was terrified not only at death, but at life; because it seemed to him that he had not the slightest knowledge of its origin, its purpose, its reason, its nature. Our organism and its destruction, the indestructibility of matter, the laws of the conservation and development of forces, were words which were substituted for the terms of his early faith. These words, and the scientific theories connected with them, were doubtless interesting from an intellectual point of view, but they stood for nothing in the face of real life.
And Levin suddenly felt in the position of a man who in cold weather had exchanged his warm shuba for a muslin garment, and who for the first time should indubitably, not with his reason, but with his whole being, become persuaded that he was absolutely naked, and inevitably destined to perish miserably.
From that time, without in the least changing his outward life, and though he did not like to confess it, even to himself, Levin never ceased to feel a terror of his ignorance.
Moreover, he vaguely felt that what he called his convictions not only came from his ignorance, but were idle for helping him to a clearer knowledge of what he needed.
At first his marriage, with its new joys and its new duties, completely blotted out these thoughts; but they came back to him, with increasing persistence demanding an answer, after his wife's confinement, when he lived in Moscow without any serious occupation.
The question presented itself to him in this way:—
"If I do not accept the explanations offered me by Christianity on the problem of my existence, then what answer shall I find?"
And he scrutinized the whole arsertal of his scientific convictions, and found no answer whatever to his questions, and nothing like an answer.
He was in the position of a man who seeks to find food in a toy-store or a gun-shop.
Involuntarily and unconsciously he sought now in every book, in every conversation, and in every person whom
