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There are some striking parallels between Wittgenstein's life and that of Tolstoy. Both were born into extremely rich families, yet both subsequently gave their property away, and tried to live simple and humble lives. Both valued manual labour as something spiritually uplifting. Both underwent some sort of religious conversion to a form of Christianity. Yet neither, despite their evident high-mindedness, seems to have treated other people particularly well!

And Tolstoy's religious writings, such as theGospel in Brief andA Confession, clearly had an enormous influence on Wittgenstein especially at the time he was writing theTractatus. Strange then that so few commentators have even acknowledged, let alone attempted to account for, Tolstoy's influence on Wittgenstein's philosophy. It is therefore especially worth considering the extent to which theGospel in Brief specifically influenced the outlook of theTractatus. Indeed, as his friend and correspondent, Paul Engelmann put it, out of all Tolstoy's writings Wittgenstein had an especially high regard for theGospel in Brief. Yet it often appears to be simply assumed that theGospel in Briefhad a profound effect on Wittgenstein. Why this might be so is never clearly explained. That the book does not seem to be readily available or very well known in the English-speaking world may partly explain why its influence on Wittgenstein may have been neglected. But in this article we attempt to explain the impact of theGospel in Brief upon Wittgenstein's philosophy (especially the later passages of theTractatus Logico-Philosophicus), and his general view of ethics.

Although theGospel in Brief was not publishedin Tolstoy's lifetime, it clearly comes from the period of his religiousand moral writings between 1879 and 1902. It is a fusion of the four Gospels,the purpose of which is to seek an answer to the problem of how we shouldlive. It is both philosophical and practical, rather than theological andspiritual, in its intention. Tolstoy believed that the existence of Godcould neither be proved nor disproved and that the meaning of life laybeyond the limits of our minds. (And compare this with Wittgenstein'sconception of absolute or ethical value as expressed in his 1929/30 ‘Lectureon Ethics’ (Philosophical Review, 1965.) Tolstoy further believedthat the Church itself, as a body, interfered with one's ability to livea peaceful, everyday life, free from significant pain and suffering. Thistoo can only have appealed to a restless soul such as Wittgenstein.


How Wittgenstein came by his copy of theGospel inBrief, and the importance he came to attach to it, is almost a parablein itself. At the time in question Wittgenstein was serving with the Austrianarmy at the start of the First World War. These circumstances were verydifferent from those of Edwardian England let alone the blissful solitudeof a Norwegian fjord. Wittgenstein discovered a small bookshop in Tarnow,a town then under Austrian rule but now in southern Poland. It is saidthat the shop had only one book (Tolstoy's) and that Wittgenstein boughtthe book because it was the only one they had. Some have suggested thathe saw this as a sign, though we shall leave that supposition there. Inany case, he started reading theGospel in Brief on September 1st 1914and subsequently carried it with him at all times, memorising passagesof it by heart. He became known to his comrades as the man with the gospels,constantly recommending the book to anyone who was troubled. Wittgensteinhimself said that the book essentially kept him alive.

It seems fairly sure that at this time Wittgenstein underwentsome kind of religious conversion, though not in the conventional sense.The Russellian logicist emerged as a man with strong spiritual if not actuallyascetic leanings. It is less certain, however, that this experience changedthe way he treated ethics in theTractatus. It is rather that readingtheGospel in Brief led Wittgenstein to add a new element to theTractatusand indeed to his already formed conception of ethics. That additionalelement is usually referred to as the mystical. Wittgenstein would stillhave, we would argue, dealt with the subject of ethics, as transcendental,by passing over it in silence. Furthermore, Wittgenstein had already beeninfluenced by Schopenhauer, especially his conception of the will, andthat while his sense of the transcendental or other-worldly may have beendeepened by the influence of Tolstoy's work, it was not originated by it.


