War and Peace, Part 2: Second Epilogue, Chapter 10 summary
Part 2: Second Epilogue, Chapter 10 of 365 · 8 min to read the chapter
In Chapter 10, the narrator argues that human action cannot be understood as completely free or completely necessary, because both views require impossible assumptions about space, time, and causes. The argument joins consciousness with reason and defines history as the study of human actions under knowable laws.
What happens
- The narrator explains how circumstances, elapsed time, and knowledge of causes change our judgments of freedom and necessity.
- An imagined movement of an arm shows why space, time, and causes prevent absolute freedom.
- Incomplete knowledge of circumstances and causes prevents any judgment of absolute necessity.
- The narrator connects freedom with consciousness and necessity with reason, arguing that understanding requires both.
- Comparisons with natural forces establish human action as history’s subject and freedom itself as a question for metaphysics.
- The narrator concludes that historians call the unexplained part of human action free will.
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Quick check
What does free will mean for history in the narrator’s final explanation?
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