Page 2278 - war-and-peace

ity in themselves, and then ranging the phenomena of life
under those definitions, history should deduce a definition
of the conception of freedom and inevitability themselves
from the immense quantity of phenomena of which it is
cognizant and that always appear dependent on these two
elements.
Whatever presentation of the activity of many men or of
an individual we may consider, we always regard it as the
result partly of man’s free will and partly of the law of in-
evitability.
Whether we speak of the migration of the peoples and
the incursions of the barbarians, or of the decrees of Napo-
leon III, or of someone’s action an hour ago in choosing one
direction out of several for his walk, we are unconscious of
any contradiction. The degree of freedom and inevitability
governing the actions of these people is clearly defined for
us.
Our conception of the degree of freedom often varies ac-
cording to differences in the point of view from which we
regard the event, but every human action appears to us as
a certain combination of freedom and inevitability. In ev-
ery action we examine we see a certain measure of freedom
and a certain measure of inevitability. And always the more
freedom 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
increases according to the point of view from which the ac-
tion is regarded, but their relation is always one of inverse
proportion.

2278 War and Peace