Is there anything whereof it may be said, See, this is new? it hath
been already of old time, which was before us. there is no
remembrance of former things; neither shall there be any
remembrance of things that are to come with those that shall come
after. I the Preacher was King over Israel in Jerusalem. And I
gave my heart to seek and search out by wisdom concerning all that
is done under heaven: this sore travail hath God given to the sons
of man to be exercised therewith. I have seen all the works that
are done under the sun; and behold, all is vanity and vexation of
spirit....I communed with my own heart, saying, Lo, I am come to
great estate, and have gotten more wisdom than all they that have
been before me over Jerusalem: yea, my heart hath great experience
of wisdom and knowledge. And I gave my heart to know wisdom, and
to know madness and folly: I perceived that this also is vexation
of spirit. For in much wisdom is much grief: and he that
increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow.
"I said in my heart, Go to now, I will prove thee with mirth,
therefore enjoy pleasure: and behold this also is vanity. I said of
laughter, It is mad: and of mirth, What doeth it? I sought in my
heart how to cheer my flesh with wine, and while my heart was
guided by wisdom, to lay hold on folly, till I might see what it
was good for the sons of men that they should do under heaven the
number of the days of their life. I made me great works; I builded
me houses; I planted me vineyards; I made me gardens and orchards,
and I planted trees in them of all kinds of fruits: I made me pools
of water, to water therefrom the forest where trees were reared: I
got me servants and maidens, and had servants born in my house;
also I had great possessions of herds and flocks above all that
were before me in Jerusalem: I gathered me also silver and gold and
the peculiar treasure from kings and from the provinces: I got me
men singers and women singers; and the delights of the sons of men,
as musical instruments and all that of all sorts. So I was great,
and increased more than all that were before me in Jerusalem: also
my wisdom remained with me. And whatever mine eyes desired I kept
not from them. I withheld not my heart from any joy....Then I
looked on all the works that my hands had wrought, and on the
labour that I had laboured to do: and, behold, all was vanity and
vexation of spirit, and there was no profit from them under the
sun. And I turned myself to behold wisdom, and madness, and
folly.... But I perceived that one even happeneth to them all.
Then said I in my heart, As it happeneth to the fool, so it
happeneth even to me, and why was I then more wise? then I said in
my heart, that this also is vanity. For there is no remembrance of
the wise more than of the fool for ever; seeing that which now is
in the days to come shall all be forgotten. And how dieth the wise
man? as the fool. Therefore I hated life; because the work that is
wrought under the sun is grievous unto me: for all is vanity and
vexation of spirit. Yea, I hated all my labour which I had taken
under the sun: seeing that I must leave it unto the man that shall
be after me.... For what hath man of all his labour, and of the
vexation of his heart, wherein he hath laboured under the sun? For
all his days are sorrows, and his travail grief; yea, even in the
night his heart taketh no rest. this is also vanity. Man is not
blessed with security that he should eat and drink and cheer his
soul from his own labour.... All things come alike to all: there is
one event to the righteous and to the wicked; to the good and to
the evil; to the clean and to the unclean; to him that sacrificeth
and to him that sacrificeth not; as is the good, so is the sinner;
and he that sweareth, as he that feareth an oath. This is an evil
in all that is done under the sun, that there is one event unto
all; yea, also the heart of the sons of men is full of evil, and
madness is in their heart while they live, and after that they go
to the dead. For him that is among the living there is hope: for
a living dog is better than a dead lion. For the living know that
they shall die: but the dead know not any thing, neither have they
any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten. also their
love, and their hatred, and their envy, is now perished; neither
have they any more a portion for ever in any thing that is done
under the sun."
So said Solomon, or whoever wrote those words. [Footnote:
tolstoy's version differs slightly in a few places from our own
Authorized or Revised version. I have followed his text, for in a
letter to Fet, quoted on p. 18, vol. ii, of my "Life of Tolstoy,"
he says that "The Authorized English version [of Ecclesiastes] is
bad." -- A.M.]
And this is what the Indian wisdom tells:
Sakya Muni, a young, happy prince, from whom the existence of
sickness, old age, and death had been hidden, went out to drive and
saw a terrible old man, toothless and slobbering. the prince, from
whom till then old age had been concealed, was amazed, and asked
his driver what it was, and how that man had come to such a
wretched and disgusting condition, and when he learnt that this was
the common fate of all men, that the same thing inevitably awaited
him -- the young prince -- he could not continue his drive, but
gave orders to go home, that he might consider this fact. So he
shut himself up alone and considered it. and he probably devised
some consolation for himself, for he subsequently again went out to
drive, feeling merry and happy. But this time he saw a sick man.
He saw an emaciated, livid, trembling man with dim eyes. The
prince, from whom sickness had been concealed, stopped and asked
what this was. And when he learnt that this was sickness, to which
all men are liable, and that he himself -- a healthy and happy
prince -- might himself fall ill tomorrow, he again was in no mood
to enjoy himself but gave orders to drive home, and again sought
some solace, and probably found it, for he drove out a third time
for pleasure. But this third time he saw another new sight: he saw
men carrying something. 'What is that?' 'A dead man.' 'What does
*dead* mean?' asked the prince. He was told that to become dead
means to become like that man. The prince approached the corpse,
uncovered it, and looked at it. 'What will happen to him now?'
asked the prince. He was told that the corpse would be buried in
the ground. 'Why?' 'Because he will certainly not return to life,
and will only produce a stench and worms.' 'And is that the fate
of all men? Will the same thing happen to me? Will they bury me,
and shall I cause a stench and be eaten by worms?' 'Yes.' 'Home!
