Tolstoy and External Forces

No, dear reader, I do not refer to the so-called "force" imagined in Star Wars.
On a more serious note, I began reading Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace a while ago, and love it thus far. Several days ago, I happened to read the following passage (Part II, Chapter XVIII), translated by Constance Garnett:

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"With God's help!" cried Bagration in a resolute, sonorous voice. He turned for one instant to the front line, and swinging his arms a little, with the awkward, lumbering gait of a man always on horseback, he walked forward over the uneven ground. Prince Andrey felt that some unseen force was drawing him forward, and he had a sensation of great happiness.

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Following this, a footnote proceeds:

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This was the attack of which Thiers says: "The Russians behaved valiantly and, which is rare in warfare, two bodies of infantry marched resolutely upon each other, neither giving way before the other came up." And Napoleon on St. Helena said: "Some Russian battalions showed intrepidity."

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Having read Tolstoy's latter novel Anna Karenina months ago, which I continue to call one of my favorite novels ever written, I happened to remember the following passage (Part III, Chapter VI), translated by David Magarshack:

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Easy as it was to cut the wet, soft grass, it was hard work going up and down the steep slopes of the ravine. But the old man was not in the least troubled by it. Swinging his scythe just as usual, he climbed slowly up the steep slope, taking short, firm steps with his feet shod in large bast shoes, and though his whole body and his loosely hanging trousers below his long shirt shook, he did not miss a single blade of grass or a single mushroom, and went on cracking jokes with the peasants and Levin. Levin, who followed him, often thought that he would certainly fall as he climbed up the steep hillock with his scythe, for it would have normally been hard to reach the top even without a scythe. He felt as if some external force were setting him in motion.

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I admit knowing only little of Leo Tolstoy's own beliefs regarding religion and spirituality, other than considering himself very spiritual, skeptic, and open-minded, according to many letters he exchanged with Mahatma Mohandes K. Gandhi. I do remember, however, the thought of William James, in his The Varieties of Religious Experience, reporting of the connection of all souls with a Divine Being, forming one Universal Soul/Mind, somewhat similar to ideas of Cartesian philosophy.
While either serving in one of the most historical wars in history, or cutting grass up a slope with scythes, would such experiences include aide from an external force (or, in James' idea, a connected, but peripheral, force)? Do all experiences necessarily have a guide to them, only we feel them more distinctly sometimes, or do we direct ourselves entirely by our own autonomy? Two vastly disparate occurrences with fictional characters, but guided by the same, equivalently described force. I continue to wonder what Tolstoy intended his readers to think of these passages, both located at the end of their chapters, or did it seem mere coincidence?

he discusses this later in the book ;) well, more towards the epilogues. i think he thought free will as something of a convenient "crock" for mankind to comfort ourselves with...

i like your questioning, mono...will write more when the need to sleep isn't so very pressing.

I was required to read "War and Peace" during the summer of 1970. I distinctly remember a passage about a woman, where Tolstoy explained that because she had tear ducts, therefore, periodically weeping was necessary (or unavoidable). The passage continued in this fashion, explaining way the woman's various actions in a mechanistic fashion, as being the result of her anatomy and physiology.

I knew a woman once, who received a kitten from someone, but decided she dislikes cats, so she gave it away. I mentioned how much my cat loves me. She said, "Oh, the cat is just hungry, and you give it food, but the cat is not capable of love." She was trying to explain away the cat's behavior in a similar mechanistic fashion. My cat and my dog had ample food, but I still believe they expressed love and I also believe that they needed love in addition to food and water.

==== It is now the morning of the 29th. and I have had more time to think about this thread.

It suddenly occurs to me that what this all boils down to is the ancient dispute between Pelagius and Augustine. Pelagius believed that human beings have it within their power to choose to do good and reject evil. Augustine argued that human beings are hopelessly wicked because of original sin which derives from Adam and Eve's transgression, and therefore we are doomed to be wicked unless we are empowered by the grace of God's will and election and tap into the saving power of the crucifixion and the sacraments of the Church.

Pelagius launched one very clever argument against Augustine and his position: namely, how could it be possible for the actions of Adam to taint all humanity (even people on remote islands who never heard of Adam and Eve) and doom humanity to wickedness; and how could it then NOT be possible for Christ's action to automatically save or redeem all humanity (even those ignorant savages on those islands) and redeem them without their consent or cooperation or conversion?

In spite of all Pelagius' cleverness, it was Augustine who won the day and carried the West, and Catholicism, and later, the Protestant Reformation, to its current position regarding grace, election and salvation.


Steinbeck was quite a pro-Pelagian in "East of Eden".

http://online-literature.com/forums/...ead.php?t=3544

The arguments that Tolstoy is toying with, of a brand of fatalism, that we are carried along in our actions by our mechanical nature and outside forces, is more on Augustine's side of the fence than on Pelagius' side.

At the heart of this issue, for me, is the notion of personal responsibility. If we do have the freedom of choice, which we call freewill, then we have no one to blame but ourselves whenever we make the wrong choice. But, if we take the stand that there is something in our essential nature which ineluctably drives our actions, or if their is a god's predestination and election, or fate, then we shirk any personal responsibility for our circumstances.

Therefore, I conclude that it is the notion of fatalism and predestination and cause-and-effect which is comforting in the sense that it is comfortable, requiring no effort on our part but to lie back and say either "the devil made me do it" or "God made me do it". Whereas freewill is hardly comfortable, since it requires us to get up off of our backside, get a grip upon ourselves, and motivate ourselves to do something and take personal responsibility.

Suppose we take the position that there is no essential meaning to human life or our existence. Such a position demands little of us. We do not have to labor to discover what that meaning is or exert ourselves to define that meaning to put it into words. And, we do not have to exert ourselves to PROVE that life is purposeless and meaningless, since proof and reasoning and argument has, inherent with it, purpose, agenda, and meaning.

Analogously, suppose we take the position that this is no underlying meaning or symbolism in works of literature. We have automatically relieved ourselves of much labor and effort. If we say there is profound meaning, or symbolism, then we invite ourselves to labor and struggle to discover and articulate that meaning.