War And Peace: Epilogue 2 - CHAPTER IX

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THE QUESTION of free will and necessity holds a position in history different

from its place in other branches of knowledge, because in history, the question

relates, not to the essential nature of the will of man, but to the

representation of the manifestations of that will in the past and under certain

conditions.

History, in regard to the solution of this question, stands to the other

sciences in the position of an experimental science to speculative

sciences.

The subject of history is not the will of man, but our representation of its

action.

And so the insoluble mystery of the union of the two antinomies of freedom

and necessity does not exist for history as it does for theology, ethics, and

philosophy. History deals with the representation of the life of man, in which

the union of those two antinomies is accomplished.

In actual life every historical event, every human action, is quite clearly

and definitely understood, without a sense of the slightest contradiction in it,

although every event is conceived of partly as free, and partly as

necessary.

To solve the problem of combining freedom and necessity and the question what

constitutes the essence of those two conceptions, the philosophy of history can

and ought to go to work in a direction opposite to that taken by the other

sciences. Instead of first defining the ideas of freedom and necessity in

themselves, and then ranging the phenomena of life under those definitions,

history must form the definition of the ideas of free will and necessity from

the immense multitude of phenomena in her domain that are always dependent on

those two elements.

Whatever presentation of the activity of one man or of several persons we

examine, we always regard it as the product partly of that man or men's free

will, partly of the laws of necessity.

Whether we are discussing the migrations of peoples and the inroads of

barbarians, or the government of Napoleon III., or the action of some man an

hour ago in selecting one direction for his walk out of several, we see nothing

contradictory in it. The proportion of freedom and necessity guiding the actions

of those men is clearly defined for us.

Very often our conception of a greater or less degree of freedom differs

according to the different points of view from which we regard the

phenomenon.

But every human action is always alike conceived by us as a certain

combination of free will and necessity.

In every action we investigate, we see a certain proportion of freedom and a

certain proportion of necessity. And whatever action we investigate, the more

necessity we see, the less freedom, and the more freedom, the less

necessity.

The proportion of freedom to necessity is decreased or increased, according

to the point of view from which the act is regarded; but there always remains an

inverse ratio between them.

A drowning man clutching at another and drowning him, or a hungry mother

starved by suckling her baby and stealing food, or a man trained to discipline

who at the word of command kills a defenceless man, all seem less guilty—that

is, less free and more subject to the law of necessity to one who knows the

circumstances in which they are placed, and more free to one who did not know

that the man was himself drowning, that the mother was starving, that the

soldier was on duty, and so on. In the same way a man who has twenty years ago

committed a murder and afterwards has gone on living calmly and innocently in

society seems less guilty, and his acts seem more subject to the law of

necessity, to one who looks at his act after the lapse of twenty years than to

one looking at the same act the day after it was perpetrated. And just in the

same way the act of a madman, a drunkard, or a man labouring under violent

excitement seems less free and more inevitable to one who knows the mental

condition of the man who performed the action, and more free and less inevitable

to one who does not know it. In all such cases the conception of freedom is

increased or diminished, and that of necessity correspondingly diminished or

increased, according to the point of view from which the action is regarded. So

that the more necessity is seen in it the less freedom. And vice versa.

Religion, the common-sense of humanity, the science of law, and history

itself understand this relation between necessity and free will.

All cases, without exception, in which our conception of free will and

necessity varies depend on three considerations:

1. The relation of the man committing the act to the external world.

2. His relation to time.

3. His relation to the causes leading to the act.

In the first case the variation depends on the degree to which we see the

man's relation to the external world, on the more or less clear idea we form of

the definite position occupied by the man in relation to everything co-existing

with him. It is this class of considerations that makes it obvious to us that

the drowning man is less free and more subject to necessity than a man standing

on dry ground; and that makes the actions of a man living in close connection

with other people in a thickly populated district, bound by ties of family,

official duties, or business undertaking, seem undoubtedly less free than those

of a man living in solitude and seclusion.

If we examine a man alone, apart from his relations to everything around him,

every action of his seems free to us. But if we see any relation of his to

anything surrounding, if we perceive any connection between him and anything

else, a man speaking to him, a book read by him, the work he is employed in,

even the air he breathes, or the light that falls on the objects around him, we

perceive that every one of those circumstances has its influence on him, and

controls at least one side of his activity. And the more we perceive of those

influences, the smaller the idea we form of his freedom, and the greater our

conception of the necessity to which he is subject.

2. The second cause of variation is due to the degree of distinctness with

which the man's position in time is perceived, the clearness of the notion

formed by us of the place the man's action fills in time. It is owing to this

class of considerations that the fall of the first man, leading to the origin of

the human race, seems to us obviously less free than the marriage of any one of

our contemporaries. It is owing to this class of considerations that the life

and acts of men who lived years ago cannot seem to me as free as the life of my

contemporaries, the consequences of whose acts are still unknown to me.

The variation in our conception of free will in this connection depends on

the interval of time that has elapsed between the action and our criticism of

it.

