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<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/656.War_and_Peace?utm_medium=api&amp;utm_source=blog_review" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img alt="War and Peace" border="0" src="http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1222897284m/656.jpg" /></a> <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/656.War_and_Peace?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">War and Peace</a> by <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/85.Leo_Tolstoy">Leo Tolstoy</a> 
 <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/8166696?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review"><h3>My review</h3></a>
 From the time the law of Copernicus was discovered and proved, the mere recognition of the fact that it was
 not the sun but the earth that moves sufficed to destroy the whole cosmography of the ancients. By disproving
 that law it might have been possible to retain the old conception of the movements of the bodies, but without
 disproving it, it would seem impossible to continue studying the Ptolemaic worlds. But even after the
 discovery of the law of Copernicus the Ptolemaic worlds were still studied for a long time.
 From the time the first person said and proved that the number of births or of crimes is subject to
 mathematical laws, and that this or that mode of government is determined by certain geographical and
 economic conditions, and that certain relations of population to soil produce migrations of peoples, the
 foundations on which history had been built were destroyed in their essence.
 By refuting these new laws the former view of history might have been retained; but without refuting them it
 would seem impossible to continue studying historic events as the results of man's free will. For if a certain
 mode of government was established or certain migrations of peoples took place in consequence of such and
 such geographic, ethnographic, or economic conditions, then the free will of those individuals who appear to
 us to have established that mode of government or occasioned the migrations can no longer be regarded as the
 cause.
 And yet the former history continues to be studied side by side with the laws of statistics, geography, political
 economy, comparative philology, and geology, which directly contradict its assumptions.
 The struggle between the old views and the new was long and stubbornly fought out in physical philosophy.
 Theology stood on guard for the old views and accused the new of violating revelation. But when truth
 conquered, theology established itself just as firmly on the new foundation.
 Just as prolonged and stubborn is the struggle now proceeding between the old and the new conception of
 history, and theology in the same way stands on guard for the old view, and accuses the new view of
 subverting revelation.
 In the one case as in the other, on both sides the struggle provokes passion and stifles truth. On the one hand
 there is fear and regret for the loss of the whole edifice constructed through the ages, on the other is the
 passion for destruction.
 To the men who fought against the rising truths of physical philosophy, it seemed that if they admitted that
 truth it would destroy faith in God, in the creation of the firmament, and in the miracle of Joshua the son of
 Nun. To the defenders of the laws of Copernicus and Newton, to Voltaire for example, it seemed that the laws
 of astronomy destroyed religion, and he utilized the law of gravitation as a weapon against religion.
 Just so it now seems as if we have only to admit the law of inevitability, to destroy the conception of the soul,
 of good and evil, and all the institutions of state and church that have been built up on those conceptions.
 So too, like Voltaire in his time, uninvited defenders of the law of inevitability today use that law as a weapon
 against religion, though the law of inevitability in history, like the law of Copernicus in astronomy, far from
 destroying, even strengthens the foundation on which the institutions of state and church are erected.
 As in the question of astronomy then, so in the question of history now, the whole difference of opinion is
 based on the recognition or nonrecognition of something absolute, serving as the measure of visible
 phenomena. In astronomy it was the immovability of the earth, in history it is the independence of
 personality--free will.
 
 <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/574273?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">View all my reviews.</a>

Savuth4u's review
status: Read in January, 1999

From the time the law of Copernicus was discovered and proved, the mere recognition of the fact that it was
not the sun but the earth that moves sufficed to destroy the whole cosmography of the ancients. By disproving
that law it might have been possible to retain the old conception of the movements of the bodies, but without
disproving it, it would seem impossible to continue studying the Ptolemaic worlds. But even after the
discovery of the law of Copernicus the Ptolemaic worlds were still studied for a long time.
From the time the first person said and proved that the number of births or of crimes is subject to
mathematical laws, and that this or that mode of government is determined by certain geographical and
economic conditions, and that certain relations of population to soil produce migrations of peoples, the
foundations on which history had been built were destroyed in their essence.
By refuting these new laws the former view of history might have been retained; but w...more

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message 1: by Veasna

10/25/2007 06:45PM

It is good.