1898 Two days have passed. Jan. 1st. I meet the new year very sad, depressed, unwell. I cannot work and my stomach aches all the time. Received a letter from Verkholensk from Phedoseev about the Dukhobors, a very touching one. Still another letter from the editor The Adult about free love. If I had time, I would like to write about this subject. Probably I shall write. The most important is to show that the whole matter lies in appropriating to oneself possibilities of the greatest enjoyment without thinking of consequences. Besides, they preach something which already exists and is very bad. Why would the absence of outer restraint improve the whole thing? I am, of course, against any regulation and for full freedom, but the ideal is chastity and not pleasure. I have been thin...
CHAPTER IV IDEALISM THE word 'idealism' is used by different philosophers in somewhat different senses. We shall understand by it the doctrine that whatever exists, or at any rate whatever can be known to exist, must be in some sense mental. This doctrine, which is very widely held among philosophers, has several forms, and is advocated on several different grounds. The doctrine is so widely held, and so interesting in itself, that even the briefest survey of philosophy must give some account of it. Those who are unaccustomed to philosophical speculation may be inclined to dismiss such a doctrine as obviously absurd. There is no doubt that common sense regards tables and chairs and the sun and moon and material objects generally as something radically different from minds and the contents of minds, and as having an existence which might continue if minds ceased. We think of matter as having existed long before there were any minds, and...