g is indeed Art. Where the logician draws the line, where the
premises stop which are the result of cognition--where judgment begins,
there Art begins. But more than this even the perception of the mind is
judgment again, and consequently Art; and at last, even the perception
by the senses as well. In a word, if it is impossible to imagine a human
being possessing merely the faculty of cognition, devoid of judgment or
the reverse, so also Art and Science can never be completely separated
from each other. The more these subtle elements of light embody
themselves in the outward forms of the world, so much the more separate
appear their domains; and now once more, where the object is creation
and production, there is the province of Art; where the object is
investigation and knowledge Science holds sway.--After all this it
results of itself that it is more fitting to say Art of War than Science
of War.

So much for this, because we cannot do without these conceptions. But
now we come forward with the assertion that War is neither an Art nor a
Science in the real signification, and that it is just the setting out
from that starting-point of ideas which has led to a wrong direction
being taken, which has caused War to be put on a par with other arts and
sciences, and has led to a number of erroneous analogies.

This has indeed been felt before now, and on that it was maintained that
War is a handicraft; but there was more lost than gained by that, for
a handicraft is only an inferior art, and as such is also subject to
definite and rigid laws. In reality the Art of War did go on for some
time in the spirit of a handicraft--we allude to the times of the
Condottieri--but then it received that direction, not from intrinsic but
from external causes; and military history shows how little it was at
that time in accordance with the nature of the thing.

3. WAR IS PART OF THE INTERCOURSE OF THE HUMAN RACE.

We say therefore War belongs not to the province of Arts and Sciences,
but to the province of social life. It is a conflict of great interests
which is settled by bloodshed, and only in that is it different from
others. It would be better, instead of comparing it with any Art, to
liken it to business competition, which is also a conflict of human
interests and activities; and it is still more like State policy, which
again, on its part, may be looked upon as a kind of business competition
on a great scale. Besides, State pol