Note 384 — 1899

This thought was maintained in the book then being read by Tolstoi: Vergleichenden Uebersicht der Vier Evangelien, von S. G. Verus, Leipzig, 1897. In the letter of Biriukov of August 1, 1899, Tolstoi wrote thus about the significance of Verus’ book: “This supposition or probability is the destruction of the last suburbs which are susceptible to attacks from the enemy, so that the fortress of the moral teaching of the good, flowing not from a source which is only temporary and local, but from a totality of the whole spiritual life of humanity, be unshaken.”