ABSTRACT
With all the oratorical and moral vehemence of Leo Tolstoy overstrained conscience, the great champion slung his stone so violently against the wall of our century that it was almost breached, and is still trembling from the blow. Tolstoy rejects, as futile and im practicable, the democratic, philanthropic, pacifist, and revolutionary attempts to improve the forms of government. No duma, no parliament, and above all no revolution, can deliver the nation from the "evil" of force. Tolstoy resolutely turns his back on the State, and declares that he is morally independent of any dictates other than those of his own conscience. Russian thought, before it can upbuild, must clear the ground. No Russian artist has been spared the necessity of descending into the darkest depths of nihilism, before rising out of black despair to heights of new and ardent faith.
