This is Tolstoy in his preachy-crazy-old-man phase. I admire him deeply as a person, because he was willing to live his convictions, but I think he was wildly misguided by this point in his life. You get a lot of points for trying hard to do good, but at some level the total train wreck that your actions make of the lives you touch does have some weight. What you actually accomplish does matter, in the end, when considered beside what you intend. The novel is uninteresting.