Life. By Count LYOF. N. TOLSTOI.

Authorised translation by Isabel F. Hapgood. London: Walter Scott, 1889.

REVIEWS.
The sixth volume of the uniform edition of the collected works of Count Leo Nicolaevitch Tolstoi is here presented to English readers. It contains that remarkable contribution to the social question from the Russian reformer's standpoint which forms such a prominent part of the second series of Tolstoi's works. Perhaps some few remarks upon the subject of Tolstoi's peculiar relation to the present generation may not be out of place. There is the less necessity to apologise, because within the past few years the name of the Russian socialist has become familiar to all classes of readers. Not that his peculiar views upon religion and the human relations have brought him into this notice. His chief works translated in the present series as A Russian Proprietor, The Cossacks, Ivan Ilyilch, and The Invaders, beside other works of the same genre have placed him in the foremost rank of that school of novelists peculiarly Russian, which begins with Gozoe, and includes Dostoieffsky,Turgeniev, and Tolstoi himself as its chief exponents. Now that the chief masterpieces of all these authors, the Deadsouls (as it is clumsily translated), Crime and Punishment, Fathers and Sons, Anna Karenine, are accessible to all renders in cheap editions, it is hardly necessary that a reviewer should enter into a discussion of the remarkable characteristics which, under a great apparent variety of plot, character, and incident, these singular and powerful volumes are found to possess in common. We have nothing in our English literature like that wonderful realism. But assuredly, in spite of Count Tolstoi's disparagement of his own early work, we may rely that the general public have a far clearer and truer idea of Tolstoï as one of the greatest of modern masters of fiction than as one of the most revolutionary of modern thinkers, one of the most daring of social reformers, one of the most literal acceptors of the Gospel of Christ, and one of the most unflinching followers of that Gospel as the touchstone of human character and the satisfaction of human needs. Let us consider the second phase of this great man's character. If we begin with the Confession, proceeding to My Religion, and closing with Life— all volumes of the present series—we shall got clear ideas of what answer this man has found for the great problem. We shall find that to him life has come into new meaning, that religion has changed its discipline and its doctrine, that the relations of all classes of men have in his view become at once simplified and charged with sympathy and tenderness. We shall find that in regard to the New Testament a literalism beyond anything insisted upon by the narrowest of the creeds has reversed the elementary popular ideas of the religion of Christianity. We shall find that in the philosophy of this daring innovator patriotism ceases to have a meaning, individuality is the curse of modern existence, culture is suicide, science is vain beyond words ; and in exchange for all those powerful elements in our life, in exchange for all these things which we have been taught to treasure and to hold as the ultimate good of humanity, Tolstoi insists upon an altruism so wide, so universal, that we should recognise that the only life possible to a man is the willing sacrifice of his own life, for the service, fancied or real, of others. Certainly this is a programme that no thinking man can pass by without deep interest. Perhaps had Tolstoi been born in the lower ranks of life in his Russia he would never have found time or occasion for the terrific ennui out of which at last emerged his gospel. He belonged by birth to the rich landed aristocracy of Russia, he was educated as the youth of that class were and are educated ; at the due age he passed from the university into the army, and then he served through a campaign. Afterwards he took to writing, and his success was immediate. He made the tour of Europe, he returned to his estates, and as soon as serfdom was abolished he superintended the teaching of his peasants. He married. But he had already felt a growing dissatisfaction with his life and the life of his class. His life in the army filled him with loathing—it was so sensual, so cruel, so selfish ; yet he was appalled to find that such was the career of the men of his station, and what he felt to be so unworthy seemed only to the world what was due and becoming in him. His work among the peasantry became full of trouble ; his family life, in which he had hoped to find the solution of his unhappiness and uselessness prove, so far as the inner life was concerned, a disappointment. He was overcome, while yet a young man, with weariness, and sought, in the systematic study of social theories, of religion and of science, distraction from his restlessness and torment. He sought in vain. He studied the four theories of life, ignorance (if it may be called a theory), Epicureanism, suicide, and stolid acquiescence. He asked himself whether it was tolerable that he should live ignoring life, or, using it for his own gratification only, abandon life