RULES.

Pity the warrior who is contented to crawl about in this beggardom
of rules, which are too bad for genius, over which it can set itself
superior, over which it can perchance make merry! What genius does must
be the best of all rules, and theory cannot do better than to show how
and why it is so.

Pity the theory which sets itself in opposition to the mind! It cannot
repair this contradiction by any humility, and the humbler it is so much
the sooner will ridicule and contempt drive it out of real life.

14. THE DIFFICULTY OF THEORY AS SOON AS MORAL QUANTITIES COME INTO
CONSIDERATION.

Every theory becomes infinitely more difficult from the moment that it
touches on the province of moral quantities. Architecture and painting
know quite well what they are about as long as they have only to do with
matter; there is no dispute about mechanical or optical construction.
But as soon as the moral activities begin their work, as soon as moral
impressions and feelings are produced, the whole set of rules dissolves
into vague ideas.

The science of medicine is chiefly engaged with bodily phenomena only;
its business is with the animal organism, which, liable to perpetual
change, is never exactly the same for two moments. This makes its
practice very difficult, and places the judgment of the physician above
his science; but how much more difficult is the case if a moral effect
is added, and how much higher must we place the physician of the mind?

15. THE MORAL QUANTITIES MUST NOT BE EXCLUDED IN WAR.

But now the activity in War is never directed solely against matter; it
is always at the same time directed against the intelligent force which
gives life to this matter, and to separate the two from each other is
impossible.

But the intelligent forces are only visible to the inner eye, and this
is different in each person, and often different in the same person at
different times.

As danger is the general element in which everything moves in War, it
is also chiefly by courage, the feeling of one's own power, that the
judgment is differently influenced. It is to a certain extent the
crystalline lens through which all appearances pass before reaching the
understanding.

And yet we cannot doubt that these things acquire a certain objective
value simply through experience.

Every one knows the moral effect of a surprise, of an attack in flank or
rear. Every one thinks less of the enemy's courage as soon as he tu