Page 2279 - war-and-peace

A sinking man who clutches at another and drowns
him; or a hungry mother exhausted by feeding her baby,
who steals some food; or a man trained to discipline who on
duty at the word of command kills a defenseless manseem
less guilty, that is, less free and more subject to the law of ne-
cessity, to one who knows the circumstances in which these
people were placed, and more free to one who does not know
that the man was himself drowning, that the mother was
hungry, that the soldier was in the ranks, and so on. Simi-
larly a man who committed a murder twenty years ago and
has since lived peaceably and harmlessly in society seems
less guilty and his action more due to the law of inevitabil-
ity, to someone who considers his action after twenty years
have elapsed than to one who examined it the day after it
was committed. And in the same way every action of an
insane, intoxicated, or highly excited man appears less free
and more inevitable to one who knows the mental condi-
tion of him who committed the action, and seems more free
and less inevitable to one who does not know it. In all these
cases the conception of freedom is increased or diminished
and the conception of compulsion is correspondingly de-
creased or increased, according to the point of view from
which the action is regarded. So that the greater the con-
ception of necessity the smaller the conception of freedom
and vice versa.
Religion, the common sense of mankind, the science of
jurisprudence, and history itself understand alike this rela-
tion between necessity and freedom.
All cases without exception in which our conception of

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