War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy [767]
These two old, inevitable propositions lie at the basis of all the works of modern history, from Gibbon to Buckle, despite their apparent disagreement and the apparent novelty of their views.
First, the historian describes the activity of separate persons who, in his opinion, guide mankind (one considers monarchs, military commanders, ministers to be such; another, besides monarchs and orators, includes learned reformers, philosophers, and poets). Second, the historian knows the goal towards which mankind is being led (for one this goal is the greatness of the Roman, Spanish, or French state; for another it is freedom, equality, a certain kind of civilization in a small corner of the world known as Europe).
In 1789 a ferment arises in Paris; it grows, spreads, and expresses itself in a movement of peoples from west to east. Several times this movement directed to the east comes into collision with a countermovement from east to west; in the year twelve it reaches its utmost limit—Moscow; and, with remarkable symmetry, the countermovement from east to west is accomplished, drawing with itself, as the first movement had done, the peoples of the center. The countermovement reaches the point of departure in the west—Paris—and subsides.
During this twenty-year period of time an enormous number of fields go unplowed; houses are burned; trade changes direction; millions of people become poor, become rich, migrate; and millions of Christians, who profess the law of love of their neighbor, kill each other.
What does it all mean? Why did it happen? What made these people burn houses and kill their own kind? What were the causes of these events? What force made people act that way? These are the involuntary, simple-hearted, and most legitimate questions that mankind poses for itself, encountering the memorials and traditions of that past period of movement.
To settle these questions, mankind’s common sense turns to the science of history, which has for its goal the self-knowledge of peoples and of mankind.
If history had maintained the view of the ancients, it would say that a divinity, to reward or punish its people, gave power to Napoleon and guided his will towards achieving its divine purposes. And that answer would be full and clear. One might believe or not believe in the divine significance of Napoleon; but for the believer in it, everything in the history of that time would be comprehensible, and there could not be a single contradiction.
But modern history cannot answer in that way. Science does not recognize the view of the ancients on the direct participation of a divinity in the affairs of mankind, and therefore it should give other answers.
Modern history, in answer to these questions, says: you want to know what this movement means, why it occurred, and what force produced these events? Listen:
“Louis XIV was a very proud and presumptuous man; he had such-and-such mistresses and such-and-such ministers, and he ruled France badly. Louis’s heirs were also weak men and also ruled France badly. They, too, had such-and-such favorites and such-and-such mistresses. Besides, certain men were writing books at that time. At the end of the eighteenth century, some two dozen men got together in Paris and started talking about all men being equal and free. That led people all over France to start slaughtering and drowning each other. These people killed the king and many others. At the same time there was in France a man of genius—Napoleon. He defeated everybody everywhere—that is, he killed a lot of people—because he was a great genius. And he went off for some reason to kill Africans, and he killed them so well, and was so cunning and clever, that, on coming back to France, he ordered everybody to obey him. And everybody obeyed him. Having become emperor, he again went to kill people in Italy,