The ethics of wine-drinking and tobacco-smoking / [Leo Tolstoi].

  • Tolstoy, Leo, graf, 1828-1910.
Date:
[1889?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The ethics of wine-drinking and tobacco-smoking / [Leo Tolstoi]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    stupefied, and the hitch in your work is removed; that which seemed petty, unworthy, while your brain was still fresh and clear, now appears great, excellent; that which struck you as obscure is no longer so ; you make light of the objections that occur to you, and you continue to write, and find to your joy that you can write quickly and much. IV. “ But can it be possible that such a slight, almost imperceptible, change as is produced by the mild flush of excitement that ensues upon our moderately indulging in wine or tobacco should work such grave results ? No doubt, to a person who smokes opium, takes hashish, drinks alcohol so immoderately that he falls down help¬ less and bereft of his reason, the consequences may be very grave indeed ; but it is very different when a person only takes as much as suffices to cause a pleasurable excitement. This state can surely be pro¬ ductive of no such wide-reaching results.” This is the objection that people usually make. It seems to them that mere incipient inebria¬ tion—the partial eclipsing, or rather the mellowing, of the light of consciousness cannot entail serious results of any kind. Now, it is as reasonable to think thus as to imagine that, although a watch may be seriously injured by striking it against a stone, it is not liable to any damage whatever from the introduction of a splinter of wood, or some other foreign body, into its internal mechanism. It should not be lost sight of that the labour which is mainly instru¬ mental in moving and moulding human life does not consist in the movement of human hands, feet, or backs, but in modifications of consciousness. Before a man can perform anything with his hands and feet a certain change must necessarily have taken place in his conscience. And this change determines all the ensuing actions of the man. Now, these modifications of human consciousness are always slight, well-nigh imperceptible. The Russian painter Bruloff was once engaged in correcting a draw¬ ing of one of his pupils. He touched it very slightly with his pencil here and there, with the result that his pupil cried out : “ Why you have only given the drawing one or two scarcely appreciable touches, and it has undergone a complete transformation ! ” Bruloff senten- tiously replied : Art begins only there where scarcely perceptible touches effect great changes.” This saying is strikingly true, and not merely when restricted to art, but when applied to all human existence. We are justified in affirm¬ ing that true life begins only where scarcely perceptible touches begin to tell, where such changes as are produced are infinitesimally small, and seem to us of no account. It is not where vast outward changes take place, where people move backwards and forwards, cross-