I could go no further here, again. For I was talking with the man who repudiates his own immortal works because they are beyond the comprehension of most people, and therefore help to widen the gulf between the educated and the uneducated. I could not even make the objection that almost all learning must be condemned on the same ground, for it is well known that Tolstoï does not shrink from even this conclusion. It is not, however, a matter of indifference to him whether people consider his views to be scientifically founded--_i. e._, correctly reasoned out or not. He said to me in the course of the conversation: "I often laugh, and I also often grow angry, when people cast it in my face that my studies are not scientific. I assert in return that the whole of positivism and materialism is unscientific. If I seek a science by which I can _live_, I seek it only logically and steadfastly, or scientifically, with no contradiction within itself from its premises to its final conclusion. Scepticism, on the other hand, completely denies every concept of life. And yet the sceptic wishes to live, otherwise he would kill himself. He admits, therefore, by the mere fact that he is alive that his whole philosophy is nothing for him but an idle exercise of the intellect which has no bearing on his life. That means that it is not in the least _true_ for him. I, however, seek the premise from which I can not only live, but live peacefully and cheerfully. This premise is God, and the duty for us that of perfecting ourselves. I follow the consequence of that premise to the end, and feel that I am right not only in words but also in deeds."