Anna Karenina - LimpidSoft

PART ONE CHAPTER 7
“I maintain the contrary,” began Sergey Ivanovitch.
But here it seemed to Levin that just as they were close upon the real point of the
matter, they were again retreating, and he made up his mind to put a question to the
professor.
“According to that, if my senses are annihilated, if my body is dead, I can have no
existence of any sort?” he queried.
The professor, in annoyance, and, as it were, mental suffering at the interruption,
looked round at the strange inquirer, more like a bargeman than a philosopher, and
turned his eyes upon Sergey Ivanovitch, as though to ask: What’s one to say to him?
But Sergey Ivanovitch, who had been talking with far less heat and one-sidedness
than the professor, and who had sufficient breadth of mind to answer the professor,
and at the same time to comprehend the simple and natural point of view from
which the question was put, smiled and said:
“That question we have no right to answer as yet.”
“We have not the requisite data,” chimed in the professor, and he went back to
his argument. “No,” he said; “I would point out the fact that if, as Pripasov directly
asserts, perception is based on sensation, then we are bound to distinguish sharply
between these two conceptions.”
Levin listened no more, and simply waited for the professor to go.
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