in the peoples. The range which the display of courage and talents
shall get in the realm of probabilities and of chance depends on
the particular characteristics of the General and his Army, but the
political objects belong to the Government alone.

These three tendencies, which appear like so many different law-givers,
are deeply rooted in the nature of the subject, and at the same time
variable in degree. A theory which would leave any one of them out
of account, or set up any arbitrary relation between them, would
immediately become involved in such a contradiction with the reality,
that it might be regarded as destroyed at once by that alone.

The problem is, therefore, that theory shall keep itself poised in
a manner between these three tendencies, as between three points of
attraction.

The way in which alone this difficult problem can be solved we shall
examine in the book on the "Theory of War." In every case the conception
of War, as here defined, will be the first ray of light which shows
us the true foundation of theory, and which first separates the great
masses and allows us to distinguish them from one another.



CHAPTER II. END AND MEANS IN WAR

HAVING in the foregoing chapter ascertained the complicated and variable
nature of War, we shall now occupy ourselves in examining into the
influence which this nature has upon the end and means in War.