Second Epilogue: 1813-20 - Chapter IX

by Leo Tolstoy

　　For the solution of the question of free will or inevitability,history has this advantage over other branches of knowledge in whichthe question is dealt with, that for history this question does notrefer to the essence of man's free will but its manifestation in thepast and under certain conditions.

　　In regard to this question, history stands to the other sciencesas experimental science stands to abstract science.

　　The subject for history is not man's will itself but ourpresentation of it.

　　And so for history, the insoluble mystery presented by theincompatibility of free will and inevitability does not exist as itdoes for theology, ethics, and philosophy. History surveys apresentation of man's life in which the union of these twocontradictions has already taken place.

　　In actual life each historic event, each human action, is veryclearly and definitely understood without any sense ofcontradiction, although each event presents itself as partly freeand partly compulsory.

　　To solve the question of how freedom and necessity are combinedand what constitutes the essence of these two conceptions, thephilosophy of history can and should follow a path contrary to thattaken by other sciences. Instead of first defining the conceptionsof freedom and inevitability in themselves, and then ranging thephenomena of life under those definitions, history should deduce adefinition of the conception of freedom and inevitability themselvesfrom the immense quantity of phenomena of which it is cognizant andthat always appear dependent on these two elements.

　　Whatever presentation of the activity of many men or of anindividual we may consider, we always regard it as the result partlyof man's free will and partly of the law of inevitability.

　　Whether we speak of the migration of the peoples and theincursions of the barbarians, or of the decrees of Napoleon III, or ofsomeone's action an hour ago in choosing one direction out ofseveral for his walk, we are unconscious of any contradiction. Thedegree of freedom and inevitability governing the actions of thesepeople is clearly defined for us.

　　Our conception of the degree of freedom often varies according todifferences in the point of view from which we regard the event, butevery human action appears to us as a certain combination of freedomand inevitability. In every action we examine we see a certain measureof freedom and a certain measure of inevitability. And always the morefreedom we see in any action the less inevitability do we perceive,and the more inevitability the less freedom.

　　The proportion of freedom to inevitability decreases and increasesaccording to the point of view from which the action is regarded,but their relation is always one of inverse proportion.

　　A sinking man who clutches at another and drowns him; or a hungrymother exhausted by feeding her baby, who steals some food; or a mantrained to discipline who on duty at the word of command kills adefenseless man- seem less guilty, that is, less free and more subjectto the law of necessity, to one who knows the circumstances in whichthese people were placed, and more free to one who does not knowthat the man was himself drowning, that the mother was hungry, thatthe soldier was in the ranks, and so on. Similarly a man who committeda murder twenty years ago and has since lived peaceably and harmlesslyin society seems less guilty and his action more due to the law ofinevitability, to someone who considers his action after twentyyears have elapsed than to one who examined it the day after it wascommitted. And in the same way every action of an insane, intoxicated,or highly excited man appears less free and more inevitable to one whoknows the mental condition of him who committed the action, andseems more free and less inevitable to one who does not know it. Inall these cases the conception of freedom is increased or diminishedand the conception of compulsion is correspondingly decreased orincreased, according to the point of view from which the action isregarded. So that the greater the conception of necessity thesmaller the conception of freedom and vice versa.

　　Religion, the common sense of mankind, the science of jurisprudence,and history itself understand alike this relation between necessityand freedom.

　　All cases without exception in which our conception of freedom andnecessity is increased and diminished depend on three considerations:

　　(1) The relation to the external world of the man who commits thedeeds.

　　(2) His relation to time.

　　(3) His relation to the causes leading to the action.

　　The first consideration is the clearness of our perception of theman's relation to the external world and the greater or lesserclearness of our understanding of the definite position occupied bythe man in relation to everything coexisting with him. This is whatmakes it evident that a drowning man is less free and more subjectto necessity than one standing on dry ground, and that makes theactions of a man closely connected with others in a thicklypopulated district, or of one bound by family, official, or businessduties, seem certainly less free and more subject to necessity thanthose of a man living in solitude and seclusion.

　　If we consider a man alone, apart from his relation to everythingaround him, each action of his seems to us free. But if we see hisrelation to anything around him, if we see his connection withanything whatever- with a man who speaks to him, a book he reads,the work on which he is engaged, even with the air he breathes orthe light that falls on the things about him- we see that each ofthese circumstances has an influence on him and controls at least someside of his activity. And the more we perceive of these influences themore our conception of his freedom diminishes and the more ourconception of the necessity that weighs on him increases.

