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_ If we assume as the historians do that great men lead humanity to
the attainment of certain ends- the greatness of Russia or of
France, the balance of power in Europe, the diffusion of the ideas
of the Revolution general progress or anything else- then it is
impossible to explain the facts of history without introducing the
conceptions of chance and genius.
If the aim of the European wars at the beginning of the nineteenth
century had been the aggrandizement of Russia, that aim might have
been accomplished without all the preceding wars and without the
invasion. If the aim wag the aggrandizement of France, that might have
been attained without the Revolution and without the Empire. If the
aim was the dissemination of ideas, the printing press could have
accomplished that much better than warfare. If the aim was the
progress of civilization, it is easy to see that there are other
ways of diffusing civilization more expedient than by the
destruction of wealth and of human lives.
Why did it happen in this and not in some other way?
Because it happened so! "Chance created the situation; genius
utilized it," says history.
But what is chance? What is genius?
The words chance and genius do not denote any really existing
thing and therefore cannot be defined. Those words only denote a
certain stage of understanding of phenomena. I do not know why a
certain event occurs; I think that I cannot know it; so I do not try
to know it and I talk about chance. I see a force producing effects
beyond the scope of ordinary human agencies; I do not understand why
this occurs and I talk of genius.
To a herd of rams, the ram the herdsman drives each evening into a
special enclosure to feed and that becomes twice as fat as the
others must seem to be a genius. And it must appear an astonishing
conjunction of genius with a whole series of extraordinary chances
that this ram, who instead of getting into the general fold every
evening goes into a special enclosure where there are oats- that
this very ram, swelling with fat, is killed for meat.
But the rams need only cease to suppose that all that happens to
them happens solely for the attainment of their sheepish aims; they
need only admit that what happens to them may also have purposes
beyond their ken, and they will at once perceive a unity and coherence
in what happened to the ram that was fattened. Even if they do not
know for what purpose they are fattened, they will at least know
that all that happened to the ram did not happen accidentally, and
will no longer need the conceptions of chance or genius.
Only by renouncing our claim to discern a purpose immediately
intelligible to us, and admitting the ultimate purpose to be beyond
our ken, may we discern the sequence of experiences in the lives of
historic characters and perceive the cause of the effect they
produce (incommensurable with ordinary human capabilities), and then
the words chance and genius become superfluous.
We need only confess that we do not know the purpose of the European
convulsions and that we know only the facts- that is, the murders,
first in France, then in Italy, in Africa, in Prussia, in Austria,
in Spain, and in Russia- and that the movements from the west to the
east and from the east to the west form the essence and purpose of
these events, and not only shall we have no need to see exceptional
ability and genius in Napoleon and Alexander, but we shall be unable
to consider them to be anything but like other men, and we shall not
be obliged to have recourse to chance for an explanation of those
small events which made these people what they were, but it will be
clear that all those small events were inevitable.
By discarding a claim to knowledge of the ultimate purpose, we shall
clearly perceive that just as one cannot imagine a blossom or seed for
any single plant better suited to it than those it produces, so it
is impossible to imagine any two people more completely adapted down
to the smallest detail for the purpose they had to fulfill, than
Napoleon and Alexander with all their antecedents. _
Read next: First Epilogue: 1813 - 20: Chapter 3
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