_November 12, Y. P. If I live._ _November 12, Y. P._ To-day Peter Ossipov came:[241] “In our place they have begun to sell indulgences.” The Vladimir-ikon was there and it was ordered through the village elder, that the people be driven to the Church.[242] N. found ore and considers it very natural that people shall live under the ground, in danger of their lives, and he will receive the income. ... The most important thing is that I have decided to write _The Appeal_; there is no time to postpone it. To-day I corrected _On Science_. It is evening now, have taken up two versions of _The Appeal_, and am going to work on it. _Nov. 14, Y. P._ ... One thing I want: To do what is better before God. I don’t know how yet. I slept badly at night; bad thoughts, wicked ones. And I am apathetic, no desire to work. Corrected the preface _On Science_. I made the following notes: 1) I read of the behavior of the English in Africa. It is all terrible. But the thought came to my head: Perhaps it was unavoidably necessary in order that enlightenment should penetrate these peoples. At first I was absorbed in the thought and it occurred to me that thus it had to be done. What nonsense! Why should not people, living a Christian life, go in simply like Miklukha-Maklai,[243] live with them, but is it necessary to trade, make drunkards of them, kill? They say: “If people were to live as Christians, they would have no work.” Here is the work and it is an enormous work: while the Gospels are being preached to all creation. 2) Science, losing its religious basis, has begun to study trifles--in the main, it has ceased to study important things. From that time on was formed the theory of experimental science, Bacon. 3) I was thinking, _pendant_ to _Hadji Murad_, of writing about another Russian brigand, Gregori Nicholaev. He should see the whole lawlessness of the life of the rich, he should live as a watchman of an apple-orchard on a rich estate with a _lawn-tennis_.[244] 4) To-day I am in a very bad mood, and it is very difficult for me to remember, to imagine to myself what I am when I am in a good mood. But it is absolutely necessary, so as not to despair and not do something bad when in a bad mood, to abstain from every activity. Is it not the same in life? One ought not to believe that I am this good-for-nothing which I feel myself to be, but to make an effort, remember what I am _there_, what I am in _spirit_, and live according to that remembered “self,” or do not live at all--abstain. 5) “_Toute réunion d’hommes est toujours inférieure aux éléments qui la composent._”[245] This is so because they are united by rules. In their own natural union, as God has united them, they are not only not lower, but many times higher. I read Menshikov’s article. There is much that is good in it: about one-God and many Gods, and much that is very weak; the examples.[246] _Nov. 15, Y. P. If I live._ _Nov. 15, Y. P._