Coming to the End of - War and Peace

Author of War and Peace

Do you think, If I were to grow a beard like his I could compose such outstanding literature? It may be worth a try.

Alas, like Sampson, I suppose the potency of the works is not at all attributable to the characteristics of the shell, but rather are the manifestation of a far deeper source.

After reading nearly 360 chapters of Tolstoy's War and Peace, I am pressed by the notion that I am little worthy to be commenting on such an amazing work of literature. I don't use the word "amazing" lightly. I am spellbound as I totter along the path of logical thought laid out by this brilliant author. In the epilogues to the book, which are no less a part of the whole than are the Bill of Rights a lesser part of the Constitution, Tolstoy seems to be expanding the philosophy behind the narrative of the previous books and chapters. I could not do him or his work justice with a description of, nor do I recommend any person attempt to glean the full import of the philosophical essays without the aid of the overarching narrative. Likewise, I fall short of even a coherent synopsis of his essays.

Therefore I am left to simply quote the the following passage which stands alone well enough in sagacity and clarity, but hopefully will impel the curious to a full consumption of this classic work. (I nearly said "full digestion," but chose rather consumption, being the first step in the essential process of nourishment, since I acknowledge humbly that to digest this material would require me to eat Borscht, grow a large beard, and read through it many more times.)

From:

War and Peace - Epilogue 2, Chapter 8

"Only in our self-confident day of the popularization of knowledge- thanks to that most powerful engine of ignorance, the diffusion of printed matter- has the question of the freedom of will been put on a level on which the question itself cannot exist. In our time the majority of so-called advanced people- that is, the crowd of ignoramuses- have taken the work of the naturalists who deal with one side of the question for a solution of the whole problem.

They say and write and print that the soul and freedom do not exist, for the life of man is expressed by muscular movements and muscular movements are conditioned by the activity of the nerves; the soul and free will do not exist because at an unknown period of time we sprang from the apes. They say this, not at all suspecting that thousands of years ago that same law of necessity which with such ardor they are now trying to prove by physiology and comparative zoology was not merely acknowledged by all the religions and all the thinkers, but has never been denied. They do not see that the role of the natural sciences in this matter is merely to serve as an instrument for the illumination of one side of it. For the fact that, from the point of view of observation, reason and the will are merely secretions of the brain, and that man following the general law may have developed from lower animals at some unknown period of time, only explains from a fresh side the truth admitted thousands of years ago by all the religious and philosophic theories- that from the point of view of reason man is subject to the law of necessity; but it does not advance by a hair's breadth the solution of the question, which has another, opposite, side, based on the consciousness of freedom.

If men descended from the apes at an unknown period of time, that is as comprehensible as that they were made from a handful of earth at a certain period of time (in the first case the unknown quantity is the time, in the second case it is the origin); and the question of how man's consciousness of freedom is to be reconciled with the law of necessity to which he is subject cannot be solved by comparative physiology and zoology, for in a frog, a rabbit, or an ape, we can observe only the muscular nervous activity, but in man we observe consciousness as well as the muscular and nervous activity.

The naturalists and their followers, thinking they can solve this question, are like plasterers set to plaster one side of the walls of a church who, availing themselves of the absence of the chief superintendent of the work, should in an access of zeal plaster over the windows, icons, woodwork, and still unbuttressed walls, and should be delighted that from their point of view as plasterers, everything is now so smooth and regular."

A final thought:

The first paragraph stated, "Only in our self-confident day of the popularization of knowledge- thanks to that most powerful engine of ignorance, the diffusion of printed matter- has the question of the freedom of will been put on a level on which the question itself cannot exist."

If thus was the opinion stemming from the the keen intellect of a man living over 100 years ago in eastern Europe seeing the influence of the 400 year old printing press, what shock would that same mind have faced in today's culture at the "popularization of knowledge" vomited out in the name of "reality", "news", and "information" through 42" LCD screens and 15.5" monitors?

______________

"While you have the light, believe in the light, that you may become sons of light." These things Jesus spoke, and departed, and was hidden from them.

But although He had done so many signs before them, they did not believe in Him, that the word of Isaiah the prophet might be fulfilled, which he spoke:

“ Lord, who has believed our report?
And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?”

Therefore they could not believe, because Isaiah said again:
“ He has blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts,
Lest they should see with their eyes,
Lest they should understand with their hearts and turn,
So that I should heal them.”
John 12:36-39