114. This, then, is the nature of the connection between morals and art.
Now, secondly, I have asserted the foundation of both these, at least
hitherto, in war. The reason of this too manifest fact is, that, until
now it has been impossible for any nation, except a warrior one, to fix
its mind wholly on its men, instead of their possessions. Every great
soldier nation thinks, necessarily, first of multiplying its bodies and
souls of men, in good temper and strict discipline. As long as this is
its political aim, it does not matter what it temporarily suffers, or
loses, either in numbers or in wealth; its morality and its arts (if it
have national art-gift) advance together; but so soon as it ceases to be
a warrior nation, it thinks of its possessions instead of its men; and
then the moral and poetic powers vanish together.

115. It is thus, however, absolutely necessary to the virtue of war that
it should be waged by personal strength, not by money or machinery. A
nation that fights with a mercenary force, or with torpedoes instead of
its own arms, is dying. Not but that there is more true courage in
modern than even in ancient war; but this is, first, because all the
remaining life of European nations is with a morbid intensity thrown into
their soldiers; and, secondly, because their present heroism is the
culmination of centuries of inbred and traditional valor, which Athena
taught them by forcing them to govern the foam of the sea-wave and of the
horse,--not the steam of kettles.

116. And further, note this, which is vital to us in the present crisis:
If war is to be made by money and machinery, the nation which is the
largest and most covetous multitude will win. You may be as scientific
as you choose; the mob that can pay more for sulphuric acid and gunpowder
will at last poison its bullets, throw acid in your faces, and make an
end of you; of itself, also, in good time, but of you first. And to the