in despair by self-destruction, or, knowing the emptiness of his career, sullenly go through it. At last be forsakes his own class, he goes down to the class that incessantly labours for its daily bread. Here he finds that a true religion exists. This religion he studies. He saw that this poor and despised class have none of the resources of his class, yet they have happiness, serene acceptance of the ills of life, patience, tranquil deaths; none of which things belong to the men of honour, power and wealth. Then through the Martyrology and Prologue of the Greek Orthodox Church he passed to the Testament, and fastened upon the Sermon on the Mount and the whole Gospel of Christ. At this stage we take up the volume entitled My Religion. Then we find that the author has become enmeshed in the orthodox figurative interpretation of the words of Christ. He becomes anxious to reconcile the difficulties of the theological interpretation of the words of Christ with his conscience, But he finds this a task almost agonising. At length he discards the teaching of the orthodox Greek Church, and turns to the bare literal words of the Greek texts of the Scripture. By a process of exegesis he rejects some conflicting words as spurious ; some he explains away, and at length he succeeds, to his own perfect satisfaction, in establishing what he conceives to be the gospel upon the literal words of Christ. Resist not evil, love one another, share one another's burdens, and so on—these are the lessons he bears away as the precious fruit of his agony of doubt, of his long and anxious meditations upon the Christian life. These lessons help us to settle the view he now accepts of life and its responsibilities. He has since become, nay he was up to the latest accounts of him, one of the most radical social reformers of this century. All day this man, a noble of the high nobility of Russia, rich even among the rich aristocracy of his land, possessed of great estates, labours on his fields, with his own hand spreading manure, harvesting, sowing, either for himself or for the peasantry, who are his only neighbours. He makes his own clothes, and the man who has enriched literature by some of the masterpieces of fiction that is almost biography in its breadth and faithfulness, spends his evenings making his own boots, patching his clothes, teaching his philosophy to his disciples from all Russia. His relations with his wife, who is an aristocrat as he was, and with his children, are of the frankest and kindest. There is no sourness in his religion, there is no egotism in his devotion to the creed he has formed, and to which he himself conforms. He refuses to accept other men's work, believing that each man should earn his own livelihood, and preferably by manual toil, as such brings him nearer to the only sane, healthy, and religious class—the toilers for bread. He teaches that man should be self-sufficient, making all that he uses, and producing all that he needs. He insists upon non-resistance. Resist not evil; if any one would have aught from you, give it; but do not obey evil ; if the Czar or the Church should call upon you to do that which is against the rule of Christ, do not obey ; go to prison rather. Slay no man, either by private vengeance or judicial process, or so-called patriotism. Make no war ; resist anger ; hoard no money ; be meek, be pure, be loving, be truthful : seek not your own. Charity is not giving money, it is giving yourself. This is the meaning of the work of Count Leo Tolstoi. We shall be prepared to hear that on the one hand the orthodox Church refuses license to print the extreme books of Tolstoi in Russia and that it is the opinion of competent observers that should ever the doctrines thus enunciated gain vogue in Russia a merciless persecution will follow on the part of the Church and the Czar. On the other hand, while great curiosity prevails in educated circles throughout Russia about the Count's teachings for spite of the censorship his doctrines are accessible to those who desire to know there is a widespread doubt in these circles as to Tolstoi's real faith in his own gospel. The weapon of assault is easy. The scoffers say Tolstoi has tasted all the round of pleasures which he now bans, he is secure in his family's wealth and power and he can afford to practice harmless eccentricities amongst his peasants. The answer of Tolstoi is that if the interests of his children and his family could be set aside he would be no more a man of wealth that he does at least endeavour to show the sincerity of his soul by (so far as he may) divesting himself of all the privilege of his wealth and station, that he has taught his views as far as the censorship would allow, and that beyond this he has one plea that he is human, and he throws himself upon the pity of those who would condemn him with this appeal: Here am I, Leo Tolstoi, I have sinned and have suffered and have found what seems a path of safety out of my distress, if you know a more excellent way, teach me do not abandon me in scorn, but if you know no better thing at least do not seek to take my only light from me and leave me to darkness and despair once more.

