Anna Karenina

n 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.