"We must, say the believers, study the three persons of the Trinity; we must know the nature of each of these persons, and what sacraments we ought or ought not to perform, for our salvation depends, not on our own efforts, but on the Trinity and the regular performance of the sacraments.

We must, say the sceptics, know the laws by which this infinitesimal [extremely small] particle of matter was evolved in infinite space and infinite time; but it is absurd to believe that by reason alone we can secure true well-being, because the amelioration [make something bad, better] of man's condition does not depend upon man himself, but upon the laws that we are trying to discover.

I firmly believe that, a few centuries hence, the history of what we call the scientific activity of this age will be a prolific subject for the hilarity and pity of future generations. For a number of centuries, they will say, the scholars of the western portion of a great continent were the victims of epidemic insanity; they imagined themselves to be the possessors of a life of eternal beatitude, and they busied themselves with diverse lucubrations [laborious or intensive study] in which they sought to determine in what way this life could be realized, without doing anything themselves, or even concerning themselves with what they ought to do to ameliorate the life which they already had." - Leo Tolstoy, What I Believe, Chapter Seven

There's not knowing things, and then there's not knowing that you don't know things; not knowing things is an inevitability, like the knowledge of the understanding that of course you don't know everything there's to know about anything, or anyone. Tolstoy's trying to say here, in my opinion, that regardless your perspective, either is just as vulnerable to the closed mindedness that comes with convincing yourself that what you currently know regarding anything is no longer up for questioning, leading you into divison or iniquity to some degree otherwise; and that our inherent ability to reason that's at the basis of our ability to empathize and love, would be a significantly superior means for man to "ameliorate" its "condition."