War And Peace: Epilogue 2 - CHAPTER VII

Description

WHEN SOME EVENT takes place, men express their opinions and desires in regard

to the event, and as the event proceeds from the combined action of many men,

some one of the opinions or desires expressed is certain to be at least

approximately fulfilled. When one of the opinions expressed is fulfilled, that

opinion is connected with the event as the command preceding it.

Men are dragging a log. Every man expresses his opinion as to how and where

to drag it. The men drag the log off; and it turns out that it has been done

just as one of them advised. He gave the command then. This is commanding and

power in its primitive aspect.

The man who did most work with his arms could think least what he was doing,

reflect least what might come of the common action, and so command least. The

man who commanded most could obviously, from his greater verbal activity, act

less vigorously with his arms. In a larger assembly of men, combining their

energies to one end, the class of those persons who take the less direct share

in the common work the more their energy is turned to command, is still more

sharply defined.

When a man acts alone, he always carries within him a certain series of

considerations, that have, as he supposes, directed his past conduct, and that

serve to justify to him his present action, and to lead him to make projects for

his future activity.

Assemblies of men act in the same way, only leaving to those who do not take

direct part in the action to invent considerations, justifications, and projects

concerning their combined activity.

For causes, known or unknown to us, the French begin to chop and hack at each

other. And to match the event, it is accompanied by its justification in the

expressed wills of certain men, who declare it essential for the good of France,

for the cause of freedom, of equality. Men cease slaughtering one another, and

that event is accompanied by the justification of the necessity of

centralisation of power, of resistance to Europe, and so on. Men march from west

to east, killing their fellow-creatures, and this event is accompanied by

phrases about the glory of France, the baseness of England, and so on. History

teaches us that those justifications for the event are devoid of all

common-sense, that they are inconsistent with one another, as, for instance, the

murder of a man as a result of the declaration of his rights, and the murder of

millions in Russia for the abasement of England. But those justifications have

an incontestable value in their own day.

They remove moral responsibility from those men who produce the events. At

the time they do the work of brooms, that go in front to clear the rails for the

train: they clear the path of men's moral responsibility. Apart from those

justifications, no solution could be found for the most obvious question that

occurs to one at once on examining any historical event; that is, How did

millions of men come to combine to commit crimes, murders, wars, and so

on?

Under the existing complex forms of political social life in Europe, can any

event be imagined which would not have been prescribed, decreed, commanded by

some sovereigns, ministers, parliaments, or newspapers? Is there any sort of

combined action which could not find justification in political unity, or in

patriotism, or in the balance of power, or in civilisation? So that every event

that occurs inevitably coincides with some expressed desire, and receiving

justification, is regarded as the result of the will of one or more

persons.

Whichever way the ship steers its course, there will always be seen ahead of

it the flow of the waves it cleaves. To the men in the ship the movement of

those waves will be the only motion perceptible.

It is only by watching closely, moment by moment, the movement of that flow,

and comparing it with the movement of the ship, that we are convinced that every

moment that flowing by of the waves is due to the forward movement of the ship,

and that we have been led into error by the fact that we are ourselves moving

too.

We see the same thing, watching moment by moment the movement of historical

personages (that is, restoring the inevitable condition under which all action

takes place—the condition of the continuity of motion in time), and not losing

sight of the necessary connection of historical figures with the masses.

Whatever happens, it always appears that that was foreseen and decreed.

Whichever way the ship turns, the waves gurgle in front of it, and neither

guiding nor accelerating its movement, will seem to us at a distance to be

moving arbitrarily and guiding the course of the ship.

Examining only those expressions of the will of historical characters which

related to events as commands, historians have assumed that the events were

dependent on the commands. Examining the events themselves, and that connection

in which the historical characters stand with the masses, we have found that

historical characters and their commands are dependent on the events. An

incontestable proof of this deduction is to be found in the fact that, however

many commands may be given, the event does not take place if there is no other

cause to produce it. But as soon as an event does take place—whatever it may

be—out of the number of all the expressions of the will of different persons,

there are always some which, from their meaning and time of utterance, are

related to the events as commands.

Having reached this conclusion, we can directly and positively answer these

two essential questions of history:—

  
1. 1. What is power?
   
     
2. 2. What force produces the movements of peoples?

  
1. 1. Power is a relation of a certain person to other persons, in which that
   
     person takes the less direct share in an act, the more he expresses opinions,
   
     theories, and justifications of the combined action.
   
     
2. 2. The movement of peoples is not produced by the exercise of power; nor
   
     by intellectual activity, nor even by a combination of the two, as historians
   
     have supposed; but by the activity of all the men taking part in the
   
     event, who are always combined in such a way that those who take most direct
   
     part in the action take the smallest share in responsibility for it, and
   
     vice versa.

In its moral aspect the cause of the event is conceived of as power; in its

physical aspect as those who were subject to that power. But since moral

activity is inconceivable apart from physical, the cause of the event is found

in neither the one nor the other, but in the conjunction of the two.

Or, in other words, the conception of cause is not applicable to the

phenomenon we are examining.

In our final analysis we are brought to the circle of infinity, to that

utmost limit, to which the human intellect is brought in every department of

thought, if it is not merely playing with its subject. Electricity produces

heat; heat produces electricity. Atoms are attracted; atoms are repelled.

Speaking of the mutual relations of heat and of electricity and of atoms, we

cannot say why it is so, and we say it is so because it is unthinkable

otherwise; because it must be so; because it is a law. The same thing applies

also to historical phenomena. Why does a war or a revolution come to pass? We do

not know. We only know that to bring either result to pass, men form themselves

into a certain combination in which all take part; and we say that this is so

because it is unthinkable otherwise; because it is a law.

$$ Buy "War And Peace: Epilogue 2 - CHAPTER VII" on Amazon $$

Please check the description for download links if any or do a search to find alternative books.

Can't Download?
Please search mirrors if you can't find download links for "War And Peace: Epilogue 2 - CHAPTER VII" in "Description" and someone else may update the links. Check the comments when back to find any updates.

Search Mirrors
Maybe some mirror pages will be helpful, search this book at top of this page or click here to find more info.

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