A Confession

by Leo Tolstoy

Enquiring for one region of human knowledge, I received an innumerable quantity of exact replies concerning matters about which I had not asked: about the chemical constituents of the stars, about the movement of the sun towards the constellation Hercules, about the origin of species and of man, about the forms of infinitely minute imponderable particles of ether; but in this sphere of knowledge the only answer to my question, “What is the meaning of my life?” was: “You are what you call your ‘life’; you are a transitory, casual cohesion of particles. The mutual interactions and changes of these particles produce in you what you call your ‘life.’ That cohesion will last some time; afterwards the interaction of these particles will cease and what you call life’ will cease, and so will all your questions. You are an accidentally united little lump of something. That little lump ferments. The little lump calls that fermenting its ‘life’. The lump will disintegrate, and there will be an end of the fermenting and of all the questions.” So answers the clear side of science and cannot answer otherwise if it strictly follows its principles.