When I had plainly understood all this, it seemed to me ridiculous, that I, through a long series of doubt, research, and much thinking, had arrived at this extraordinary truth, that if man has eyes, they are to be seen through; ears, to hear by; feet to walk with, and hands and back to work with,--and that if man will not use these, his members, for what they are meant, then it will be the worse for him. I came to this conclusion, that with us, privileged people, the same thing has happened which happened to the horses of a friend of mine: The steward, who was not fond of horses, and did not understand any thing about them, having received from his masters orders to prepare the best cobs for sale, chose the best out of the drove of horses, put them into the stable, fed them upon oats; but being over-anxious, he trusted them to nobody, neither rode them himself, nor drove nor led them. Of course, all these horses became good for nothing. The same has happened to us with this difference,--that you cannot deceive horses, and, in order not to let them out, they must be fastened in; while we are kept in unnatural and hurtful conditions by all sorts of temptations, which fasten and hold us as with chains. We have arranged for ourselves a life which is against the moral and physical nature of man, and we use all the powers of our mind in order to assure men that this life is the real one. All that we call culture,--our science and arts for improving the delights of life,--all these are only meant to deceive man's natural moral requirements: all that we call hygiene, and the art of healing, are endeavours to deceive the natural physical want of human nature. But these deceits have their limits, and we are come to these limits. "If such be real human life, then it is better not to live at all," says the fashionable philosophy of Schopenhauer and Hartman. "If such is life, then it is better not to live at all," is the witness borne by the increasing number of suicides among the privileged classes. "If such be life, it is better for future generations, too, not to live," says the indulgent healing art, and invents means to destroy women's fecundity. In the Bible the law to human beings is expressed thus: "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread," and "In sorrow thou shall bring forth children." The peasant Bondaref, who wrote an article about this, threw great light upon the wisdom of this sentence. During the whole of my life, two thinking men--Russians--have exercised a great influence over me: they have enriched my thoughts, and enlightened my contemplation of the world.