Being unable to believe in the sincerity of men who did not live consistently with the doctrines they professed, and feeling that they were self-deceived, and, like myself, were satisfied with the lusts of the flesh, I began to draw near to the believers amongst the poor, simple, and ignorant, the pilgrims, monks, and peasants.  I found that though their faith was mingled with much superstition, yet with them the whole life was a confirmation of the meaning of life which their faith gave them.

The more I contemplated the lives of these simple folk, the more deeply was I convinced of the reality of their faith, which I perceived to be a necessity for them, for it alone gave life a meaning and made it worth living.  This was in direct opposition to what I saw in my own circle, where I marked the possibility of living without faith, for not one in a thousand professed to be a believer, while amongst the poorer classes not one in thousands was an unbeliever.  The contradiction was extreme.  In my class a tranquil death, without terror or despair, is rare; in that lower class, an uneasy death is a rare exception.  I found that countless numbers in that lower mass of humanity had so understood the meaning of life that they were able both to live bearing contentedly the burdens of life, and to die peacefully.

The more I learned of these men of faith the more I liked them, and the easier I felt it so to live.  For two years I lived in their fashion.  Then the life of my own wealthy and cultured class became repellent to me, for it had lost all meaning whatever.  It seemed like empty child’s play, while the life of the working classes appeared to me in its true significance.

Now I began to apprehend where I had judged wrongly.  My mistake was that I had applied an answer to my question concerning life which only concerned my own life, to life in general.  My life had been but one long indulgence of my passions.  It was evil and meaningless.  Therefore such an answer had no application to life at large, but only to my individual life.

I understood the truth which the Gospel subsequently taught me more fully, that men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.  I understood that for the comprehension of life, it was essential that life should be something more than an evil and meaningless thing revealed by reason.  Life must be considered as a whole, not merely in its parasitic excrescences.  I felt that to be good was more important than to believe.  I loved good men.  I hated myself.  I accepted truth.  I understood that we were all more or less mad with the love of evil.

I looked at the animals, saw the birds building nests, living only to fly and to subsist.  I saw how the goat, hare, and wolf live, but to feed and to nurture their young, and are contented and happy.  Their life is a reasonable one.  And man must gain his living like the animals do, only with this great difference, that if he should attempt this alone, he will perish.  So he must labour for the good of all, not merely for himself.