列文乘早班火车抵达莫斯科，径直去了同母异父的哥哥科兹内舍夫家。他换过衣服后下楼走进哥哥的书房，本想立刻说明来意并征求他的意见，但哥哥并非独自一人。一位著名的哲学教授正与他同坐，这位教授专程从哈尔科夫赶来，是为了澄清二人在某个重大哲学问题上产生的分歧。教授正在对唯物主义者发起猛烈抨击，谢尔盖·科兹内舍夫一直密切关注这场论战。他读了教授最新发表的文章后，写信提出了自己的异议——他指责教授对唯物主义者做出了过多让步。教授立即赶来当面辩论。当时讨论的焦点正是时下热门的问题：人类的心理现象与生理现象之间是否存在界限？若存在，界限又在哪里？
谢尔盖·伊万诺维奇对弟弟露出那副对谁都一视同仁的冷淡笑容，把他介绍给教授后，便继续滔滔不绝地谈起正题。
一位戴眼镜、额头狭长的矮个子男人暂时停下争论向列文致意，随即便继续侃侃而谈，再没理会过他。列文坐下等待教授离开，但很快就被讨论的话题吸引住了。
列文读过他们争论所涉及的那些杂志文章，作为曾在大学学习自然科学的学生，他对这些以科学基本原理为基础的理论发展颇感兴趣。但他从未将这些关于人类作为动物的起源、反射作用、生物学和社会学的科学推论，与近来日益萦绕心头的关于生死意义的问题联系起来。
听着哥哥与教授的辩论，列文注意到他们将科学问题与那些精神层面的问题联系在一起，有时甚至几乎触及了后者。但每当他感觉即将接近那个在他看来至关重要的核心时，他们总是迅速避开，重新陷入细微区别、保留意见、引经据典、旁征博引和权威引证的汪洋大海中，使他很难理解他们究竟在讨论什么。
“我无法认同这一点，”谢尔盖·伊万诺维奇用他一贯清晰明确、措辞优雅的语调说道，“无论如何我都不能同意凯斯的观点——他认为我对整个外部世界的概念都源自感知。最基本的概念，即存在的概念，并非通过感官获得的；事实上，并不存在某个专门的感官器官来传递这种概念。”
“是的，但沃尔特、克瑙斯特和普里帕索夫会反驳说，您对存在的意识源于所有感官的联合作用，存在的意识是感官作用的结果。沃尔特甚至明确断言，假设没有感官，那么就不存在存在的概念。”
“我持相反观点，”谢尔盖·伊万诺维奇开始反驳。
但此时列文感觉，就在他们即将触及问题的真正核心时，两人又避开了。他决定向教授提问。
“照此说来，如果我的感官消亡了，如果我的身体死亡了，我就完全不存在了？”他问道。
教授恼火地——仿佛精神上备受折磨——瞥了一眼这个古怪的提问者，这人看起来更像纤夫而非哲学家，随即把目光转向谢尔盖·伊万诺维奇，仿佛在问：该怎么回答他呢？但谢尔盖·伊万诺维奇此刻不像教授那样激动而偏激，他胸襟开阔，既能回答教授的质疑，又能理解提问背后简单自然的视角，于是微笑道：
“这个问题我们目前还无权回答。”
“我们缺乏必要的数据，”教授随声附和道，随后又回到自己的论点，“不，”他说，“我要指出的是，如果像普里帕索夫直接断言的那样，感知基于感觉，那么我们必须严格区分这两个概念。”
列文不再听下去，只是等着教授离开。
On arriving in Moscow by a morning train, Levin had put up at the house
of his elder half-brother, Koznishev. After changing his clothes he
went down to his brother’s study, intending to talk to him at once
about the object of his visit, and to ask his advice; but his brother
was not alone. With him there was a well-known professor of philosophy,
who had come from Harkov expressly to clear up a difference that had
arisen between them on a very important philosophical question. The
professor was carrying on a hot crusade against materialists. Sergey
Koznishev had been following this crusade with interest, and after
reading the professor’s last article, he had written him a letter
stating his objections. He accused the professor of making too great
concessions to the materialists. And the professor had promptly
appeared to argue the matter out. The point in discussion was the
question then in vogue: Is there a line to be drawn between
psychological and physiological phenomena in man? and if so, where?
Sergey Ivanovitch met his brother with the smile of chilly friendliness
he always had for everyone, and introducing him to the professor, went
on with the conversation.
A little man in spectacles, with a narrow forehead, tore himself from
the discussion for an instant to greet Levin, and then went on talking
without paying any further attention to him. Levin sat down to wait
till the professor should go, but he soon began to get interested in
the subject under discussion.
Levin had come across the magazine articles about which they were
disputing, and had read them, interested in them as a development of
the first principles of science, familiar to him as a natural science
student at the university. But he had never connected these scientific
deductions as to the origin of man as an animal, as to reflex action,
biology, and sociology, with those questions as to the meaning of life
and death to himself, which had of late been more and more often in his
mind.
As he listened to his brother’s argument with the professor, he noticed
that they connected these scientific questions with those spiritual
problems, that at times they almost touched on the latter; but every
time they were close upon what seemed to him the chief point, they
promptly beat a hasty retreat, and plunged again into a sea of subtle
distinctions, reservations, quotations, allusions, and appeals to
authorities, and it was with difficulty that he understood what they
were talking about.
“I cannot admit it,” said Sergey Ivanovitch, with his habitual
clearness, precision of expression, and elegance of phrase. “I cannot
in any case agree with Keiss that my whole conception of the external
world has been derived from perceptions. The most fundamental idea, the
idea of existence, has not been received by me through sensation;
indeed, there is no special sense-organ for the transmission of such an
idea.”
“Yes, but they—Wurt, and Knaust, and Pripasov—would answer that your
consciousness of existence is derived from the conjunction of all your
sensations, that that consciousness of existence is the result of your
sensations. Wurt, indeed, says plainly that, assuming there are no
sensations, it follows that there is no idea of existence.”
“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.
