In 1889 his _Kreutzer Sonata_ appeared, and was the first of his works to carry his name to the borders of civilization. This little tale was the first to be translated into all cultivated languages. It was disseminated in hundreds of thousands of copies, and was read by millions with lively emotion. From this time onward the public opinion of the Western nations placed him in the first rank of living authors: his name was in everyone’s mouth, and universal sympathy turned not only towards his early writings (which had remained unnoticed for decades), but also to his person and his career, and he became, as it were, in a night what he unquestionably is now in the evening of his life--one of the chief representative figures of the departing century. Yet the _Kreutzer Sonata_ stands, as a poetic creation, not so high as most of his older works. A fame which was not gained by _War and Peace_, _The Cossacks_, _Anna Karenina_, etc., nor, indeed, until long after the appearance of these rich creations, but came at one stroke through the _Kreutzer Sonata_, cannot therefore depend either solely or principally on æsthetic excellence. The history of this fame shows consequently that Tolstoi the novelist is not the cause of Tolstoism. In fact, the tendency of mind so named is far more--perhaps wholly and entirely--traceable to Tolstoi the philosopher. The philosopher is, therefore, incomparably more important to our inquiry than the novelist. Tolstoi has formed certain views on the position of man in the world, on his relation to collective humanity, and on the aim of his life, which are visible in all his creations, but which he has also set forth connectedly in several theoretic works, especially in _My Confession_, _My Faith_, _A Short Exposition of the Gospel_, and _About my Life_. These views are but little complicated, and can be condensed in a few words: the individual is nothing; the species is everything; the individual lives in order to do his fellow-creatures good; thought and inquiry are great evils; science is perdition; faith is salvation.