space, for each number there is still a number, so that all time and space is unknowable.
12) The reason of man is just as weak and in-significant in comparison (and in an infinite num-ber of times more so) with that which is, as is the
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reason (the means of perception) of a beetle and an amaeba in comparison with the reason of man. The reason of man in comparison, not only with the highest reason, but with the reason which is higher than his is just the same as the under-standing of a complicated problem of higher math-ematics or even of algebra for a man not knowing mathematics, to whom it seems insoluble, as are the problems of the infinity of space and time to us. While the problem is simple and clear for one knowing mathematics. The difference is only in this, that one can learn mathematics, but no study will help to solve the problem of space and time. This is the limit of the possibility of our knowledge under our reason.
13) I pray God that He release me from my suffering which tortures me. But this suffering is sent to me by God in order to release me from evil. The master whips his cattle with the whip in order to drive them from the burning yard and save them, and the cattle pray that he do not whip them.
14) There are common, sometimes intentional, sometimes unintentional, misunderstandings of my opinions which I confess irritate me :
a) I say that God … is not God and that God is that which alone is the unattainable good, the beginning of everything: against me they say, that I deny God;
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b) I say that one ought not to resist violence by violence : against me they say, that I say it is not necessary to fight evil;
c) I say that one ought to strive towards chas-tity and that on this road the highest grade will be virginity, and second a clean marriage, the third not a clean, that is, not a monogamous marriage : against me they say, that I deny marriage and I preach the destruction of the human race.
d) I say that art is an infectious activity and that the more infectious art is, the better it is. But that this activity be good or bad, does not depend on how much it satisfies the demands of art, i.e., its infectiousness, but on how much it satisfies the demands of the religious consciousness, i.e., morality, conscience; against me they say that I preach a tendence art, etc.
15) Woman and the legends say it also is the tool of the devil. She is generally stupid, but the devil lends her his brain when she works for him. Here you see, she has done miracles of thinking, far-sightedness, constancy, in order to do something nasty; but as soon as something not nasty is needed, she cannot understand the simplest thing; she cannot see farther than the present moment and there is no self-control and no pa-tience (except child-birth and the care of children) .
1 6) All this concerns women, un-Christians, un-chaste women, as are all the women of our Chris-,
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tian world. Oh, how I would like to show to women all the significance of a chaste woman. A chaste woman (not in vain is the legend of Mary) will save the world.
17) People are occupied with three things: i) to feed themselves, i.e., to continue their existence, 2) to multiply to continue the existence of the specie, and 3) to fulfil that for which they had been sent in the world: to establish the kingdom of God. For this there is one means to perfect onself. Almost all people are occupied with the first two matters, forgetting
