the place of the abstract, and thus modifies the effort towards the
extreme.

Yet every War would necessarily resolve itself into a single solution,
or a sum of simultaneous results, if all the means required for the
struggle were raised at once, or could be at once raised; for as one
adverse result necessarily diminishes the means, then if all the means
have been applied in the first, a second cannot properly be supposed.
All hostile acts which might follow would belong essentially to the
first, and form, in reality only its duration.

But we have already seen that even in the preparation for War the real
world steps into the place of mere abstract conception--a material
standard into the place of the hypotheses of an extreme: that therefore
in that way both parties, by the influence of the mutual reaction,
remain below the line of extreme effort, and therefore all forces are
not at once brought forward.

It lies also in the nature of these forces and their application that
they cannot all be brought into activity at the same time. These forces
are THE ARMIES ACTUALLY ON FOOT, THE COUNTRY, with its superficial
extent and its population, AND THE ALLIES.

In point of fact, the country, with its superficial area and the
population, besides being the source of all military force, constitutes
in itself an integral part of the efficient quantities in War, providing
either the theatre of war or exercising a considerable influence on the
same.

Now, it is possible to bring all the movable military forces of