War and peace ( Constance Garnett-1900)

of the planets' motion, so in history the difficulty of recognising the subjection of the personality to the laws of space and time and causation lies in the difficulty of surmounting the direct sensation of the independence of one’s personality. But just as in astronomy, the new view said, ‘It is true, we do not feel the movement of the earth, but, if we admit its immobility, we are reduced to absurdity, while admitting its movement, we are led to laws’; so in history, the new view says, ‘It is true, we do not feel our dependence, but admitting our freewill, we are led to absurdity; admitting our dependence on the external world, time, and cause, we are led to laws.’

In the first case, we had to surmount the sensation of an unreal immobility in space, and to admit a motion Ave could not perceive of by sense. In the present case, it is as essential to surmount a consciousness of an unreal freedom and to recognise a dependence not perceived by our senses.

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