War and Peace, Part 2: Second Epilogue, Chapter 8 summary

What happens

1. The narrator argues that even one entirely free action contradicts the existence of universal laws governing human behavior.
2. He distinguishes reason, which observes people under laws of necessity, from consciousness, which presents the will as free.
3. Repeated experience cannot remove a person’s conviction that another choice remains possible under identical conditions.
4. He describes the pursuit of greater freedom as essential to human effort and life.
5. He identifies related conflicts concerning freedom in theology, jurisprudence, ethics, and history.
6. He criticizes naturalists and their followers for treating explanations of bodily processes as answers to the entire problem.

Quick check