Historians who say that this or that decision caused this or that event to occur are mistaking cause and effect. Tolstoy uses an analogy to illustrate his statement. Consider some men who are about to drag off a log, he says, and each man offers an opinion as to where the log should go. They drag it away, and it turns out to end up where one of them had advised. This is the man, historians would say, who gave the command. All the other commands and commanders are thus forgotten after the event has been enacted. With these analyses, Tolstoy concludes that"power" vested by the mass in one or a few persons, expressed through the followers of a commander, and operating within the constraints of time, can never serve to explain historical causality.
Having thus discredited the various schools of historiography and pointing out the fallacy of general concepts like"power," Tolstoy examines human existence in relation to the forces of destiny. His previous arguments have considered external phenomena only and have overlooked the intrinsic quality of man's freedom of will. Tolstoy now comes to the crux of his argument, which remains an unresolved paradox: Freedom of will is as mythic a quality as that of power, but without this concept all human activities become meaningless.
If men have free wills, history would be a series of unconnected incidents, says Tolstoy, who believes nevertheless in historical determinacy. But if we admit that even one man has the power to act freely, he argues, then we cannot formulate any law to explain the actions of men. By the same token, if one law controls the actions of men, then no one is free, all wills being subject to that law.
Tolstoy attacks this problem by hypothesizing two views of man, an"inner" view and an"outer" view:"Looking at man as a subject of observation from any point of view — theological, ethical, philosophical — we find a general law of necessity to which he is subject like everything else existing. Looking at him from within ourselves, as what we are conscious of, we feel ourselves free." This"inner" quality is our consciousness or free will, and the"outer" quality is reason, or necessity."Through reason, man observes himself," writes Tolstoy,"but he knows himself through consciousness."
