《War And Peace》 Epilogue2 CHAPTER V
by Leo Tolstoy
THE LIFE of nations is not contained in the life of a few men, since the
connection between those few men and the nations has not been found. The theory
that this connection is based on the delegation of the combined will of a people
to its historical leaders is an hypothesis, not supported by the testimony of
history.
The theory of the delegation of the combined will of the masses to historical
personages may perhaps explain a great deal in the domain of the science of law,
and is possibly essential for its purposes. But in its application to history,
as soon as revolutions, wars, civil disturbances arise, as soon as history
begins in fact—this theory explains nothing.
This theory appears irrefutable, just because the act of delegating the will
of the people can never be verified, since it has never existed.
Whatever event might take place, and whoever might be taking the lead in such
an event, the theory can always say that such a person took the lead in bringing
about that event because the combined will was vested in him.
The answers given by this theory to historical questions are like the answers
of a man who, watching the movements of a flock, should pay no attention to the
varying quality of the pasturage in different parts of the field, nor to the
actions of the shepherd, but should look for the causes of the flock taking this
or that direction simply in the animal that happened to be foremost in it.
“The flock moves in this direction because the animal in front leads it, and
the combined will of all the other animals is delegated to the leader of the
flock.” Such is the answer given by the first class of historians, who suppose
an unconditional delegation of will to the authority.
“If the animals leading the flock are changed for others, it is due to the
fact that the combined will of all the beasts is transferred from one leader to
another owing to the fact that the first leader did not follow the direction
chosen by all the flock.” Such is the reply of those historians who assume that
the combined will of the masses is vested in their rulers on conditions which
they regard as unknown. (With this method of observation it very often happens
that the observer, judging from the direction chosen by him, reckons as leaders
those who, when the direction of the masses is changed, are not in front, but on
one side, and even sometimes the hindmost.)
“If the beasts that are foremost are constantly being changed, and the
direction taken by the flock too is continually changing, that is due to the
fact that to attain a certain direction known to us the beasts delegate their
wills to those beasts which attract our attention, and to study the movements of
the flock we ought to observe all the noticeable animals that are moving on all
sides of the flock.” So say the third class of historians, who accept all
historical characters as the expression of their age from monarchs to
journalists.
The theory of the transference of the will of the masses to historical
characters is only a paraphrase—only a restatement of the question in other
words.
What is the cause of historical events? Power.
What is Power? Power is the combined will of the masses vested in one
person.
On what conditions are the wills of the masses vested in one person? On
condition of that person's expressing the will of all men. That is, power is
power. That is, power is a word the meaning of which is beyond our
comprehension.
If the domain of human knowledge were confined to abstract reasoning alone,
then, after subjecting the explanation of power given by science to criticism,
humanity would come to the conclusion that power is only a word, and that it has
no existence in reality. But for the knowledge of phenomena, man has besides
abstract reasoning another instrument—experience—by which he verifies the
results of reasoning. And experience tells him that power is not merely a word,
but an actually existing phenomenon.
To say nothing of the fact that not a single account of the combined action
of men can omit the conception of power, the reality of power is shown us, not
only by history, but by observation of contemporary events.
Whenever an event takes place, a man or men appear by whose will the event is
conceived to have been accomplished. Napoleon III. gives an order, and the
French go to Mexico. The Prussian King and Bismarck give certain orders, and
troops go to Bohemia. Napoleon I. gives a command, and soldiers march into
Russia. Alexander I. gives a command, and the French submit to the Bourbons.
Experience shows us that whatever takes place, it is always connected with the
will of one or of several men, who decreed it should be so.
Historians, from the old habit of recognising divine intervention in the
affairs of humanity, are inclined to look for the cause of events in the
exercise of the will of the person endowed with power; but this conclusion is
not confirmed either by reason or by experience.
On one side reason shows that the expression of the will of a man—his words,
in fact, are only a part of the general activity expressed in an event, such as
a revolution or a war, and therefore without the assumption of an
incomprehensible, supernatural force—a miracle—it cannot be admitted that these
words can be the immediate cause of the movements of millions of men.
On the other side, even if one admits that words may be the cause of an
event, history shows us that the expression of the will of historical personages
in the great majority of cases does not lead to any effect at all—that is, that
their commands are often not carried out, and, in fact, sometimes the very
opposite of what they have commanded is done.
Without admitting divine intervention in the affairs of humanity, we cannot
accept power as a cause of events.
Power, from the point of view of experience, is only the dependence existing
between the expression of the will of a person and the carrying out of that will
by others.
To explain the conditions of that dependence, we have, first of all, to
reinstate the conception of the expression of will, referring it to man, and not
to the Deity.
If the Deity gives a command, expresses His will, as the history of the
ancients tell us, the expression of that will is independent of time, and is not
called forth by anything, as the Deity is not connected with the event. But when
we speak of commands that are the expression of the will of men, acting in time
and connected with one another, we must, if we are to understand the connection
of the command with the event, restore (1) the conditions of all the
circumstances that took place, the dynamic continuity in time both of the event
and of the person commanding it; and (2) the condition of the inevitable
connection in which the person commanding stands with those who carry out his
command.
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