1896 January 23. Moscow. Just a month that I made no entries. During this time I wrote a letter about patriotism and a letter to Crosby and here now for two weeks I have been writing the drama. I wrote three acts abominably. I thought to make an outline so as to form a charpente. I have little hope of success. Chertkov and Kenworthy went away the 7th. Sonya went to Tver to Andrusha. To-day Nagornov died. I am again a little indisposed. I jotted down during this time: 1) A true work of art—a contagious one—is produced only when the artist seeks, strives. In poetry this passion for representing that which is, comes from the fact that the artist hopes that having seen clearly and having fixed that which is, he will understand the mean...
CHAPTER IX THE WORLD OF UNIVERSALS AT the end of the preceding chapter we saw that such entities as relations appear to have a being which is in some way different from that of physical objects, and also different from that of minds and from that of sense-data. In the present chapter we have to consider what is the nature of this kind of being, and also what objects there are that have this kind of being. We will begin with the latter question. The problem with which we are now concerned is a very old one, since it was brought into philosophy by Plato. Plato's 'theory of ideas' is an attempt to solve this very problem, and in my opinion it is one of the most successful attempts hitherto made. The theory to be advocated in what follows is largely Plato's, with merely such modifications as time has shown to be necessary. The way the problem arose for Plato was more or less as follows. Let us consider, say, such a notion as jus...