By 1879 Tolstoy, then aged 51, had become very depressed,and in order to find a solution to his problems he studied Christianity,Islam, and Buddhism in some depth. He came to believe that he had foundthe answer to his problem, that is, the problem of how we should live,in the teachings of Jesus, but that these had to be sifted out from theaccumulated dogma of the churches. To this end he formed, from all fourgospels, a single account of the life and teachings of Jesus. In theGospelin Brief (which is extracted from a larger work) Tolstoy omitted the accountsof Christ's birth and genealogy, the miracles, and the resurrection. Healso left out most of the material about John the Baptist. He removed allthe supernatural events and everything he found difficult to believe orwhich he regarded as irrelevant. His concern was how we should live andhow Jesus' life could help explain that to us. He thus omitted all thekey points that make Jesus necessarily different from us, in other words,all that requires faith in the divinity of Jesus. In short, Tolstoy portraysfor us Christ 'without the Christianity'.

What remains is supposed to be the pure teachings of Jesus,or as much as can be recovered or reconstructed after so many centuries.It is true that most of the account is very familiar to anyone who hasread the gospels in the Bible. It is, however, evident that Tolstoy, aswell as removing material from the accounts, went so far as to add a certainamount. This is, presumably, an attempt to insert material that he believedshould have been there; material that was perhaps omitted by oversightor even excised at a later date. Tolstoy must have felt that he had cometo understand the character of Jesus well enough to know what he must havetaught, even when it is not explicitly recorded. This would be as a consequenceof his understanding Jesus' answer to the question of how we should live.The additions are done very elegantly, so that it is hard to tell whereJesus ends and Tolstoy begins. The effect on the reader is to exaggeratethe ascetic aspects of Jesus teachings so that the balance is shifted fromthe theological to the philosophical. Explicitly in his introduction andimplicitly in the text Tolstoy is very critical of organised religion andthe Russian Orthodox Church in particular. Indeed, in 1901 he was excommunicatedfor his unorthodox views and activities.

Tolstoy says that he discovered to his astonishment thatthe whole of Jesus' teaching is summed up in the Lord's Prayer, (whichis conventional Christianity) and each of the twelve chapters takes itstitle from a phrase of the prayer. In the chapter entitled 'Thy KingdomCome', Tolstoy attributes five commandments to Jesus. Not all of theseare stated as such in the Bible, and not all of them are implicit in theoriginal text. Tolstoy's commandments are: 

i. Do not be angry, but be at peace with allmen. 
ii. Do not seek delight in sexual gratification. 
iii. Do not swear anything to anyone. 
iv. Do not oppose evil, do not judge, and do not go tolaw. 
v. Do not make any distinction among men as to nationality,and love strangers like your own people. 

Tolstoy came to believe that complete sexual abstinencetoo should be practised. Most Christians would regard this as rather extreme.(It does however concur with several reports of Wittgenstein's life.) Thethird of these commandments, against the swearing of oaths (for examplein court) is, although ignored by most churches, clearly stated in theBible. The Quakers, however, do take the same view on oaths as Tolstoy'sJesus. Another parallel occurs where Jesus says do not oppose evil. BothTolstoy and the Quakers take this to mean 'do not use evil means to opposeevil' and this view leads them to adopt pacifist views.


Readers of theTractatus will not find any moralinjunctions of the sort present in theGospel in Brief there. Inconsidering the possibility of an ethical law Wittgenstein says:

When an ethical law of the form, 'Thou shalt ... [do suchand such]', is laid down, one's first thought is, 'And what if I do notdo it?'. -Tractatus 6.422 

He goes on to say that ethics has nothing to do with punishmentand reward in the usual sense, but asserts that there must be some kindof ethical reward and punishment lying in the action itself. There is then a paradox. While Wittgenstein asserts thatnothing can be said about ethics, theGospel in Brief says a greatdeal about how life should be lived, and, furthermore, what it says seemsto have had a powerful influence on Wittgenstein. The solution to thisproblem lies in the distinction between saying and showing, as expressedin theTractatus; because although there are no ethical propositions- the Gospel cannot say anything about how we should live - yet Wittgensteinmust have believed that it did show the way to live.

The statement 'It is wrong to kill' can be said, in theminimalist sense that it can be spoken, but in 'Tractarian' terms it cannotbe said in the sense that it expresses a particular moral imperative. Peoplesay things like this all the time, and other people understand them. Itis, however, possible that someone may disagree with this statement, andthere is ultimately no way of resolving the dispute by reference to statesof affairs or facts about the world. This is because the statement doesnot express a fact, and this is what is meant when Wittgenstein assertsthat ethics cannot be put into words. If I say it is wrong to kill, doI, thereby, show that it is wrong to kill? In some cases I do and, in somecases I do not. There is no way of proving that it is wrong.

