composition and strength of their crews, the formation, organization,
staff of officers, material, stations, and enlistments, past and to
come, of each army corps and of each regiment. It is the same in the
financial and diplomatic services, in every branch of the
administration, laic or ecclesiastical, in the physical order and in
the moral order. His topographical memory and his geographical
conception of countries, places, ground, and obstacles culminate in an
inward vision which he evokes at will, and which, years afterwards,
revives as fresh as on the first day. His calculation of distances,
marches, and maneuvers is so rigid a mathematical operation that,
frequently, at a distance of two or four hundred leagues,[59] his
military foresight, calculated two or four months ahead, turns out
correct, almost on the day named, and precisely on the spot
designated.[60] Add to this one other faculty, and the rarest of all.
For, if things turn out as he foresaw they would, it is because, as
with great chess-players, he has accurately measured not alone the
mechanical moves of the pieces, but the character and talent of his
adversary, "sounded his draft of water," and divined his probable
mistakes. He has added the calculation of physical quantities and
probabilities to the calculation of moral quantities and
probabilities, thus showing himself as great a psychologist as he is
an accomplished strategist. In fact, no one has surpassed him in the
art of judging the condition and motives of an individual or of a
group of people, the real motives, permanent or temporary, which drive
or curb men in general or this or that man in particular, the
incentives to be employed, the kind and degree of pressure to be
employed. This central faculty rules all the others, and in the art
of mastering Man his genius is found supreme.