War & Peace Podnotes, A Study Guide

Envision a locomotive the way many would circa 1860. What technology! It wasn’t brand new, as they were invented in 1804, but it was a Monster of the age in terms of making the world move. Tolstoy envisions the locomotive as a symbol of great historical movements and uses this symbolism to describe the limitations historians face in finding causes for such movements. He posits three people viewing the mighty locomotive and trying to explain the cause of the train's movement. The first, a Tolstoy deals with a simple peasant. The man is overawed by the train and thinks the Devil (or some divine force) makes it move. With no understanding of mechanics, he concludes that something beyond man is at play. That is all the simple man needs for an explanation.  Tolstoy doesn't discount this view out-of-hand. Instead, he finds as much value in this posture as with the two more scientific thinkers embodied in the next two personages. The second hypothetical person looking at the locomotive is a more sophisticate