“Of the life to come, although of course the words ‘to come’ are inappropriate here, of life beyond our physical being, it is impossible to have knowledge. We can imagine two forms only: either a new form of the individual life, or a fusion of personal life in the life of the whole. The former seems to us more comprehensible and more likely, since we only know our individual life and we can more easily accept the idea of the same life in a different form.” _July 14th._ In the beginning of July my wife and I spent two days in Yasnaya Polyana. On the occasion of Mme. Kolokoltsev’s[3] suicide Tolstoi said to me: “I can’t understand why people look upon suicide as a crime. It seems to me to be man’s right. It gives a man the chance of dying when he no longer wishes to live. The Stoics thought like that.” As Mme. Kolokoltsev was insane, the conversation turned on insanity. I said, as I had done previously, that the spiritual life of the so-called insane remains unchanged. All that happens is that a mad person cannot make his personality felt. Tolstoi agreed with me. Next day he said to me: “Yesterday’s conversation on insanity was of great interest to me. I have been thinking a great deal about it. There are two consciousnesses in us: one--the animal; the other--the spiritual. The spiritual is not always shown in us, but it is this that makes our true spiritual life, which is not subject to time. I do not know how it is with you who are comparatively young, but with me there are times in my long life which are clearly preserved in my memory, and other times which have completely disappeared, they no longer exist. The moments which remain are most frequently the moments when the spirit in me awoke. It often happens at a time when one has done something wrong, and suddenly one wakes up, realizes that it is bad, and feels the spirit in one with special force. Spiritual life is a recollection. A recollection is not the past, it is always the present. It is our spirit, which shows itself more or less clearly, that contains the progress of man’s temporary existence. There can be no progress for the spirit, for it is not in time. What the life in time is for, we do not know; it is only a transitory phenomenon. Speaking metaphorically, I see this manifestation of the spirit in us as the breathing of God. “There is a beautiful story about the unreality of time in _The Arabian Nights_. Some one was put into a bath; he dipped his head in the water and saw a long history with most complicated adventures; and then when he raised his head from the water, it turned out that he had only dipped his head in once!” Tolstoi was talking about Fedorov and Peterson, particularly about Fedorov: