War and Peace

by Leo Tolstoy

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 non-recognition 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—freewill. As with astronomy the difficulty of recognising the motion of the earth lay in abandoning the immediate sensation of the earth’s fixity and of the motion of the planets, so in history the difficulty of recognising the subjection of personality to the laws of space, time, and cause, lies in renouncing the direct feeling of the independence of one’s own personality. But as in astronomy the new view said: “It is true that we do not feel the movement of the earth, but by admitting its immobility we arrive at absurdity, while by admitting its motion (which we do not feel) we arrive at laws,” so also in history the new view says: “It is true that we are not conscious of our dependence, but by admitting our freewill we arrive at absurdity, while by admitting our dependence on the external world, on time, and on cause, we arrive at laws.” In the first case it was necessary to renounce the consciousness of an unreal immobility in space and to recognise a motion we did not feel; in the present case it is similarly necessary to renounce a freedom that does not exist, and to recognise a dependence of which we are not conscious.