2) This explanation came to me: the soul, the spiritual essence, can live in its own centre or within its own limits. Living in itself, it is not conscious of its limits; living in the periphery it incessantly and painfully feels its limits. A release from this state is the recognition of the illusion of the material world, to go away from the limits, to concentrate in oneself. (Unclear.)
Oct. 17. Y. P. If I live.
Oct. 17. Y. P. 12 midnight.
... Help me, Lord, to act not according to my will, but according to Thine. Received a letter from N about Beller and other ministers who preach the inconsistency of military service and Christianity,[233] and about Chertkov, that he was fussy, had sinned and had fallen ill.[234]
Am correcting the 10th chapter, it is about to be sent off.[235]... My letter was printed in the Peterburgskia Viedomosti.
I thought: The road of all evil and of all suffering is not so much ignorance as false knowledge—deception. The Appeal ought to be finished with an appeal for all to help towards the abolition of deception.
Oct. 18. Yasn. Pol. If I live.
Yesterday I made no notes; to-day Oct. 19. Y. P.
... Both yesterday and to-day I felt great apathy, although I was well. I don’t feel like working. Corrected Chapters 13, 14, 15. I received the re-copied chapters from Moscow and the conclusion. Yesterday I went to Yasenki. To-day I chopped wood and carried it. Novikov was here. Viacheslav[236] spent the night. To-day a letter from Boulanger. I want to write to him right away and to my wife. I ought to write to Salomon.
Solitude nevertheless is very pleasant.