History examines the manifestations of man's free will in connection with the external world in time and in dependence on cause, that is, defines this freedom by the laws of reason, and so history is a science only in so far as this free will is defined by those laws.
The recognition of man's free will as something capable of influencing historical events, that is, as not subject to laws, is the same for histo
as the recognition of a free force moving the heavenly bodies would be for astronomy.
That assumption would destroy the possibility of the existence of laws, that is, of any science whatever. If there is even a single body movi
freely, then the laws of Kepler and Newton are negatived and no conception of the movement of the heavenly bodies any longer exists. If any sin
action is due to free will, then not a single historical law can exist, nor any conception of historical events.
For history, lines exist of the movement of human wills, one end of which is hidden in the unknown but at the other end of which a
consciousness of man's will in the present moves in space, time, and dependence on cause.
The more this field of motion spreads out before our eyes, the more evident are the laws of that movement. To discover and define those
laws is the problem of history.
(from War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy)
With which statement would the author most likely agree?
1. The laws of Kepler and Newton determine history.
2. It is human will that determines history.
03. History has laws just as science has.
4. Astronomy reveals history.