《War And Peace》 Epilogue2 CHAPTER VI
by Leo Tolstoy
ONLY THE EXPRESSION of the will of the Deity, not depending on time, can
relate to a whole series of events that have to take place during several years
or centuries; and only the Deity, acting by His will alone, not affected by any
cause, can determine the direction of the movement of humanity. Man acts in
time, and himself takes part in the event.
Restoring the first condition that was omitted, the condition of time, we
perceive that no single command can be carried out apart from preceding commands
that have made the execution of the last command possible.
Never is a single command given quite independently and arbitrarily, nor does
it cover a whole series of events. Every command is the sequel to some other;
and it never relates to a whole course of events, but only to one moment in
those events.
When we say, for instance, that Napoleon commanded the army to go to fight,
we sum up in one single expression a series of consecutive commands, depending
one upon another. Napoleon could not command a campaign against Russia, and
never did command it. He commanded one day certain papers to be written to
Vienna, to Berlin, and to Petersburg; next day certain decrees and instructions
to the army, the fleet, and the commissariat, and so on and so on—millions of
separate commands, making up a whole series of commands, corresponding to a
series of events leading the French soldiers to Russia.
Napoleon was giving commands all through his reign for an expedition to
England. On no one of his undertakings did he waste so much time and so much
effort, and yet not once during his reign was an attempt made to carry out his
design. Yet he made an expedition against Russia, with which, according to his
repeatedly expressed conviction, it was to his advantage to be in alliance; and
this is due to the fact that his commands in the first case did not, and in the
second did, correspond with the course of events.
In order that a command should certainly be carried out, it is necessary that
the man should give a command that can be carried out. To know what can and what
cannot be carried out is impossible, not only in the case of Napoleon's campaign
against Russia, in which millions took part, but even in the case of the
simplest event, since millions of obstacles may always arise to prevent its
being carried out. Every command that is carried out is always one out of a mass
of commands that are not carried out. All the impossible commands are
inconsistent with the course of events and are not carried out. Only those which
are possible are connected with consecutive series of commands, consistent with
series of events, and they are carried out.
Our false conception that the command that precedes an event is the cause of
an event is due to the fact that when the event has taken place and those few
out of thousands of commands, which happen to be consistent with the course of
events, are carried out, we forget those which were not, because they could not
be carried out. Apart from that, the chief source of our error arises from the
fact that in the historical account a whole series of innumerable, various, and
most minute events, as, for instance, all that led the French soldiers to
Russia, are generalised into a single event, in accordance with the result
produced by that series of events; and by a corresponding generalisation a whole
series of commands too is summed up into a single expression of will.
We say: Napoleon chose to invade Russia and he did so. In reality we never
find in all Napoleon's doings anything like an expression of that design: what
we find is a series of commands or expressions of his will of the most various
and undefined tendency. Out of many series of innumerable commands of Napoleon
not carried out, one series of commands for the campaign of 1812 was carried
out; not from any essential difference between the commands carried out and
those not carried out, but simply because the former coincided with the course
of events that led the French soldiers into Russia; just as in stencil-work one
figure or another is sketched, not because the colours are laid on this side or
in that way, but because on the figure cut out in stencil, colours are laid on
all sides.
So that examining in time the relation of commands to events, we find that
the command can never in any case be the cause of the event, but that a certain
definite dependence exists between them. To understand of what this dependence
consists, it is essential to restore the other circumstance lost sight of, a
condition accompanying any command issuing not from the Deity, but from man.
That circumstance is that the man giving the command is himself taking part in
the event.
That relation of the commanding person to those he commands is indeed
precisely what is called power. That relation may be analysed as follows.
For common action, men always unite in certain combinations, in which, in
spite of the difference of the objects aimed at by common action, the relation
between the men taking a part in the action always remains the same.
Uniting in these combinations, men always stand in such a relation to one
another that the largest number of men take a GREater direct share, and a
smaller number of men a less direct share in the combined action for which they
are united. Of all such combinations in which men are organised for the
performance of common action, one of the most striking and definite examples is
the army.
Every army is composed of members of lower military standing—the private
soldiers, who are always the largest proportion of the whole, of members of a
slightly higher military standing—corporals and non-commissioned officers, who
are fewer in number than the privates; of still higher officers, whose numbers
are even less; and so on, up to the chief military command of all, which is
concentrated in one person.
The military organisation may be with perfect accuracy compared to the figure
of a cone, the base of which, with the largest diameter, consists of privates;
the next higher and smaller plane, of the lower officers; and so on up to the
apex of the cone, which will be the commander-in-chief.
The soldiers, who are the largest number, form the lowest plane and the base
of the cone. The soldier himself does the stabbing and hacking, and burning and
pillaging, and always receives commands to perform these acts from the persons
in the plane next above. He himself never gives a command. The non-commissioned
officer (these are fewer in number) more rarely performs the immediate act than
the soldier; but he gives commands. The officer next above him still more rarely
acts directly himself, and still more frequently commands. The general does
nothing but command the army, and hardly ever makes use of a weapon. The
commander-in-chief never takes direct part in the action itself, and simply
makes general arrangements as to the movements of the masses. A similar relation
exists in every combination of persons for common action—in agriculture,
commerce, and in every department of activity.
And so without artificially analysing all the converging planes of the cone
and ranks of the army or classes or ranks of any department whatever, or public
undertaking, from lower to higher, a law comes into existence, by which men
always combine together for the performance of common action in such relation
that the more directly they take part in the action, the less they command, and
the GREater their numbers; and the less direct the part they take in the common
action, the more they command, and the fewer they are in number; passing in that
way from the lower strata up to a single man at the top, who takes least direct
share in the action, and devotes his energy more than all the rest to giving
commands.
This is the relation of persons in command to those whom they command, and it
constitutes the essence of the conception of what is called power.
Restoring the conditions of time under which all events take place, we found
that a command is carried out only when it relates to a corresponding course of
events. Restoring the essential condition of connection between the persons
commanding and fulfilling the commands, we have found that by their very nature
the persons commanding take the smallest part in the action itself, and their
energy is exclusively directed to commanding.
