Transcribed from the 1887 Tomas Y. Crowell edition by DavidPrice,
by
COUNT LYOF N. TOLSTOÏ
translatedfrom the russian
By ISABEL F. HAPGOOD
NEW YORK
THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO.
13 Astor Place
1887
Copyright, 1887,
By THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO.
electrotypedand printed
BY RAND AVERY COMPANY,
boston.
Books which are prohibited by the Russian Censor are notalways inaccessible. An enterprising publishing-house inGeneva makes a specialty of supplying the natural craving of manfor forbidden fruit, under which heading some of Count L. N.Tolstoi’s essays belong. These essays circulate inRussia in manuscript; and it is from one of these manuscripts,which fell into the hands of the Geneva firm, that the first halfof the present translation has been made. It is thus thatthe Censor’s omissions have been noted, even in cases wheresuch omissions are in no way indicated in the twelfth volume ofCount Tolstoi’s collected works, published in Moscow. As an interesting detail in this connection, I may mention thatthis twelfth volume contains all that the censor allows of“My Religion,” amounting to a very much abridgedscrap of Chapter X. in the last-named volume as known to thepublic outside of Russia. The last half of the present bookhas not been published by the Geneva house, and omissions cannotbe marked.
ISABEL F. HAPGOOD
Boston, Sept. 1, 1887
The object of a census is scientific. A census is asociological investigation. And the object of the scienceof sociology is the happiness of the people. This scienceand its methods differ sharply from all other sciences.
Its peculiarity lies in this, that sociological investigationsare not conducted by learned men in their cabinets, observatoriesand laboratories, but by two thousand people from thecommunity. A second peculiarity is this, that theinvestigations of other sciences are not conducted on livingpeople, but here living people are the subjects. A thirdpeculiarity is, that the aim of every other science is simplyknowledge, while here it is the good of the people. One manmay investigate a nebula, but for the investigation of Moscow,two thousand persons are necessary. The object of the studyof nebulæ is merely that we may know about nebulæ;the object of the study of inhabitants is that sociological lawsmay be deduced, and that, on the foundation of these laws, abetter life for the people may be established. It makes nodifference to the nebula whether it is studied or not, and it haswaited long, and is ready to wait a great while longer; but it isnot a matter of indifference to the inhabitants of Moscow,especially to those unfortunates who constitute the mostinteresting subjects of the science of sociology.
The census-taker enters a night lodging-house; in the basementhe finds a man dying of hunger, and he politely inquires hisprofession, his name, his native place, the character of hisoccupation, and after a little hesitation as to whether he is tobe entered in the list as alive, he writes him in and goes hisway.
And thus will the two thousand young men proceed. Thisis not as it should be.
Science does its work, and the community, summoned in theperso