In this work, however, Tolstoy does not recapitulate at length what he has said before. He does not pause to re-explain why he condemns Patriotism—_i.e._, each man’s preference for the predominance of _his own_ country, which leads to the murder of man by man in war; or Churches, which are sectarian—_i.e._, which striving to assert that your doxy is heterodoxy, but that _our_ doxy is orthodoxy, make external authorities (Popes, Bibles, Councils) supreme, and cling to superstitions (_their own_ miracles, legends, and myths), thus separating themselves from communion with the rest of mankind. Nor does he re-explain why he (like Christ) says “pitiable is your plight—ye rich,” who live artificial lives, maintainable only by the unbrotherly use of force (police and soldiers), but blessed are ye poor—who, by your way of life, are within easier reach of brotherly conditions, if you will but trust to reason and conscience, and change the direction of your hearts and of your labour,—working no more primarily from fear or greed, but seeking _first_ the kingdom of righteousness, in which all good things will be added unto you. He merely summarises it all in a few sentences, defining the “religious perception” of to-day, which alone can decide for us “the degree of importance both of the feelings transmitted by art and of the information transmitted by science.” “The religious perception of our time, in its widest and most practical application, is the consciousness that our well-being, both material and spiritual, individual and collective, temporal and eternal, lies in the growth of brotherhood among men—in their loving harmony with one another” (p. 159). And again: “However differently in form people belonging to our Christian world may define the destiny of man; whether they see it in human progress in whatever sense of the words, in the union of all men in a socialistic realm, or in the establishment of a commune; whether they look forward to the union of mankind under the guidance of one universal Church, or to the federation of the world,—however various in form their definitions of the destination of human life may be, all men in our times already admit that the highest well-being attainable by men is to be reached by their union with one another” (p. 188).