ession may not have to go through the same
labour of clearing the ground and toiling through his subject, but may
find the thing in order, and light admitted on it. It should educate
the mind of the future leader in War, or rather guide him in his
self-instruction, but not accompany him to the field of battle; just
as a sensible tutor forms and enlightens the opening mind of a youth
without, therefore, keeping him in leading strings all through his life.

If maxims and rules result of themselves from the considerations which
theory institutes, if the truth accretes itself into that form of
crystal, then theory will not oppose this natural law of the mind; it
will rather, if the arch ends in such a keystone, bring it prominently
out; but so does this, only in order to satisfy the philosophical law
of reason, in order to show distinctly the point to which the lines all
converge, not in order to form out of it an algebraical formula for use
upon the battle-field; for even these maxims and rules serve more to
determine in the reflecting mind the leading outline of its habitual
movements than as landmarks indicating to it the way in the act of
execution.

28. BY THIS POINT OF VIEW THEORY BECOMES POSSIBLE, AND CEASES TO BE IN
CONTRADICTION TO PRACTICE.

Taking this point of view, there is a possibility afforded of a
satisfactory, that is, of a useful, theory of the conduct of War, never
coming into opposition with the reality, and it will only depend on
rational treatment to bring it so far into harmony with action that
between theory and practice there shall no longer be that absurd
difference which an unreasonable theory, in defiance of common sense,
has often produced, but which, just as often, narrow-mindedness and
ignorance have used as a pretext for giving way to their natural
incapacity.

29. THEORY THEREFORE CONSIDERS THE NATURE OF ENDS AND MEANS--ENDS AND
MEANS IN TACTICS.

Theory has therefore to consider the nature of the means and ends.

In tactics the means are the disciplined armed forces which are to carry
on the contest. The object is victory. The precise definition of this
conception can be better explained hereafter in the consideration of
the combat. Here we content ourselves by denoting the retirement of the
enemy from the field of battle as the sign of victory. By means of this
victory strategy gains the object for which it appointed the combat,
and which constitutes its special signification.