Nordau finds traces of degeneracy in Tolstoi’s question, “Wherefore am I alive?” and in the manner in which Tolstoi finds a reply to that question. It seems however that Nordau too has asked, himself that question, for in his book _Degeneration_ (page 149) he replies to it in a close, well-reasoned, passage, which deserves to be read to its full extent. We shall quote only a part of it in order to compare the reply he himself obtains with the reply obtained, by Tolstoi. After having shown that the aim of a man’s life is necessarily involved in the greater question—the aim of the universe—and that such an aim cannot exist objectively in time or space, he says: “But if it is not objective, if it does not exist in time and space, it must, in order to be conceivable, exist somewhere, virtually, as idea, as a plan and design. But that which contains a design, a thought, a plan, we name consciousness; and consciousness that can conceive a plan of the universe, and for its realization designedly uses the forces of nature, is synonymous, with God. If a man however believes in a God, he loses at once the right to raise the question, ‘Wherefore am I alive?’ since it is in that case an insolent presumption, an effort of small, weak man to look over God’s shoulder, to spy out God’s plan, to aspire to the height of omniscience. But neither is it in such a case necessary, since a God without the highest wisdom cannot be conceived; and if He has devised a plan for the world, this is certain to be perfect, all its parts are in harmony, and the aim to which every co-operator, from the smallest to the greatest, will devote himself is the best conceivable. Thus man can live in complete rest and confidence in the impulses and forces implanted in him by God, because he, in every case, fulfils a high and worthy destiny by co-operating in a, to him, unknown Divine plan of the world.” We here notice his words: “that which contains a design, a thought, a plan, we name consciousness.” Now, nobody knows better than the scientists that so far all scientific discovery has revealed plan, method, and purpose, in the smallest thing and the smallest phenomena in the universe. Is it then necessary to be degenerate to believe in a self-conscious Providence? John Stuart Mill observes that the fact that we find in nature, especially in human and animal bodies, physical and mechanical problems solved in the same way as engineers had solved them long before they knew of such solutions in nature, points not only to the existence of an intelligent Creator, but to a similarity of His intelligence to that of human beings. According to the passage from Nordau, then, the planning in nature proves a conscious force, a conscious force is synonymous with God, and the man who believes in God can live in complete rest in his faith. Tolstoi obtained a reply to his question in a manner which he describes in the following words: