27Octoberоктября · 27-е октября
Истинная религия не может быть противна разуму.
True religion cannot be contrary to reason.
1. Не верьте тому, чтобы в деле религии можно бы было не доверять разуму. Вера в силу разума лежит в основании всякой другой веры. Нельзя верить в бога, если мы умаляем значение той способности, посредством которой мы познаем бога. Если после добросовестного и беспристрастного использования наших лучших способностей известное вероучение кажется нам противоречивым или не согласным с главными истинами, в которых мы не сомневаемся, мы, несомненно, должны воздержаться от веры в это учение. Я более убежден в том, что моя разумная природа от бога, чем в том, что какая-либо книга есть выражение его воли.
1. Do not believe that in matters of religion we may distrust reason. Faith in the power of reason lies at the foundation of every other faith. We cannot believe in God if we belittle the faculty by which we know God. If, after a conscientious and impartial use of our best faculties, some doctrine seems to us self-contradictory or at odds with the chief truths we do not doubt, we must certainly withhold our belief from that doctrine. I am more certain that my rational nature is from God than that any book is the expression of his will.
From Self-Denial, First Discourse · reworded by Tolstoy .
What changedWithholding belief from “a professed revelation” becomes withholding it from “a doctrine.”
Channing’s own words… have another objection to the doctrine that we must deny reason in order to follow revelation.
Faith in this power lies at the foundation of all other faith.
No trust can be placed in God if we discredit the faculty by which God is discerned.
… if, after a deliberate and impartial use of our best faculties, a professed revelation seems to us plainly to disagree with itself or to clash with great principles which we cannot question, we ought not to hesitate to withhold from it our belief …
I am surer that my rational nature is from God than that any book is an expression of his will.
Source text: archive.orgDetails
The words shown were found, word for word, in the saved source text. Self-Denial, First Discourse (sermon on Matthew 16:24), in The Complete Works of W. E. Channing (London: Christian Life Publishing Co., 1884), pp. 259-260, the section on whether self-denial means denying reason ('I am told that I must deny reason').
The middle and closing sentences are Channing's, nearly word for word, taken from one page. The opening imperative is Tolstoy's summary of Channing's argument. Where Channing says to withhold belief from 'a professed revelation' that contradicts itself or clear principles, Tolstoy says a 'doctrine' (вероучение), which moves the test from claimed revelations to creeds. Tolstoy probably worked from Broadbent's Channing selection (London, 1903), which is on his source list; no copy was found online.
2. Если бог, как предмет нашей веры, выше нашего разумения и мы не можем обнять его разумом, то из этого еще не следует, что мы должны пренебрегать деятельностью разума, считая ее вредною.
Хотя предметы веры, без всякого сомнения, находятся вне круга нашего разумения, выше его, однако разум и по отношению к ним имеет такое важное значение, что мы без него обойтись никак не можем.
2. If God, as the object of our faith, is above our understanding, and we cannot encompass him with our reason, it does not yet follow that we should disdain the work of reason and think it harmful.
Although the objects of faith undoubtedly lie outside the circle of our understanding, and above it, even with regard to them reason matters so much that we can in no way do without it.
Source not found yet .
Not found yet.
Probably from Strakhov's writings on faith and reason (he also read all the proofs of the Circle's first edition, per the Jubilee commentary). The Jubilee notes cite his collection 'Искание истины' only in the Посредник edition of 1911 (№ 785, with Tolstoy's introductory letter), though Tolstoy wrote in August 1910 that he had re-read the book, so an earlier text or manuscript existed. No online text of any of Strakhov's works was found, so the passage could not be checked.
Searched: Web searches for distinctive phrases ('не можем обнять его разумом', 'вне круга нашего разумения') and for 'Искание истины'; az.lib.ru author paths; archive.org; ru.wikisource (only Jubilee-edition references: vol. 81 p. 204, vol. 54, 56, 58 notes give the 1911 Посредник edition); Jubilee vol. 42 commentary has no source for this thought.
