rns
his back, and ventures much more in pursuit than when pursued. Every
one judges of the enemy's General by his reputed talents, by his age
and experience, and shapes his course accordingly. Every one casts a
scrutinising glance at the spirit and feeling of his own and the enemy's
troops. All these and similar effects in the province of the moral
nature of man have established themselves by experience, are perpetually
recurring, and therefore warrant our reckoning them as real quantities
of their kind. What could we do with any theory which should leave them
out of consideration?

Certainly experience is an indispensable title for these truths. With
psychological and philosophical sophistries no theory, no General,
should meddle.

16. PRINCIPAL DIFFICULTY OF A THEORY FOR THE CONDUCT OF WAR.

In order to comprehend clearly the difficulty of the proposition which
is contained in a theory for the conduct of War, and thence to deduce
the necessary characteristics of such a theory, we must take a closer
view of the chief particulars which make up the nature of activity in
War.

17. FIRST SPECIALITY.--MORAL FORCES AND THEIR EFFECTS. (HOSTILE
FEELING.)

The first of these specialities consists in the moral forces and
effects.

The combat is, in its origin, the expression of HOSTILE FEELING, but in
our great combats, which we call Wars, the hostile feeling frequently
resolves itself into merely a hostile VIEW, and there is usually no
innate hostile feeling residing in individual against individual.
Nevertheless, the combat never passes off without such feelings being
brought into activity. National hatred, which is seldom wanting in our
Wars, is a substitute for personal hostility in the breast of individual
opposed to individual. But where this also is wanting, and at first
no animosity of feeling subsists, a hostile feeling is kindled by the
combat itself; for an act of violence which any one commits upon us by
order of his superior, will excite in us a desire to retaliate and be
revenged on him, sooner than on the superior power at whose command the
act was done. This is human, or animal if we will; still it is so. We
are very apt to regard the combat in theory as an abstract trial of
strength, without any participation on the part of the feelings, and
that is one of the thousand errors which theorists deliberately commit,
because they do not see its consequences.

Besides that excitation of feelings naturally