varieties of these necessary and noblest of military virtues. In daring
there may still be wisdom, and prudence as well, only they are estimated
by a different standard of value.


23. WAR IS ALWAYS A SERIOUS MEANS FOR A SERIOUS OBJECT. ITS MORE
PARTICULAR DEFINITION.

Such is War; such the Commander who conducts it; such the theory which
rules it. But War is no pastime; no mere passion for venturing and
winning; no work of a free enthusiasm: it is a serious means for a
serious object. All that appearance which it wears from the varying hues
of fortune, all that it assimilates into itself of the oscillations of
passion, of courage, of imagination, of enthusiasm, are only particular
properties of this means.

The War of a community--of whole Nations, and particularly of civilised
Nations--always starts from a political condition, and is called forth
by a political motive. It is, therefore, a political act. Now if it was
a perfect, unrestrained, and absolute expression of force, as we had to
deduct it from its mere conception, then the moment it is called forth
by policy it would step into the place of policy, and as something quite
independent of it would set it aside, and only follow its own laws, just
as a mine at the moment of explosion cannot be guided into any
other direction than that which has been given to it by preparatory
arrangements. This is how the thing has really been viewed hitherto,
whenever a want of harmony between policy and the conduct of a War has
led to theoretical distinctions of the kind. But it is not so, and the
idea is radically false. War in the real world, as we have already seen,
is not an extreme thing which expends itself at one single discharge; it