3. Еще наивен, как взрослый ребенок, тот, кто может серьезно верить, что когда-то какие-то нечеловеческие существа растолковали нашему человеческому роду существование и цель его и всего мира. Нет иного откровения, кроме мыслей мудрецов, хотя мысли их и подвержены заблуждению, — по участи всего человеческого и часто облекаются в форму удивительных аллегорий и мифов, принимая тогда название откровений. И потому, казалось бы, всё равно, полагаться ли на свои мысли, или на чужие, потому что мысли, которые передаются нам, как откровения, все-таки только человеческие мысли. И всё же — обыкновенно люди более склонны полагаться на чужие головы, обладающие будто бы сверхчеловеческими источниками мысли, чем на свои собственные. Впрочем, если принять в расчет всё умственное неравенство людей, то, пожалуй, мысли одного действительно могут казаться сверхъестественным откровением для другого.
3. Only a man still as naive as a grown child can seriously believe that once upon a time some beings not human explained to our human race its existence and purpose, and that of the whole world. There is no revelation other than the thoughts of the wise — though their thoughts, as is the lot of everything human, are liable to error, and are often clothed in wonderful allegories and myths, and then take the name of revelations. And so it would seem to make no difference whether one relies on one’s own thoughts or on another’s, since the thoughts handed down to us as revelations are, after all, only human thoughts. And yet people are usually more inclined to rely on other heads, supposedly possessed of superhuman sources of thought, than on their own. Still, if one takes into account the whole intellectual inequality of men, the thoughts of one may perhaps really seem a supernatural revelation to another.
From Parerga und Paralipomena, vol. 2 · close to the original .
Original · GermanDer aber iſt nur noch ein großes Kind, welcher im Ernſt denken kann, daß jemals Weſen, die keine Menſchen waren, unſerm Geſchlecht Aufſchlüſſe über ſein und der Welt Daſeyn und Zweck gegeben hätten. Es giebt keine andere Offenbarung, als die Gedanken der Weiſen; wenn auch dieſe, dem Looſe alles Menſchlichen gemäß, dem Irrthum unterworfen, auch oft in wunderliche Allegorien und Mythen eingekleidet ſind, wo ſie dann Religionen heißen. Inſofern iſt es alſo einerlei, ob Einer im Verlaß auf eigene, oder auf fremde Gedanken, lebt und ſtirbt: denn immer find es nur menſchliche Gedanken, denen er vertraut, und menſchliches Bedünken. Jedoch haben die Menſchen, in der Regel, die Schwäche, lieber Andern, welche übernatürliche Quellen vorgeben, als ihrem eigenen Kopfe zu trauen. Faſſen wir nun aber die ſo überaus große intellektuelle Ungleichheit zwiſchen Menſch und Menſch ins Auge; ſo könnten allenfalls wohl die Gedanken des Einen dem Andern gewiſſermaaßen als Offenbarungen gelten.
Source text: archive.orgIn English · T. Bailey Saunders, 1889Whoever seriously thinks that superhuman beings have ever given our race information as to the aim of its existence and that of the world, is still in his childhood. There is no other revelation than the thoughts of the wise, even though these thoughts, liable to error as is the lot of everything human, are often clothed in strange allegories and myths under the name of religion. So far, then, it is a matter of indifference whether a man lives and dies in reliance on his own or another's thoughts; for it is never more than human thought, human opinion, which he trusts. Still, instead of trusting what their own minds tell them, men have as a rule a weakness for trusting others who pretend to supernatural sources of knowledge. And in view of the enormous intellectual inequality between man and man, it is easy to see that the thoughts of one mind might appear as in some sense a revelation to another.
Source text: gutenberg.orgDetails
The words shown were found, word for word, in the saved source text. Parerga und Paralipomena, vol. 2 (1851; 2nd ed., ed. Frauenstädt, 1862), Ch. XV "Ueber Religion", § 177 "Offenbarung" (2nd-edition numbering; § 176 in the 1851 first edition), second paragraph; p. 387 of the 1862 edition.
A close, complete translation of the paragraph. Tolstoy leaves out the paragraph before it (heaven stays silent, priests come with revelations) and slightly expands "only human thoughts" into "thoughts handed to us as revelations are still only human thoughts". In Saunders the passage closes the essay "The Christian System".
4. Стараются сделать невозможным не только высказывание и передачу истины, но даже самое размышление о ней и открытие ее, с самого детства отдавая голову на обработку духовенству, которое так глубоко вдавит колею, в которой впредь будут двигаться основные мысли, что они в большинстве случаев сложатся и установятся на всю жизнь.
4. They try to make impossible not only the uttering and passing on of truth, but even the very thinking about it and finding it, by handing the head over, from earliest childhood, to the clergy to be worked on; and the clergy press so deep the rut in which the fundamental thoughts are henceforth to run that, in most cases, those thoughts take shape and set for life.
From Parerga und Paralipomena, vol. 2 · close to the original .
Original · GermanNicht nur das Ausſprechen und die Mit⸗ theilung der Wahrheit, nein, ſelbſt das Denken und Auffinden …
… derſelben hat man unmöglich zu machen geſucht, dadurch, daß man in früheſter Kindheit die Köpfe den Prieſtern, zum Be⸗ arbeiten, in die Hände gab, die nun das Gleis, in welchem die Grundgedanken ſich fortan zu bewegen hatten, fo feſt hinein drückten, daß ſolche, in der Hauptſache, auf die ganze Lebenszeit feſtgeſtellt und beſtimmt waren.
Source text: archive.orgIn English · T. Bailey Saunders, 1889People have tried to make the expression and communication of truth, even the contemplation and discovery of it, impossible, by putting children, in their earliest years, into the hands of priests to be manipulated; to have the lines, in which their fundamental thoughts are henceforth to run, laid down with such firmness as, in essential matters, to be fixed and determined for this whole life.
Source text: gutenberg.orgDetails
The words shown were found, word for word, in the saved source text. Parerga und Paralipomena, vol. 2 (1851; 2nd ed., ed. Frauenstädt, 1862), Ch. XV "Ueber Religion", § 175 "Ein Dialog" (§ 174 in the 1851 edition), speech of Philalethes; pp. 361–362 of the 1862 edition.
One sentence lifted from the dialogue. Tolstoy drops the context, the pressure religion has put on philosophy, so his impersonal subject goes unexplained; "Priestern" becomes "the clergy". Otherwise faithful, the rut pressed into the mind included.
5. Свет остается светом, хотя слепой и не видит его.
5. Light remains light, though the blind do not see it.
6. Доколе свет в вас, веруйте в свет, да будете сынами света.
6. While the light is in you, believe in the light, that you may be sons of light.
From John 12:36, Russian Synodal Bible · reworded by Tolstoy .
What changed“While the light is with you” becomes “while the light is in you.”
The Russian Bible (Synodal translation)Доколе свет с вами, веруйте в свет, да будете сынами света.
Source text: ru.wikisource.orgIn English · King James Version, 1611While ye have light, believe in the light, that ye may be the children of light.
Source text: gutenberg.orgDetails
The words shown were found, word for word, in the saved source text. John 12:36, Russian Synodal Bible (New Testament 1862, complete Bible 1876), John 12:36, first half.
One word changed: the Synodal 'Доколе свет с вами' (while the light is with you) becomes 'Доколе свет в вас' (while the light is in you), turning Jesus's presence among his hearers into a light within them. The KJV, like the Greek, has 'While ye have light'. The rest of the verse (Jesus departing and hiding himself) is dropped.
Translation note. Tolstoy’s «Доколе свет в вас» (while the light is in you): the Synodal Bible reads «с вами» (with you). The inward reading is his. See the source note.
Не подавлять свой разум, как этому учат лжеучители, нужно для того, чтобы познать истину, а напротив, очищать, напрягать его, проверять им всё, что предлагается.
To know the truth we must not suppress our reason, as false teachers teach, but on the contrary cleanse it, exert it, and test by it everything that is offered us.
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