It is time to turn to this volume called Life. It is not biographical that belongs to the volumes Confession and Childhood, Boyhood, Youth. It is a long deliverance upon the true and the false theory of life, viewed from the standpoint of Tolstoi. Incidentally it is an arraignment and a condemnation of the modern scientific theory of evolution. The scientific definition of life, it is pointed out, is the sum of all a man's faculties that resist death. That, as Tolstoi points out is a definition that does not define. He proposes instead to make life consist only of that term of the animal existence from the time when a man learns that his animal existence is not all. " Man's life begins only with the appearance of rational consciousness—of that which reveals to man simultaneously his life in the present and the past, and the life of other individuals and all that flows inevitably from the relations of these individuals, suffering and death—of that same thing which calls forth in him the renunciation of personal happiness in life, and the inconsistency which as it seems to him, brings his life to a standstill." (Page 78) The development of this theory at great length makes the present volume not that from which a true idea of Tolstoi can be derived. Throughout is recognisable that trait of the Russian mind which cannot be satisfied by anything less than the extreme statement of a favourite idea. Taking the present book, we find that Count Tolstoi founds an argument for the extremely shadowy immortality which he postulates for humanity in the fact that as no man is self originated, he inherits his aptitudes, faculties, and indeed most if not all, of what goes to form his individual consciousness, or ego in the philosophical term, from his ancestors. Then upon the reasoning of life, since these ancestors exist in their descendant, who does not really exist, except as an animal, until the development of his rational consciousness, which, as Tolstoi admits is delayed in most men, and sometimes does not take place at all, as is the case of idiots, sensualists, and others it is necessary to infer that many men pass through existence without life and without the hope or prospect of immortality. This is not the only crux. Accepting as granted that the extreme altruism indicated by the author is the one and only mode of operation of rational consciousness, we are confronted by a series of considerations that go to show that such a scheme of life is as purely Utopian as the Platonic Republic; More's Utopia or Bacon's Atlantis, or any of the other ideal commonwealths.

Passages of pathetic simplicity and eloquence mark the book. Thus, to make one quotation :— "Who among living people does not know that blissful sensation,—even if but once experienced, and most frequently of all in the earliest childhood, before the soul is yet choked up with all that lie which stifles the life in us—that blessed feeling of emotion during which one desires to love every body, both those near to him his father and mother and brothers, and wicked people and his enemies and his dog, and his horse, and a blade of grass; he desires one thing —that it should be well with everybody, that all should be happy, and still more he desires that he himself may act so that it may be well with all that he may give himself and his whole life to making others comfortable and happy. And this and this alone, is that love in which lies the life of man." (Page 190 ) It is this book perhaps a reflex of its author's life. It is such in its confusion and goodwill that all must respect the loving nature from which it sprang. It has deep and intimate insight into many of the operations of the human mind. It abounds in moving appeals to one's better sense, and yet it is disappointing, profoundly so. It is pathetic to see the heroic assurance that the high and noble renunciation practised by the author in his relations to men is possible to all men. It is pathetic, but it is pathetic because one has to admit that the destiny of mankind is not to be taken by storm by these forlorn hopes of sweet courage, constancy, unselfishness. For the most of us life is a perpetual compromise between that which we know to be best and that which we know to be most practicable. The sad confession of Ovid is one that touches the common heart of mankind. The better course I know and I approve, yet I follow the worse one. And even when we do not follow the worse, it is the condemnation of Tolstoi's gospel of life, that we know at all times how hard it is to keep those heights of self sacrifice and courage that we are competent to gain.

Three of the short stories by which Count Tolstoi aims to instil in the popular mind his views upon life and duty are also sent by the same publisher. They are issued in a graceful form as Easter booklets, and are called Where Love is There is God, What Men Live By, and The Pilgrims. Each of them teaches the necessity of charity and human love. These booklets contain some of the series of "Tales for the People" which have been noticed in these columns as part of a review of Ivan Itzitch, in which volume they first appeared.

The Sydney Morning Herald 27 July 1889. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-page1384248