War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy [788]
(1) However much our knowledge of the spatial conditions in which man finds himself may increase, that knowledge can never be complete, since the number of those conditions is as infinitely great as space is infinite. And therefore, so long as not all the conditions influencing man are defined, there is no complete necessity, and there is a certain share of freedom.
(2) However much we may lengthen the period of time between the phenomenon we are examining and the time of judgment, that period will be finite, while time is infinite, and therefore, in this respect, there can never be complete necessity.
(3) However accessible the chain of causes of any event, we will never know the entire chain, because it is endless, and again we will never get complete necessity.
But, besides that, even if, having allowed the smallest remainder of freedom to equal zero, we were to recognize in some case—for instance, a dying man, a fetus, an idiot—a total absence of freedom, we would thereby destroy the very concept of the man we are examining; because once there is no freedom, there is no man. And therefore to imagine the action of a man that is subject only to the law of necessity, without the slightest remainder of freedom, is as impossible as to imagine a totally free action.
Thus, to imagine the act of a man that is subject to the law of necessity alone, without freedom, we must allow for knowledge of an infinite number of spatial conditions, an infinitely great period of time, and an infinite series of causes.
To imagine a man who is completely free, not subject to the law of necessity, we must imagine him alone, outside space, outside time, and outside any dependence on causes.
In the first case, if necessity without freedom were possible, we would arrive at the definition of the law of necessity by that same necessity, that is, at form alone without content.
In the second case, if freedom without necessity were possible, we would arrive at unconditional freedom outside space, time, and causes, which, by the very fact of being unconditional and unlimited by anything, would be nothing, or content alone without form.
We would arrive generally at those two bases from which man’s whole worldview is formed—at the unfathomable essence of life and at the laws which define that essence.
Reason says: (1) Space, with all the forms which its visibility—matter—gives it, is infinite and cannot be conceived otherwise. (2) Time is infinite movement without a moment’s rest, and cannot be conceived otherwise. (3) The linking of causes and effects has no beginning and can have no end.
Consciousness says: (1) I am alone, and all that exists is only I; consequently, I include space; (2) I measure fleeting time by the unmoving moment of the present, in which alone I am conscious of myself as living; consequently, I am outside time; and (3) I am outside cause, for I feel myself to be the cause of every manifestation of my life.
Reason expresses the laws of necessity. Consciousness expresses the essence of freedom.
Freedom, not limited by anything, is the essence of life in the consciousness of man. Necessity without content is man’s reason with its three forms.
Freedom is that which is examined. Necessity is that which examines. Freedom is content. Necessity is form.
Only by the separation of the two sources of cognition, which are related to each other as form to content, do we get the distinct, mutually exclusive, and unfathomable concepts of freedom and necessity.
Only by their union do we get a clear picture of the life of man.
Outside these two concepts, mutually defining in their union as form and content, no picture of life is possible.
All that we know about the life of men is only a certain relation of freedom to necessity, that is, of consciousness to the laws of reason.
All that we know about the external world of nature is only a certain relation of the forces of nature to necessity, or of the essence of life to the laws of reason.
The forces of the life of nature lie outside us and we are not conscious of them, and we