I shall not drive out for pleasure, and never will so drive out
again!'
And Sakya Muni could find no consolation in life, and decided
that life is the greatest of evils; and he devoted all the strength
of his soul to free himself from it, and to free others; and to do
this so that, even after death, life shall not be renewed any more
but be completely destroyed at its very roots. So speaks all the
wisdom of India.
These are the direct replies that human wisdom gives when it
replies to life's question.
"The life of the body is an evil and a lie. Therefore the
destruction of the life of the body is a blessing, and we should
desire it," says Socrates.
"Life is that which should not be -- an evil; and the passage
into Nothingness is the only good in life," says Schopenhauer.
"All that is in the world -- folly and wisdom and riches and
poverty and mirth and grief -- is vanity and emptiness. Man dies
and nothing is left of him. And that is stupid," says Solomon.
"To life in the consciousness of the inevitability of
suffering, of becoming enfeebled, of old age and of death, is
impossible -- we must free ourselves from life, from all possible
life," says Buddha.
And what these strong minds said has been said and thought and
felt by millions upon millions of people like them. And I have
thought it and felt it.
So my wandering among the sciences, far from freeing me from
my despair, only strengthened it. One kind of knowledge did not
reply to life's question, the other kind replied directly
confirming my despair, indicating not that the result at which I
had arrived was the fruit of error or of a diseased state of my
mind, but on the contrary that I had thought correctly, and that my
thoughts coincided with the conclusions of the most powerful of
human minds.
It is no good deceiving oneself. It is all -- vanity! Happy
is he who has not been born: death is better than life, and one
must free oneself from life.
VII
Not finding an explanation in science I began to seek for it
in life, hoping to find it among the people around me. And I began
to observe how the people around me -- people like myself -- lived,
and what their attitude was to this question which had brought me
to despair.
And this is what I found among people who were in the same
position as myself as regards education and manner of life.
I found that for people of my circle there were four ways out
of the terrible position in which we are all placed.
The first was that of ignorance. It consists in not knowing,
not understanding, that life is an evil and an absurdity. People
of this sort -- chiefly women, or very young or very dull people --
have not yet understood that question of life which presented
itself to Schopenhauer, Solomon, and Buddha. They see neither the
dragon that awaits them nor the mice gnawing the shrub by which
they are hanging, and they lick the drops of honey. but they lick
those drops of honey only for a while: something will turn their
attention to the dragon and the mice, and there will be an end to
their licking. From them I had nothing to learn -- one cannot
cease to know what one does know.
The second way out is epicureanism. It consists, while
knowing the hopelessness of life, in making use meanwhile of the
advantages one has, disregarding the dragon and the mice, and
licking the honey in the best way, especially if there is much of
it within reach. Solomon expresses this way out thus: "Then I
commended mirth, because a man hath no better thing under the sun,
than to eat, and to drink, and to be merry: and that this should
accompany him in his labour the days of his life, which God giveth
him under the sun.
"Therefore eat thy bread with joy and drink thy wine with a
merry heart.... Live joyfully with the wife whom thou lovest all
the days of the life of thy vanity...for this is thy portion in
life and in thy labours which thou takest under the sun....
Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might, for there
is not work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave,
whither thou goest."
That is the way in which the majority of people of our circle
make life possible for themselves. Their circumstances furnish
them with more of welfare than of hardship, and their moral
dullness makes it possible for them to forget that the advantage of
their position is accidental, and that not everyone can have a
thousand wives and palaces like Solomon, that for everyone who has
a thousand wives there are a thousand without a wife, and that for
each palace there are a thousand people who have to build it in the
sweat of their brows; and that the accident that has today made me
a Solomon may tomorrow make me a Solomon's slave. The dullness of
these people's imagination enables them to forget the things that
gave Buddha no peace -- the inevitability of sickness, old age, and
death, which today or tomorrow will destroy all these pleasures.
So think and feel the majority of people of our day and our
manner of life. The fact that some of these people declare the
dullness of their thoughts and imaginations to be a philosophy,
which they call Positive, does not remove them, in my opinion, from
the ranks of those who, to avoid seeing the question, lick the
honey. I could not imitate these people; not having their dullness
of imagination I could not artificially produce it in myself. I
could not tear my eyes from the mice and the dragon, as no vital
man can after he has once seen them.
The third escape is that of strength and energy. It consists
in destroying life, when one has understood that it is an evil and
an absurdity. A few exceptionally strong and consistent people act
so. Having understood the stupidity of the joke that has been
played on them, and having understood that it is better to be dead
than to be alive, and that it is best of all not to exist, they act
accordingly and promptly end this stupid joke, since there are
means: a rope round one's neck, water, a knife to stick into one's
heart, or the trains on the railways; and the number of those of
our circle who act in this way becomes greater and greater, and for
the most part they act so at the best time of their life, when the
strength of their mind is in full bloom and few habits degrading to
the mind have as yet been acquired.
I saw that this was the worthiest way of escape and I wished
to adopt it.
The fourth way out is that of weakness. It consists in seeing
the truth of the situation and yet clinging to life, knowing in
advance that nothing can come of it. People of this kind know that
death is better than life, but not having the strength to act
rationally -- to end the deception quickly and kill themselves --
they seem to wait for something. This is the escape of weakness,
for if I know what is best and it is within my power, why not yield
to what is best? ... I found myself in that category.
So people of my class evade the terrible contradiction in four
