War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy [785]
(1) The relation of the man committing the act to the external world,
(2) to time, and
(3) to the causes producing the act.
(1) The first basis is the relation more or less visible to us of the man to the external world, the more or less clear notion of that definite place which every man occupies in relation to everything that exists simultaneously with him. This is that basis owing to which it is obvious that the drowning man is less free and more subject to necessity than a man standing on dry land; that basis owing to which the actions of a man living in close connection with other people in a densely populated area, the actions of a man who is connected with family, work, enterprises, appear unquestionably less free and more subject to necessity than the actions of man who is single and solitary.
If we examine a man alone, without his relation to everything around him, his every action appears free to us. But if we see at least some relation to what is around him, if we see his connection with anything whatever—with the man who is talking to him, with the book he is reading, with the work he is doing, even with the air that surrounds him, even with the light that falls on things around him—we see that each of these conditions has an influence on him and guides at least one side of his activity. And insofar as we see these influences, so far our notion of his freedom decreases and our notion of the necessity he is subject to increases.
(2) The second basis is the more or less visible temporal relation of man to the world; the more or less clear notion of the place that the action of a man occupies in time. This is that basis owing to which the fall of the first man, which had as its consequence the origin of mankind, appears, obviously, less free than a modern man’s marriage. This is that basis owing to which the life and activity of people who lived centuries ago, and are connected with me in time, cannot appear as free to me as modern life, the consequences of which are still unknown to me.
The degree of our notion of greater or lesser freedom and necessity in this relation depends on the greater or lesser span of time between the committing of the act and our judgment of it.
If I examine an act I committed a moment ago, under approximately the same conditions as I am in now, my action seems unquestionably free to me. But if I review an act I committed a month ago, I involuntarily recognize, being in different conditions, that if that act had not been committed, many useful, agreeable, and even necessary things which resulted from that act would not have taken place. If I transport myself in memory to an act still more remote, ten years back or more, the consequences of my act will appear still more obvious to me; and it will be hard for me to imagine what would have happened if the act had not been done. The further back I transport myself in memory, or, what is the same, ahead in my judgment, the more questionable my argument about the freedom of the act will become.
In history we find exactly the same progression of convincingness about the portion of free will in the general affairs of mankind. A just-accomplished contemporary event appears to us as unquestionably proceeding from all known people; but in a more remote event we see its inevitable consequences, aside from which we cannot imagine anything else. And the further back we transport ourselves in examining events, the less arbitrary they appear to us.
The Austro-Prussian war appears to us as the unquestionable consequence of the actions of cunning Bismarck, and so on.
The Napoleonic wars, though questionably now, still appear to us as proceeding from the wills of heroes; in the Crusades we already see an event which occupies a definite place and without which the modern history of Europe is unthinkable, though in the same way, for the chroniclers of the Crusades, this event appeared only as proceeding from the wills of several persons. As for the migrations of peoples, it never occurs to anyone in our time that