[The Kreutzer Sonata and Other Stories by Leo Tolstoi]@TWC D-Link book
The Kreutzer Sonata and Other Stories

CHAPTER XXVIII
15/22

The origin of the evil is twofold.

It is due, in the first place, to a natural instinct, and, in the second, to the elevation of this instinct to a place to which it does not rightly belong.

This being so, the evil can only be remedied by effecting a change in the views now in vogue about "falling in love" and all that this term implies, by educating men and women at home through family influence and example, and abroad by means of healthy public opinion, to practice that abstinence which morality and Christianity alike enjoin.
This is my second contention.
In the third place I am of opinion that another consequence of the false light in which "falling in love," and what it leads to, are viewed in our society, is that the birth of children has lost its pristine significance, and that modern marriages are conceived less and less from the point of view of the family.

I am of opinion that this is not right.
This is my third contention.
In the fourth place, I am of opinion that the children (who in our society are considered an obstacle to enjoyment--an unlucky accident, as it were) are educated not with a view to the problem which they will be one day called on to face and to solve, but solely with an eye to the pleasure which they may be made to yield to their parents.

The consequence is, that the children of human beings are brought up for all the world like the young of animals, the chief care of their parents being not to train them to such work as is worthy of men and women, but to increase their weight, or add a cubit to their stature, to make them spruce, sleek, well-fed, and comely.


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