d larger and fewer and fewer, the immediate
instrument of international changes being war; and that certain
nations will become very powerful and nearly dominate the earth
in turn, as Persia, Greece, Rome, Spain, France, and Great Britain
have done--and as some other country soon may do.

Fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately, a certain law of decadence
seems to have prevailed, because of which every nation, after acquiring
great power, has in turn succumbed to the enervating effects which
seem inseparable from it, and become the victim of some newer nation
that has made strenuous preparations for long years, in secret,
and finally pounced upon her as a lion on its prey.

Were it not for this tendency to decadence, we should expect that
the nations of the earth would ultimately be divided into two great
nations, and that these would contend for the mastery in a world-wide
struggle.

But if the present rate of invention and development continues,
improvements in the mechanic arts will probably cause such increase
in the power of weapons of destruction, and in the swiftness and
sureness of transportation and communication, that some _monster
of efficiency_ will have time to acquire world mastery before her
period of decadence sets in.

In this event, wars will be of a magnitude besides which the present
struggle will seem pygmy; and will rage over the surface of the
earth, for the gaining and retaining of the mastery of the world.

CHAPTER II

NAVAL A, B, C

In order to realize what principles govern the use of navies, let
us first consider what navies have to do and get history's data
as to what navies in the past have done. It would obviously be
impossible to recount here all the doings of navies. But neither
is it necessary; for the reason that, throughout the long periods
of time in which history records them, their activities have nearly
always been the same.

In all cases in which navies have been used for war there was the
preliminary dispute, often long-continued, between two peoples or
their rulers, and at last the decision of the dispute by force. In
all cases the decision went to the side that could exert the most
force at the critical times and places. The fact that the causes
of war have been civil, and not military, demands consideration, for
the reason that some people, confusing cause and effect, incline
to the belief that armies and navies are the cause of war, and that
they are to be bl