"You may be right," he answered. "I have the same impression. The belief in its invincibility is broken, and its internal strength of conviction begins to weaken. It had to be so. Socialism cannot free humanity. No system and no doctrine can do that--nothing but religion." "The Church says that, too." "But she teaches it falsely. What is religion? The striving of each individual soul towards perfection; the subordination to an ideal. As long as a man has that he feels a purpose in life, can endure all sufferings, and is capable of any strain. It does not need necessarily to be a lofty ideal. A man may have an ambition to develop his biceps to an uncommon degree. If he takes this as his particular purpose in life this aim carries him along completely. To be sure, a man's choice of an ideal can be only apparently capricious. In reality we are all products of our environment; and after nineteen hundred years of Christianity we cannot with any true conviction set up ideals which contradict the real Christianity. We can make ourselves believe something else for a while. But the conscience will not submit to be silenced. Peace is attained only by the religious ideal of perfection and of love of humanity. Nothing is deadly except cynicism and nihilism." "I remember your metaphor, comparing a society without religion or moral enthusiasm to an orchestra that has lost its leader. It keeps in time for a while, then come the discords." "We are now in the first measure after his departure. All will go well for a while, but then every one will get out of time; the leaders first, because they are most exposed to temptation; then, class by class, the lower ones also." "I believe a state is like a magnet, in which every smallest particle must have its direction, or else the whole loses its strength and cohesion." "Exactly. A state or a society, like the individual, is fit for life only so long as it feels as a whole a reason for being. This life principle of totality is, however, identical with the idea of the individual. It is the stream that encircles each particle and brings it into polarity." "People try to reach it by the ideal of nationalism and patriotism." "That is no ideal. It is an absurd idea, which immediately comes into irreconcilable conflict with our better feelings. An ideal that can and does require me to kill my neighbor in order to gain an advantage for the group to which I belong is criminal." "Yet it is dangerous to stand out against it. You had a controversy on that point with Spielhagen, who cast it up to you that you incline people to fling themselves under the wheels of a flying express-train." "I remember. But Spielhagen does not know how many people already comply with the requirements of the gospel. The Doukhobors are such people." "But they were obliged to leave the country."