About this book
What is the "good life" for us mortal beings? Two months spent recovering from a severe injury allowed Tolstoy to develop and organise his thoughts on the subject. On Life is his philosophical answer where love, religion, and morality come together to ground us in reality. - Summary by Cao Yuqing
Chapters (40)
1Chapter 1 The essential contradiction inherent in human life
2Chapter 2 Humanity has recognized from the earliest days the contradiction of life...
3Chapter 3 The errors of the Scribes
4Chapter 4 The doctrine of the Scribes substitutes the visible manifestation of man's animal existence...
5Chapter 5 The false doctrines of the Pharisees and Scribes no more explain the true meaning of life...
6Chapter 6 The division in the consciousness of the men of our time
7Chapter 7 The division of consciousness proceeds from the confusion of the animal life with the human
8Chapter 8 The division and the contradiction are only apparent: they are the consequence of false doctrine
9Chapter 9 The birth of the true life in man
10Chapter 10 Reason is the law recognized by man, in conformity with which his life must be perfected
11Chapter 11 False direction of knowledge
12Chapter 12 The cause of false knowledge is the false perspective in which objects appear
13Chapter 13 The possibility of understanding objects increases not in proportion to their manifestation in time and space...
14Chapter 14 The true human life is not that which is lived in time and space
15Chapter 15 The renunciation of the wellbeing of the animal individuality is the law of human life
16Chapter 16 The animal individuality is the instrument of life
17Chapter 17 Birth by the Spirit
18Chapter 18 The demands of the reasonable consciousness
19Chapter 19 Confirmation of the demands of the reasonable consciousness
20Chapter 20 The demands of the individuality appear incompatible with those of the reasonable consciousness
21Chapter 21 What is required is not renunciation of our individuality but the subjugation of individuality to the reasonable consciousness
22Chapter 22 The feeling of love is the manifestation of the activity of the individuality subjected to the reasonable consciousness
23Chapter 23 The manifestation of the feeling of love is impossible to men who do not understand the meaning of their life
24Chapter 24 True love is a consequence of the renunciation of the welfare of the individuality
25Chapter 25 Love is the sole and complete activity of the true life
26Chapter 26 The efforts of men, directed to the impossible amelioration of their existence, deprive them of the possibility of living the one true life
27Chapter 27 The fear of death is only the consciousness of the unsolved contradiction of life
28Chapter 28 Carnal death destroys the body limited in space and the consciousness limited in time...
29Chapter 29 Men fear death because they have restricted life by their false conception, taking a part of life to be the whole
30Chapter 30 Life is a relationship to the world. The movement of life is the establishment of new and loftier relationships...
31Chapter 31 The life of men when they are dead does not cease in this world
32Chapter 32 The dread of death proceeds from man's confusion of his different relationships to the world
33Chapter 33 The visible life is a part of the infinite movement of life
34Chapter 34 The incomprehensibility of the sufferings of earthly existence proves to man more convincingly than anything...
35Chapter 35 Physical sufferings constitute an indispensable condition of the life and welfare of men
36Conclusion
37Appendix I
38Appendix II
39Appendix III
40Appendix IV Mr. H. W. Massingham on "Life"
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