Critique of Dogmatic Theology

Introduction to the Critique of Dogmatic Theology and Investigation of the Christian Teaching

1879-1882

that informatiou as something exceedingly interesting and quite probable.

I also remember how, when my eldest brother, Dmitri, who was a student at the university, suddenly with a passion which was characteristic of his nature abandoned himself to faith and began to attend all the services, to fast, and to lead a pure and moral hfe, all of us, even the grown persons, never stopped making him a butt of ridicule, and for some reason called him Noah. I remember how Miisin-Pushkin, who at that time was the Curator of the Kazan University and who invited us to come to a dance at his house, tried in jest to persuade my brother, who dechned to come, by telling him that even David had danced before the ark. At that time I sympathized with the jests of my elders and deduced the conclusion from it that the Catechism ought to be taught, that church ought to be attended, but that all that ought not to be taken too seriously. I also remember that I was very young when I read Voltaire, and that his ridicule not only did not provoke me, but even amused me very much.