　　The second consideration is the more or less evident time relationof the man to the world and the clearness of our perception of theplace the man's action occupies in time. That is the ground whichmakes the fall of the first man, resulting in the production of thehuman race, appear evidently less free than a man's entry intomarriage today. It is the reason why the life and activity of peoplewho lived centuries ago and are connected with me in time cannotseem to me as free as the life of a contemporary, the consequencesof which are still unknown to me.

　　The degree of our conception of freedom or inevitability dependsin this respect on the greater or lesser lapse of time between theperformance of the action and our judgment of it.

　　If I examine an act I performed a moment ago in approximately thesame circumstances as those I am in now, my action appears to meundoubtedly free. But if I examine an act performed a month ago,then being in different circumstances, I cannot help recognizingthat if that act had not been committed much that resulted from it-good, agreeable, and even essential- would not have taken place. IfI reflect on an action still more remote, ten years ago or more,then the consequences of my action are still plainer to me and Ifind it hard to imagine what would have happened had that action notbeen performed. The farther I go back in memory, or what is the samething the farther I go forward in my judgment, the more doubtfulbecomes my belief in the freedom of my action.

　　In history we find a very similar progress of convictionconcerning the part played by free will in the general affairs ofhumanity. A contemporary event seems to us to be indubitably the doingof all the known participants, but with a more remote event we alreadysee its inevitable results which prevent our considering anything elsepossible. And the farther we go back in examining events the lessarbitrary do they appear.

　　The Austro-Prussian war appears to us undoubtedly the result ofthe crafty conduct of Bismarck, and so on. The Napoleonic wars stillseem to us, though already questionably, to be the outcome of theirheroes' will. But in the Crusades we already see an event occupyingits definite place in history and without which we cannot imaginethe modern history of Europe, though to the chroniclers of theCrusades that event appeared as merely due to the will of certainpeople. In regard to the migration of the peoples it does not enteranyone's head today to suppose that the renovation of the Europeanworld depended on Attila's caprice. The farther back in history theobject of our observation lies, the more doubtful does the free willof those concerned in the event become and the more manifest the lawof inevitability.

　　The third consideration is the degree to which we apprehend thatendless chain of causation inevitably demanded by reason, in whicheach phenomenon comprehended, and therefore man's every action, musthave its definite place as a result of what has gone before and as acause of what will follow.

　　The better we are acquainted with the physiological,psychological, and historical laws deduced by observation and by whichman is controlled, and the more correctly we perceive thephysiological, psychological, and historical causes of the action, andthe simpler the action we are observing and the less complex thecharacter and mind of the man in question, the more subject toinevitability and the less free do our actions and those of othersappear.

　　When we do not at all understand the cause of an action, whether acrime, a good action, or even one that is simply nonmoral, weascribe a greater amount of freedom to it. In the case of a crime wemost urgently demand the punishment for such an act; in the case ofa virtuous act we rate its merit most highly. In an indifferent casewe recognize in it more individuality, originality, andindependence. But if even one of the innumerable causes of the actis known to us we recognize a certain element of necessity and areless insistent on punishment for the crime, or the acknowledgment ofthe merit of the virtuous act, or the freedom of the apparentlyoriginal action. That a criminal was reared among male factorsmitigates his fault in our eyes. The self-sacrifice of a father ormother, or self-sacrifice with the possibility of a reward, is morecomprehensible than gratuitous self-sacrifice, and therefore seemsless deserving of sympathy and less the result of free will. Thefounder of a sect or party, or an inventor, impresses us less whenwe know how or by what the way was prepared for his activity. If wehave a large range of examples, if our observation is constantlydirected to seeking the correlation of cause and effect in people'sactions, their actions appear to us more under compulsion and lessfree the more correctly we connect the effects with the causes. Ifwe examined simple actions and had a vast number of such actions underobservation, our conception of their inevitability would be stillgreater. The dishonest conduct of the son of a dishonest father, themisconduct of a woman who had fallen into bad company, a drunkard'srelapse into drunkenness, and so on are actions that seem to us lessfree the better we understand their cause. If the man whose actions weare considering is on a very low stage of mental development, like achild, a madman, or a simpleton- then, knowing the causes of the actand the simplicity of the character and intelligence in question, wesee so large an element of necessity and so little free will that assoon as we know the cause prompting the action we can foretell theresult.

　　On these three considerations alone is based the conception ofirresponsibility for crimes and the extenuating circumstances admittedby all legislative codes. The responsibility appears greater or lessaccording to our greater or lesser knowledge of the circumstances inwhich the man was placed whose action is being judged, and accordingto the greater or lesser interval of time between the commission ofthe action and its investigation, and according to the greater orlesser understanding of the causes that led to the action.