coalitions of the allied powers, of the Spanish
Peninsula against France and of China and India against England. The
American war of 1812 partook largely of this character, and some
judicious historians have denominated it the war of Independence, as
distinguished from the war of the Revolution.

_Wars of opinion_, like those which the Vendeans have sustained in
support of the Bourbons, and those France has sustained against the
allies, as also those of propagandism, waged against the smaller
European states by the republican hordes of the French Revolution. To
this class also belong--

_Religious wars_, like those of Islamism, of the crusades, and of the
Reformation.

_Wars of conquest_, like those of the Romans in Gaul, of the English in
India, of the French in Egypt and Africa, and of the Russians in
Circassia.

_National wars_, in which the great body of the people of a state
engage, like those of the Swiss against Austria and the Duke of
Burgundy, of the Catalans in 1712, of the Americans against England, of
the Dutch against Phillip II., and of the Poles and Circassians against
Russia.

_Civil wars_, where one portion of the state fights against the other,
as the war of the Roses in England, of the league in France, of the
Guelphs and Ghibelines in Italy, and of the factions in Mexico and South
America.

It is not the present intention to enter into any discussion of these
different kinds of war, but rather to consider the general subject, and
to discuss such general principles and rules as may be applicable to all
wars.

War in its most extensive sense may be regarded both as a _science_ and
an _art_. It is a science so far as it investigates general principles
and institutes an analysis of military operations; and an art when
considered with reference to the practical rules for conducting
campaigns, sieges, battles, &c. So is engineering a science so far as it
investigates the general principles of fortification, and also
artillery, in analyzing the principles of gunnery; but both are arts
when considered with reference to the practical rules for the
construction, attack, and defence of forts, or for the use of cannon.

This distinction has not always been observed by writers on this
subject, and some have asserted that strategy is the _science_, and
tactics the _art_ of war. This is evidently mistaking the general
distinction between science, which investigates principles, and art,
which forms pract