ction with the inevitable effect which has been referred
to, of a great act of destruction (a great victory) upon all other
decisions by arms, that this moral element is most fluid, if we may
use that expression, and therefore distributes itself the most easily
through all the parts.

Against the far superior worth which the destruction of the enemy's
armed force has over all other means stands the expense and risk of this
means, and it is only to avoid these that any other means are taken.
That these must be costly stands to reason, for the waste of our own
military forces must, ceteris paribus, always be greater the more our
aim is directed upon the destruction of the enemy's power.

The danger lies in this, that the greater efficacy which we seek recoils
on ourselves, and therefore has worse consequences in case we fail of
success.

Other methods are, therefore, less costly when they succeed, less
dangerous when they fail; but in this is necessarily lodged the
condition that they are only opposed to similar ones, that is, that the
enemy acts on the same principle; for if the enemy should choose the way
of a great decision by arms, OUR MEANS MUST ON THAT ACCOUNT BE CHANGED
AGAINST OUR WILL, IN ORDER TO CORRESPOND WITH HIS. Then all depends on
the issue of the act of destruction; but of course it is evident
that, ceteris paribus, in this act we must be at a disadvantage in all
respects because our views and our means had been directed in part
upon other objects, which is not the case with the enemy. Two different
objects of which one is not part, the other exclude each other, and
therefore a force which may be applicable for the one may not serve for
the other. If, therefore, one of two belligerents is determined to seek
the great decision by arms, then he has a high probability of success,
as soon as he is certain his opponent will not take that way, but
follows a different object; and every one who sets before himself any
such other aim only does so in a reasonable manner, provided he acts on
the supposition that his adversary has as little intention as he has of
resorting to the great decision by arms.

But what we have here said of another direction of views and forces
relates only to other POSITIVE OBJECTS, which we may propose to
ourselves in War, besides the destruction of the enemy's force, not
by any means to the pure defensive, which may be adopted with a view
thereby to exhaust the enemy's forces. In the