2) Anarchy does not mean the absence of institutions, but only the
absence of those institutions to which people are compelled to submit
by force, but those institutions to which people submit themselves
voluntarily, rationally. It seems to me that otherwise there cannot
be established and ought not to be, a society of beings endowed with
reason.
3) “Why is it that after sin, suffering does not follow that person
who committed the sin? Then he would see what ought not to be
done”--because people live not separately but in society and if
every one suffered from the sin of each one, then every one would
have to resist it.
4) Conscience is the memory of society assimilated by separate
individuals.
5) In old age you experience the same thing as on a journey. At first
your thoughts are on that place from which you are going, then on
the journey itself, and then on the place to which you are going.
I experience this more and more often, thinking of death.
6) It is true that a great sin might be beneficial, by calling forth
repentance before God, independently from human judgment. Such a
sin leads one away from the realm of human judgment, from vanity,
which masters man and hides from him his relation to God.[387]
7) The physical growth is only a preparation of material for spiritual
work, the service to God and man which begins with the withering of
the body.
_To-day Oct. 13. Y. P._
I am still not fully well. It is as it ought to be. But that does
not hinder from living, thinking and moving towards a fixed goal.
_Resurrection_ advances poorly. Have sent away four chapters, I think
not passable by the censor, but at least I think I have settled on one
point, and that I won’t make any more great important changes. I do
not cease thinking of brother Sergei, but because of the weather and
ill health I cannot make up my mind to go.... Sonya was in Moscow and
is going again to-day. To-day I had a kind of intellectual idleness,
not only to-day, but all these latter days. For _Resurrection_ I
have thought out good scenes. Concerning separateness which appears
to us as matter in space and movement in time, I am thinking more
and more often and more and more clearly.
I have also received Westrup’s pamphlets from America about the
money,[388] which struck me by explaining everything that was unclear
in financial questions and reducing everything as it ought to be,
to violence.... If I get time I will write it out. I have another
important, joyous thought, although an old one, but which came to
me as a new one and which makes me very happy, namely:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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