Part 12

The world could not do better than to accept Tolstoy's fundamental prescriptions: simplicity of living, application to work, and concentration upon moral culture. But to apply his radical scheme to existing conditions would amount to a self-stultification of the race, for it would entail the unpardonably sinful sacrifice of some of the finest and most hard-won achievements of human progress. For our quotidian difficulties his example promises no solution. The great mass of us are not privileged to test our individual schemes of redemption in the leisured security of an ideal experiment station; not for every man is there a Yasnaya Polyana, and the Sophia Andreyevnas are thinly sown in the matrimonial market.

But even though Tolstoyism will not serve as a means of solving the great social problems, it supplies a helpful method of social criticism. And its value goes far beyond that: the force of his influence was too great not to have strengthened enormously the moral conscience of the world; he has played, and will continue to play, a leading part in the establishing and safeguarding of democracy. After all, we do not have to separate meticulously what is true in Tolstoy's teaching from what is false in order to acknowledge him as a Voice of his epoch. For as Lord Morley puts the matter in the case of Jean Jacques Rousseau: "There are some teachers whose distinction is neither correct thought, nor an eye for the exigencies of practical organization, but simply depth and fervor of the moral sentiment, bringing with it the indefinable gift of touching many hearts with love of virtue and the things of the spirit."

[ Transcriber's Note:

The following is a list of corrections made to the original. The first line is the original line, the second the corrected one.

sublimal regions of the inner life, and that their work somehow brings subliminal regions of the inner life, and that their work somehow brings

in the writings of the de-gallisized Frenchman, Count Joseph Arthur in the writings of the de-gallicized Frenchman, Count Joseph Arthur

the same time, the universal decreptitude prevented the despiser of his the same time, the universal decrepitude prevented the despiser of his

artistic design was dimmed by the obstrusive didactic purpose. artistic design was dimmed by the obtrusive didactic purpose.

]