4
THE HESPERIAN.
I
than was Napoleon's horse. Tolstoi is no hcro-worshlppcr.
He is too great a mind or that. Besides he believes the hero
is but a tool in the hands of a power too awful to contemplate.
History, according to Tolstoi, can only be written correctly
when men give up trying to assign a cause or an object for
cventsjind'contcntthcmsclves with simply taking things as
they come. But historians sit in comfortable chairs, and with
map and ruler, discover that if Napoleon had not done so
and so then it might have been different. But what made
Napoleon do so and so?
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Tolstoi is no admirer of Napoleon. He regards him as
an impostor, and exhausts invective to make him seem a liar
and a cheat, "consistent in falsehood" alone. And yet this
prejudice, or whatever it may be called, can not be said to
have biased his opinion of Bonaparte's share in the epoch
with which his book deals. For he says that Napoleon was
not one of those who imagine they aic changing destiny, but
one who is careful not to oppose himself to that destiny,
thereby seeming to be the master, not the tool. This, from
Tolstoi, is the highest praise. Napoleon tried to pass himself
for whathe was not. And a lie is a crime. But he can have
no motive other than honest, for what he says. He has no
national feeling of pique against the French and their em
peror, for if ever Napoleon was defeated it was in 1812. In
deed a defeat by Napoleon would be a reason why Russians
should exalt him. It is much less shameful to yield to al
mighty genius than to plodding mediocrity. On the other
hand it might be said that Russians should magnify their
own success by exaggerating the power and ability of the
conquered enemy. But Tolstoi's character is a sufficient
guarantee that he is actuated by no such petty motives.
When the masses see power, genius, world-compelling will,
he sees the agent of an invisible, unchangeable destiny, and
rendering honor where honor is due, he can not feel dis
pleased with the presumptuous claims of Napoleon. He says:
"We imagine Napoleon to have been the director of all these
movements, just as the savages imagine the figure-head upon
the prow of a vessel be the power that moves it onward.
Napoleon, throughout the whole of this campaign, was like a
child seated in a carriage clasping the sides, and imagining
that it is he that makes the horses go."
Tolstoi does not believe in genius. He derides the com
mon way of ascribing events to accident. "The sheep shut
up every night by the shepherd in a special enclosure, and
given extra food until it becomes twice as fat as the others,
must appear to be a genius to the rest of the flock. The fact
that the sheep, instead of entering the common fold, had a
place by itself and extra fodder, and once fattened, is deliv
ered to the butcher and killed, doubtless impresses the other
sheep as the result of genius combined with a series of extra
ordinary accidents." But Tolstoi does not think that "acci
dent" and "genius" represent things that really exist, so he
refuses to define them. To him the ideal of glory and great
ness is a false ideal. True grandeur is simplicity, modesty,
and trustfulness.
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But is Tolstoi a fatalist? If he is, I think he is far from
unique, for he expresses (only in a vastly superior way) just
what millions of men feel. If he is a fatalist, his is a happy,
not a gloomy fatalism, because he sees how fate has hitherto
been wise and good, and he himself is generous enough to
trust it for the future. Do you believe that whatever is is
hus because it could not have been any other way?
say no, you certainly cannot explain your belief. If you say
yes, you have only the consciousness of your beliefs being
correct. If things might have been different why were they
not. Thus, Tolstoi says the French retreated from Moscow,
not because Napoleon ordered it, but because events were
ripe for such a movement. He says the movement is attrib
uted to Napoleon's order, because the same influences were
at work on both army and emperor. lie believes that the
retreat would have taken place if Napoleon had not ordered
it. But it did take place; Napoleon did order it; hence ijs
impossible to imagine that it could have been any other way.
And yet Tolstoi sometimes startles us by the seeming
rashness of his proposition. Thus he says, speaking of the
burning of Moscow, after mentioning the inflammable nature
of the building material, "Even if there were incendiaries,
which is very doubtful, since no one would have cared use
lessly to have risked his life, they could not be considered as
the cause of the conflagration, which would have taken place
without them." This seems like saying that the pistol bullet
that kills a condemned murderer is not the cause of death
which would have come through hanging. But Tolstoi is not
trying to make any rash statements or express any startling
beliefs. He is simply showing how neither French nor Rus
sians were responsible for the burning of the place. That
the burning was a piece of the whole business uninfluenced
by the action of human wills, or human passions. And yet
Tolstoi docs not mean to say that free will has no existence.
It is a combination of free will and predestination that he be
lieves in. There need be no doubt of the morality of Tols
toi's views; they arc a religion in themselves.
CURRENT COMMENT.
It docs seem strange that the motion of Senator Morgan to
immediately recognize the republic of Brazil should have been
last. Why should the United States be afraid to take steps
immediately to welcome her sister republic in the south?
Why should we fear to express our approval of the downfall of
South America's last monarchy? We arc great and power
lul. We have nothing to fear from any of the great kingdoms
and empires across the water. We should gladly welcome all
attempts made by any people to establish popular govcrment
and to abolish a system that will, we hope, soon be only a remembrance.
During the term just past our literary societies enjoyed a
healthy and vigorous growth. The lack of interest in society
work, which was a matter of apprehension to many of us last
year, is now happily removed, and apparently the open soci
eties were never more prosperous than they are at the pres
ent time. We are pleased to sec this state of affairs. The
open literary society is a pure democracy, a miniature state,
in which each member is what he makes of himself. There
are no secret cliques laying plans and stretching out wires 4
with which to entrap a political opponent. A man is estitu-
atcd at his true worth and is rewarded accordingly, even
though his clothes may not always be made in the latest fash
ion or his hair parted in the middle.
Although protection or free trade may be an old question,
it is nevertheless a live one, and one that more directly con
cerns us at the present time than any other. We are not go
ing to attempt any solution of this important question, nor arc
If you I we even going to express our views, for that might call down
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