Tolstoy introduces this section by showing the error of applying scientific analysis to history. As a mathematician takes arbitrary small units and by integral calculus develops a system of dynamics to understand the continuity of motion, so does a historian take small units of history to understand the continuity of history. But we fall into error, Tolstoy says, when the"unit" we choose to examine is the career of a great man or the effects of a particular political crisis. What we fail to realize, he continues, is that these"units" are made up of still smaller forces operating upon the great man or the political phenomenon. As we establish a unit of"absolute motion," so must we examine the"homogeneous elements" of history: single human beings and their daily lives. For, he says, it is"the sum of men's individual wills [that] produced both the revolution and Napoleon; and only the sum of those wills endured them and then destroyed them." We can never understand the laws of history; but to assume the beginning of an event by citing a historical personality is as mistaken an idea as saying the turning wheels cause the steam engine to move. We must begin to study history by considering the lives of the men within the masses and the infinitesimal activities of each.
Tolstoy now sums up the overall movements of that period. Armies of 12 different nations invade Russia and the Russians fall back, avoiding battle until Borodino. Then the French move on toward Moscow, leaving behind them thousands of versts of famine-stricken, hostile country. As they retreat, the Russians burn ever more fiercely with hatred of their foe, venting this fury at Borodino. For five weeks the French occupy Moscow before they flee while the Russians retreat well beyond the city. As the French flee, their army totally disintegrates, although not a single engagement takes place between the foes.
Kutuzov could never have foreseen this overall pattern, although militarists have criticized him ever since. A commander-in-chief is limited by many factors, says Tolstoy, and he is never present at the beginning of any event. Always in the middle of a changing series of events that unfold moment by moment, he is always unaware of the whole pattern.
