or the same
reason the effect of an advantage once actually gained at any point
is much greater. Such advantage has time to bring all its effects to
maturity before it is disturbed, or quite neutralised therein, by any
counteracting apprehensions. We therefore do not hesitate to regard as
an established truth, that in Strategy more depends on the number and
the magnitude of the victorious combats, than on the form of the great
lines by which they are connected.

A view just the reverse has been a favourite theme of modern theory,
because a greater importance was supposed to be thus given to Strategy,
and, as the higher functions of the mind were seen in Strategy, it was
thought by that means to ennoble War, and, as it was said--through a new
substitution of ideas--to make it more scientific. We hold it to be
one of the principal uses of a complete theory openly to expose such
vagaries, and as the geometrical element is the fundamental idea from
which theory usually proceeds, therefore we have expressly brought out
this point in strong relief.

CHAPTER XVI. ON THE SUSPENSION OF THE ACT IN WARFARE

IF one considers War as an act of mutual destruction, we must of
necessity imagine both parties as making some progress; but at the same
time, as regards the existing moment, we must almost as necessarily
suppose the one party in a state of expectation, and only the other
actually advancing, for circumstances can never be actually the same on
both sides, or continue so. In time a change must ensue, from which it
follows that the present moment is more favourable to one side than the
other. Now if we suppose that both commanders have a full knowledge of
this circumstance, then the one has a motive for action, which at the
same time is a motive for the other to wait; therefore, according to
this it cannot be for the interest of both at the same time to advance,
nor can waiting be for the interest of both at the same time. This
opposition of interest as regards the object is not deduced here from
the principle of general polarity, and therefore is not in opposition to
the argument in the fifth chapter of the second book; it depends on
the fact that here in reality the same thing is at once an incentive
or motive to both commanders, namely the probability of improving or
impairing their position by future action.

But even if we suppose the possibility of a perfect equality of
circumstances in this respect, or if we take in