Such remarks as: 'I am my world' (Tractatus 5.63),and 'For what the solipsist means is quite correct, only it cannot be said,but makes itself manifest' (Tractatus 5.62), provide a key to Wittgenstein'sview. In these he directs us to the actual experience of living. The personwhose moral outlook, i.e. their way of living, is changed by a work suchas theGospel in Brief has not been convinced by logical argumentsor matters of fact. They have, rather, been shown, the way that they shouldlive.

We must, however, be aware that theTractatus appearsto disagree with itself. The philosopher Caleb Thompson takes other remarksin the the work as implying that coming to see meaning in life is justa matter of living.

Wittgenstein says: 

We feel that even when all possible scientific questions have been answered, the problems of life remain completely untouched. Of course there are then no questions left, and this itself is the answer. (Tractatus 6.52)

 and then:

The solution of the problem of life is seen in the vanishingof the problem. (Tractatus 6.521 

For Wittgenstein, someone who realises that there cannotbe scientific answers to the problems of life will then find that theseproblems vanish. But can he really mean that? Surely it was not as easyas that for Wittgenstein himself and cannot be as easy as that for anyoneelse.

When understood in the light of theGospel in Briefthis interpretation presents only part of what Wittgenstein was saying:the person looking for the meaning of life will stop looking to scienceas they will appreciate that they are looking in the wrong place! As theanswers are not ones science is able to give, they cannot, in Tractarianterms,be said. It is in this sense only that they may be said to have vanished.

Wittgenstein is also committed to a notion of the ethicalin which ethical notions are expressed, and in which we may receive responsesto our wonderings about the problems of life. This notion of the ethicalis the same as that displayed by Tolstoy through the figure of Christ intheGospel in Brief. To disregard this work's influence is to missthis further point, vital to the understanding of Wittgenstein's thinkingabout ethics. The very same notion indeed recurs some ten years later inhis notebooks and in the 'Lecture on Ethics'.




The above argument means that there cannot be ethicalfacts because the rightness or wrongness of an action cannot be determinedby any examination of the world. Hence the truth or falsity of a statementsuch as 'it is wrong to murder people ', cannot be determined in this way.Ethical or moral statements are not propositions; they are not truth functionalin the way that real propositions must be. As ethics is not propositionalit cannot, therefore, be put into words. It is, instead, transcendental(Tractatus 6.421), and as such must be passed over in silence (Tractatus7). Propositions can express nothing that is higher than themselves,i.e. nothing beyond states of affairs of the world (whether true or false),and so there can be no propositions of ethics.

In his 1929/30 'Lecture on Ethics', Wittgenstein usedthe metaphor that if a man could write a book on ethics that really wasa book on ethics, this book would with an explosion destroy all the otherbooks in the world. In a more restrained mood, we may say that a book thatshowed, in a logically rigorous fashion, that from any particular stateof affairs in the world it followed that there was a particular right courseof action that must be followed by a moral individual, would make physical,if not material, that which could only previously have been conceived ofas transcendental. For it to be possible to write such a book, there wouldhave to be propositions in ethics.

This does not mean that Wittgenstein regarded ethics asunimportant. On the contrary, almost all the really important things, thingsof value, cannot be said, though Wittgenstein intimates that at least someof them may be shown. In his preface to theTractatus he suggeststhat when he has achieved his aim of saying what can be said at all, verylittle will have been achieved.

Because of his philosophy, Wittgenstein could not putthe ethical position expressed in theGospel in Brief into theTractatusas propositions, let alone statements of fact. The thoughts contained thereinwhen stated as putative facts could not have been true. He did, however,do the only thing he could do and showed how the ethical position of theGospelin Briefwas possible. In so doing he allowed us to have an answerto the question of how we should live our lives. As he wrote later:

What is good is also divine. Queer as it sounds, that sums up my ethics.
- Wittgenstein,Notebook, 1929.
 

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