الفصل الفصل 7 · 第7章

On arriving in Moscow by a morning train, Levin had put up at the house

of his elder half-brother, Koznishev. After changing his clothes he

went down to his brother’s study, intending to talk to him at once

about the object of his visit, and to ask his advice; but his brother

was not alone. With him there was a well-known professor of philosophy,

who had come from Harkov expressly to clear up a difference that had

arisen between them on a very important philosophical question. The

professor was carrying on a hot crusade against materialists. Sergey

Koznishev had been following this crusade with interest, and after

reading the professor’s last article, he had written him a letter

stating his objections. He accused the professor of making too great

concessions to the materialists. And the professor had promptly

appeared to argue the matter out. The point in discussion was the

question then in vogue: Is there a line to be drawn between

psychological and physiological phenomena in man? and if so, where?

Sergey Ivanovitch met his brother with the smile of chilly friendliness

he always had for everyone, and introducing him to the professor, went

on with the conversation.

A little man in spectacles, with a narrow forehead, tore himself from

the discussion for an instant to greet Levin, and then went on talking

without paying any further attention to him. Levin sat down to wait

till the professor should go, but he soon began to get interested in

the subject under discussion.

Levin had come across the magazine articles about which they were

disputing, and had read them, interested in them as a development of

the first principles of science, familiar to him as a natural science

student at the university. But he had never connected these scientific

deductions as to the origin of man as an animal, as to reflex action,

biology, and sociology, with those questions as to the meaning of life

and death to himself, which had of late been more and more often in his

mind.

As he listened to his brother’s argument with the professor, he noticed

that they connected these scientific questions with those spiritual

problems, that at times they almost touched on the latter; but every

time they were close upon what seemed to him the chief point, they

promptly beat a hasty retreat, and plunged again into a sea of subtle

distinctions, reservations, quotations, allusions, and appeals to

authorities, and it was with difficulty that he understood what they

were talking about.

“I cannot admit it,” said Sergey Ivanovitch, with his habitual

clearness, precision of expression, and elegance of phrase. “I cannot

in any case agree with Keiss that my whole conception of the external

world has been derived from perceptions. The most fundamental idea, the

idea of existence, has not been received by me through sensation;

indeed, there is no special sense-organ for the transmission of such an

idea.”

“Yes, but they—Wurt, and Knaust, and Pripasov—would answer that your

consciousness of existence is derived from the conjunction of all your

sensations, that that consciousness of existence is the result of your

sensations. Wurt, indeed, says plainly that, assuming there are no

sensations, it follows that there is no idea of existence.”

“I maintain the contrary,” began Sergey Ivanovitch.

But here it seemed to Levin that just as they were close upon the real

point of the matter, they were again retreating, and he made up his

mind to put a question to the professor.

“According to that, if my senses are annihilated, if my body is dead, I

can have no existence of any sort?” he queried.

The professor, in annoyance, and, as it were, mental suffering at the

interruption, looked round at the strange inquirer, more like a

bargeman than a philosopher, and turned his eyes upon Sergey

Ivanovitch, as though to ask: What’s one to say to him? But Sergey

Ivanovitch, who had been talking with far less heat and one-sidedness

than the professor, and who had sufficient breadth of mind to answer

the professor, and at the same time to comprehend the simple and

natural point of view from which the question was put, smiled and said:

“That question we have no right to answer as yet.”

“We have not the requisite data,” chimed in the professor, and he went

back to his argument. “No,” he said; “I would point out the fact that

if, as Pripasov directly asserts, perception is based on sensation,

then we are bound to distinguish sharply between these two

conceptions.”

Levin listened no more, and simply waited for the professor to go.