If I examine an act I have committed a moment ago in approximately the same

circumstances as I am placed in now, my act appears to me indubitably free. But

if I examine an act I have committed a month ago, then being placed in other

circumstances, I cannot help recognising that had not that act been committed,

much that is good and agreeable, and even inevitable, resulting from that act,

could not have taken place. If I reflect on a still more remote action,

performed ten years or more ago, the consequences of my act are even plainer to

me, and it will be difficult for me to conceive what would have happened if that

action had not taken place. The further back I go in my reminiscences, or what

is the same thing, the further forward in my criticism of them, the more

doubtful becomes my view of the freedom of my action.

We find precisely the same ratio of variation in our views of the element of

free will in the general affairs of men in history. A contemporary event we

conceive of as undoubtedly the doing of all the men we know of concerned in it.

But with a more remote event, we see its inevitable consequences, which prevent

our conceiving of anything else as possible. And the further back we go in the

examination of events, the less arbitrary they seem to us.

The Austro-Prussian war appears to us to be undoubtedly the result of the

crafty acts of Bismarck and so on.

The Napoleonic wars, though more doubtful, appear to us the effect of the

free will of the leading heroes of those wars. But in the Crusades we see an

event, filling its definite place in history, without which the modern history

of Europe is inconceivable, although to the chroniclers of the Crusades, those

events appeared simply due to the will of a few persons. In the migrations of

peoples it never occurs to any one now that the renewal of the European world

depended on a caprice of Attila's. The more remote in history the subject of our

observations, the more doubtful we feel of the free will of the persons

concerned in the event, and the more obvious is the law of necessity in

it.

3. The third element influencing our judgment is the degree to which we can

apprehend that endless chain of causation demanded by the reason, in which every

phenomenon comprehended, and so every act of man, must have its definite place,

as a result of past and a cause of future acts.

This is the element that causes our acts and those of others to appear to us

on one side more free the less we know of the physiological, psychological, and

historical laws deduced from observation, and the less thoroughly the

physiological, psychological, or historical cause of the act has been

investigated by us, and on the other hand the less simple the act observed and

the less complex the character and mind of the man whose action we are

examining.

When we have absolutely no understanding of the causes of an action—whether

vicious or virtuous or simply non-moral—we ascribe a greater element of free

will to it. In the case of a crime, we are more urgent in demanding punishment

for the act; in the case of a virtuous act, we are warmer in our appreciation of

its merits. In cases of no moral bearing, we recognise more individuality,

originality, and independence in it. But if only one of the innumerable causes

of the act is known to us, we recognise a certain element of necessity, and are

less ready to exact punishment for the crime, to acknowledge merit in the

virtuous act, or freedom in the apparent originality. The fact that the criminal

was reared in vicious surroundings softens his fault in our eyes. The

self-sacrifice of a father, of a mother, or self-sacrifice with the possibility

of reward is more comprehensible than gratuitous self-sacrifice, and so is

regarded by us as less deserving of sympathy and less the work of free will. The

founder of a sect, of a party, or the inventor impresses us less when we

understand how and by what the way was paved for his activity. If we have a

large range of experiments, if our observation is continually directed to

seeking correlations in men's actions between causes and effects, their actions

will seem to us more necessary and less free, the more accurately we connect

causes and effects. If the actions investigated are simple, and we have had a

vast number of such actions under observation, our conception of their

inevitability will be even more complete. The dishonest conduct of the son of a

dishonest father, the misbehaviour of women, who have been led into certain

surroundings, the relapse of the reformed drunkard into drunkenness, and so on,

are instances of conduct which seem to us to be less free the better we

understand their cause. If the man himself whose conduct we are examining is on

the lowest stage of mental development, like a child, a mad-man, or a simpleton,

then when we know the causes of the act and the simplicity of the character and

intelligence, we see so great an element of necessity, and so little free will,

that we can foretell the act that will follow, as soon as we know the cause

bound to bring it forth.

In all legislative codes the exoneration of crime or admission of mitigating

circumstances rests only on those three classes of consideration. The guilt is

conceived as greater or less according to the greater or lesser knowledge of the

conditions in which the man judged is placed, the greater or less interval of

time between the perpetration of the crime and the judgment of it, and the

greater or less comprehension of the causes that led to the act.

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1. Ebooks list page : 85
2. War And Peace: Epilogue 2 - CHAPTER I
3. War And Peace: Epilogue 1 - CHAPTER IV
4. War And Peace: Epilogue 1 - CHAPTER V
5. War And Peace: Epilogue 1 - CHAPTER VI
6. War And Peace: Epilogue 1 - CHAPTER VII
7. War And Peace: Epilogue 1 - CHAPTER XIV
8. War And Peace: Epilogue 1 - CHAPTER IX
9. War And Peace: Epilogue 1 - CHAPTER X
10. War And Peace: Epilogue 1 - CHAPTER XI
11. War And Peace: Epilogue 1 - CHAPTER XII
12. War And Peace: Epilogue 1 - CHAPTER XVI
13. War And Peace: Epilogue 1 - CHAPTER III
14. War And Peace: Epilogue 2 - CHAPTER IV
15. War And Peace: Epilogue 1 - CHAPTER I
16. War And Peace: Epilogue 2 - CHAPTER II