done, resting half-way,
that is, on some arbitrary assumption or supposition.

As respects the tracing of effect to cause, that is often attended with
the insuperable difficulty that the real causes are not known. In none
of the relations of life does this so frequently happen as in War, where
events are seldom fully known, and still less motives, as the latter
have been, perhaps purposely, concealed by the chief actor, or have been
of such a transient and accidental character that they have been lost
for history. For this reason critical narration must generally proceed
hand in hand with historical investigation, and still such a want of
connection between cause and effect will often present itself, that it
does not seem justifiable to consider effects as the necessary results
of known causes. Here, therefore must occur, that is, historical results
which cannot be made use of for teaching. All that theory can demand is
that the investigation should be rigidly conducted up to that point, and
there leave off without drawing conclusions. A real evil springs up only
if the known is made perforce to suffice as an explanation of effects,
and thus a false importance is ascribed to it.

Besides this difficulty, critical inquiry also meets with another great
and intrinsic one, which is that the progress of events in War seldom
proceeds from one simple cause, but from several in common, and that
it therefore is not sufficient to follow up a series of events to
their origin in a candid and impartial spirit, but that it is then also
necessary to apportion to each contributing cause its due weight. This
leads, therefore, to a closer investigation of their nature, and thus a
critical investigation may lead into what is the proper field of theory.

The critical CONSIDERATION, that is, the testing of the means, leads to
the question, Which are the effects peculiar to the means applied,
and whether these effects were comprehended in the plans of the person
directing?

The effects peculiar to the means lead to the investigation of their
nature, and thus again into the field of theory.

We have already seen that in criticism all depends upon attaining
to positive truth; therefore, that we must not stop at arbitrary
propositions which are not allowed by others, and to which other perhaps
equally arbitrary assertions may again be opposed, so that there is no
end to pros and cons; the whole is without result, and therefore without
inst