ludes within itself both an admission that our
life is evil and wrong, and in connection with this,--as though it were
an exercise for it,--that it is impossible, nevertheless, to change it,
this question I have heard, and I continue to hear, on all sides. I have
described my own sufferings, my own gropings, and my own solution of this
question. I am the same kind of a man as everybody else; and if I am in
any wise distinguished from the average man of our circle, it is chiefly
in this respect, that I, more than the average man, have served and
winked at the false doctrine of our world; I have received more
approbation from men professing the prevailing doctrine: and therefore,
more than others, have I become depraved, and wandered from the path. And
therefore I think that the solution of the problem, which I have found in
my own case, will be applicable to all sincere people who are propounding
the same question to themselves.

First of all, in answer to the question, "What is to be done?" I told
myself: "I must lie neither to other people nor to myself. I must not
fear the truth, whithersoever it may lead me."

We all know what it means to lie to other people, but we are not afraid
to lie to ourselves; yet the very worst downright lie, to other people,
is not to be compared in its consequences with the lie to ourselves, upon
which we base our whole life.

This is the lie of which we must not be guilty if we are to be in a
position to answer the question: "What is to be done?" And, in fact, how
am I to answer the question, "What is to be done?" when every thing that
I do, when my whole life, is founded on a lie, and when I carefully
parade this lie as the truth before others and before myself? Not to
lie, in this sense, means not to fear the truth, not to devise
subterfuges, and not to accept the subterfuges devised by others for the
purpose of hiding from myself the deductions of my reason and my
conscience; not to fear to part company with all those who surround me,
and to remain alone in company with reason and conscience; not to fear
that position to which the truth shall lead me, being firmly convinced
that that position to which truth and conscience shall conduct me,
however singular it may be, cannot be worse than the one which is founded
on a lie. Not to lie, in our position of privileged persons of mental
labor, means, not to be afraid to reckon one's self up wrongly. It is
possible that you are alre