What Tolstoy taught

Anyone may reject Count Tolstoy's teaching: no one can ignore it; his doctrine is dynamic, revolutionary, fatal if false, a message of peace if true. It has made a profound impression upon the world, and it would therefore behove us at least to know exactly what that doctrine is.

It is strange that, notwithstanding his great popularity and great influence upon thought and feeling, indirect as well as direct, there is no book written by which we can show plain people just what he does teach. I have long been a student of Tolstoy, but only in writing this book did I see, myself, all that Tolstoy taught.

No idea has been, added to the text or modified since that letter was written. The ideas have only been elaborated in order that they may be plain and clear; that they are rightly elaborated is clear from their agreement with the extracts from Tolstoy's other books, which, arranged, as far as may be, in a logical order, form the second part of this volume.

Lest the reader should suspect that I have per- haps softened Tolstoy's dogmatic and unqualified assertions, or arranged his words so as to convey my own thought, I should say that there is much in Tolstoy's writings that I cannot agree with. I recognize that it may well be that he sees much deeper than I. Those who care for my own views will find them in my Life and Love and Peace, form the basis of most of which I am indebted to this great Teacher.

What Tolstoy taught - PDF ( 1913 ) by Bolton Hall