War & Peace Podnotes, A Study Guide

Tolstoy addresses how divided opinions persist through the ages. There will be a prominent crisis grabbing Your attention where every opinion under the sun is stated.  He posits there is a perception afforded to a select few people involved in whatever conflict is at hand.  There will naturally be some who get close to an accurate prediction of how a matter turns out and are often mistaken with being responsible for the event. For example, if Napoleon orders an advance and wins the field, he will get credit for taking ground.  Tolstoy has us examine if there is more to the story.    To illustrate this, Tolstoy has us imagine the hypothetical of men hauling a log, where each expresses an opinion as to how and where to take it. Eventually, the log will be hauled to some location in a manner most similar to how one, or a small group, predict.  We are led to the conclusion that those who predict most accurately are responsible for the task.    However, Tolstoy’s goal is to relate to the complexity of attributing