War And Peace

ONLY THE EXPRESSION of the will of the Deity, not depending on time, can

relate to a whole series of events that have to take place during several years

or centuries; and only the Deity, acting by His will alone, not affected by any

cause, can determine the direction of the movement of humanity. Man acts in

time, and himself takes part in the event.







Restoring the first condition that was omitted, the condition of time, we

perceive that no single command can be carried out apart from preceding commands

that have made the execution of the last command possible.



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Never is a single command given quite independently and arbitrarily, nor does

it cover a whole series of events. Every command is the sequel to some other;

and it never relates to a whole course of events, but only to one moment in

those events.







When we say, for instance, that Napoleon commanded the army to go to fight,

we sum up in one single expression a series of consecutive commands, depending

one upon another. Napoleon could not command a campaign against Russia, and

never did command it. He commanded one day certain papers to be written to

Vienna, to Berlin, and to Petersburg; next day certain decrees and instructions

to the army, the fleet, and the commissariat, and so on and so on—millions of

separate commands, making up a whole series of commands, corresponding to a

series of events leading the French soldiers to Russia.







Napoleon was giving commands all through his reign for an expedition to

England. On no one of his undertakings did he waste so much time and so much

effort, and yet not once during his reign was an attempt made to carry out his

design. Yet he made an expedition against Russia, with which, according to his

repeatedly expressed conviction, it was to his advantage to be in alliance; and

this is due to the fact that his commands in the first case did not, and in the

second did, correspond with the course of events.







In order that a command should certainly be carried out, it is necessary that

the man should give a command that can be carried out. To know what can and what

cannot be carried out is impossible, not only in the case of Napoleon's campaign

against Russia, in which millions took part, but even in the case of the

simplest event, since millions of obstacles may always arise to prevent its

being carried out. Every command that is carried out is always one out of a mass

of commands that are not carried out. All the impossible commands are

inconsistent with the course of events and are not carried out. Only those which

are possible are connected with consecutive series of commands, consistent with

series of events, and they are carried out.







Our false conception that the command that precedes an event is the cause of

an event is due to the fact that when the event has taken place and those few

out of thousands of commands, which happen to be consistent with the course of

events, are carried out, we forget those which were not, because they could not

be carried out. Apart from that, the chief source of our error arises from the

fact that in the historical account a whole series of innumerable, various, and

most minute events, as, for instance, all that led the French soldiers to

Russia, are generalised into a single event, in accordance with the result

produced by that series of events; and by a corresponding generalisation a whole

series of commands too is summed up into a single expression of will.



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We say: Napoleon chose to invade Russia and he did so. In reality we never

find in all Napoleon's doings anything like an expression of that design: what

we find is a series of commands or expressions of his will of the most various

and undefined tendency. Out of many series of innumerable commands of Napoleon

not carried out, one series of commands for the campaign of 1812 was carried

out; not from any essential difference between the commands carried out and

those not carried out, but simply because the former coincided with the course

of events that led the French soldiers into Russia; just as in stencil-work one

figure or another is sketched, not because the colours are laid on this side or

in that way, but because on the figure cut out in stencil, colours are laid on

all sides.







So that examining in time the relation of commands to events, we find that

the command can never in any case be the cause of the event, but that a certain

definite dependence exists between them. To understand of what this dependence

consists, it is essential to restore the other circumstance lost sight of, a

condition accompanying any command issuing not from the Deity, but from man.

That circumstance is that the man giving the command is himself taking part in

the event.







That relation of the commanding person to those he commands is indeed

precisely what is called power. That relation may be analysed as follows.



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For common action, men always unite in certain combinations, in which, in

spite of the difference of the objects aimed at by common action, the relation

between the men taking a part in the action always remains the same.



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Uniting in these combinations, men always stand in such a relation to one

another that the largest number of men take a greater direct share, and a

smaller number of men a less direct share in the combined action for which they

are united. Of all such combinations in which men are organised for the

performance of common action, one of the most striking and definite examples is

the army.







Every army is composed of members of lower military standing—the private

soldiers, who are always the largest proportion of the whole, of members of a

slightly higher military standing—corporals and non-commissioned officers, who

are fewer in number than the privates; of still higher officers, whose numbers

are even less; and so on, up to the chief military command of all, which is

concentrated in one person.







The military organisation may be with perfect accuracy compared to the figure

of a cone, the base of which, with the largest diameter, consists of privates;

the next higher and smaller plane, of the lower officers; and so on up to the

apex of the cone, which will be the commander-in-chief.







The soldiers, who are the largest number, form the lowest plane and the base

of the cone. The soldier himself does the stabbing and hacking, and burning and

pillaging, and always receives commands to perform these acts from the persons

in the plane next above. He himself never gives a command. The non-commissioned

officer (these are fewer in number) more rarely performs the immediate act than

the soldier; but he gives commands. The officer next above him still more rarely

acts directly himself, and still more frequently commands. The general does

nothing but command the army, and hardly ever makes use of a weapon. The

commander-in-chief never takes direct part in the action itself, and simply

makes general arrangements as to the movements of the masses. A similar relation

exists in every combination of persons for common action—in agriculture,

commerce, and in every department of activity.







And so without artificially analysing all the converging planes of the cone

and ranks of the army or classes or ranks of any department whatever, or public

undertaking, from lower to higher, a law comes into existence, by which men

always combine together for the performance of common action in such relation

that the more directly they take part in the action, the less they command, and

the greater their numbers; and the less direct the part they take in the common

action, the more they command, and the fewer they are in number; passing in that

way from the lower strata up to a single man at the top, who takes least direct

share in the action, and devotes his energy more than all the rest to giving

commands.







This is the relation of persons in command to those whom they command, and it

constitutes the essence of the conception of what is called power.



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Restoring the conditions of time under which all events take place, we found

that a command is carried out only when it relates to a corresponding course of

events. Restoring the essential condition of connection between the persons

commanding and fulfilling the commands, we have found that by their very nature

the persons commanding take the smallest part in the action itself, and their

energy is exclusively directed to commanding.