15. HERE, THEREFORE, THE PRINCIPLE OF POLARITY IS BROUGHT INTO
REQUISITION.

As we have supposed the interests of one Commander to be always
antagonistic to those of the other, we have assumed a true POLARITY. We
reserve a fuller explanation of this for another chapter, merely making
the following observation on it at present.

The principle of polarity is only valid when it can be conceived in one
and the same thing, where the positive and its opposite the negative
completely destroy each other. In a battle both sides strive to conquer;
that is true polarity, for the victory of the one side destroys that of
the other. But when we speak of two different things which have a common
relation external to themselves, then it is not the things but their
relations which have the polarity.


16. ATTACK AND DEFENCE ARE THINGS DIFFERING IN KIND AND OF UNEQUAL
FORCE. POLARITY IS, THEREFORE, NOT APPLICABLE TO THEM.

If there was only one form of War, to wit, the attack of the
enemy, therefore no defence; or, in other words, if the attack was
distinguished from the defence merely by the positive motive, which the
one has and the other has not, but the methods of each were precisely
one and the same: then in this sort of fight every advantage gained on
the one side would be a corresponding disadvantage on the other, and
true polarity would exist.

But action in War is divided into two forms, attack and defence, which,