disagrees, and which no one requires—is what the priesthood gave out, and still gives out, under the name of religion; while the other side, about which all can agree, and which is necessary to all, and which saves people, is the side which the priesthood, though they have not dared to reject it, have also not dared to set forth as a teaching, for that teaching repudiates them.
Religion is the meaning we give to our lives, it is that which gives strength and direction to our life. Every one that lives finds such a meaning, and lives on the basis of that meaning. If man finds no meaning in life, he dies. In this search man uses all that the previous efforts of humanity have supplied. And what humanity has reached we call revelation. Revelation is what helps man to understand the meaning of life.
Such is the relation in which man stands toward religion.
NOTE BY THE TRANSLATOR
This article is prohibited in Russia, and, though written several years ago, has never been printed in Russian.
I once asked Tolstoï about this article, in which it seemed to me that the truth was told somewhat roughly and even harshly. He explained that it was a rough draft of an article he had planned but had not brought into satisfactory shape. After it had been put aside for some time, in favor of other work, a friend borrowed it and took a copy, and it began to circulate from hand to hand in written or hectographed form. Tolstoï does not regret the publicity thus obtained for the article, as it expresses something which he feels to be true and important.
A translation, made probably from an incorrect copy, or from the French, has already appeared in English, but a retranslation is not the less wanted on that account. A little book, professing to be by Count L. Tolstoï, and entitled "Vicious Pleasures" (a title Tolstoï never used) was published in London some years ago. It consisted of translations, or perhaps I should rather say parodies, of five essays by Tolstoï. But, to borrow from Macaulay, they were translated much as Bottom was in "Midsummer Night's Dream" when he had an ass's head on. In many places it is impossible to make out what the essays mean. One does not even know whether it is the Church or the State, or both, that are "Vicious Pleasures."
The translator evidently had some qualms of conscience, for he concludes his preface with the words: "If fault be found with the present translator for the manner in which he has reproduced Count