Page 2270 - war-and-peace

Chapter VIII

If history dealt only with external phenomena, the es-
tablishment of this simple and obvious law would suffice
and we should have finished our argument. But the law of
history relates to man. A particle of matter cannot tell us
that it does not feel the law of attraction or repulsion and
that that law is untrue, but man, who is the subject of his-
tory, says plainly: I am free and am therefore not subject to
the law.
The presence of the problem of man’s free will, though
unexpressed, is felt at every step of history.
All seriously thinking historians have involuntarily
encountered this question. All the contradictions and ob-
scurities of history and the false path historical science has
followed are due solely to the lack of a solution of that ques-
tion.
If the will of every man were free, that is, if each man
could act as he pleased, all history would be a series of dis-
connected incidents.
If in a thousand years even one man in a million could
act freely, that is, as he chose, it is evident that one single
free act of that man’s in violation of the laws governing hu-
man action would destroy the possibility of the existence of
any laws for the whole of humanity.
If there be a single law governing the actions of men, free

2270 War and Peace