that relation.

But in War, as generally in the world, there is a connection between
everything which belongs to a whole; and therefore, however small a
cause may be in itself, its effects reach to the end of the act of
warfare, and modify or influence the final result in some degree, let
that degree be ever so small. In the same manner every means must be
felt up to the ultimate object.

We can therefore trace the effects of a cause as long as events are
worth noticing, and in the same way we must not stop at the testing of a
means for the immediate object, but test also this object as a means to
a higher one, and thus ascend the series of facts in succession, until
we come to one so absolutely necessary in its nature as to require no
examination or proof. In many cases, particularly in what concerns great
and decisive measures, the investigation must be carried to the final
aim, to that which leads immediately to peace.

It is evident that in thus ascending, at every new station which we
reach a new point of view for the judgment is attained, so that the same
means which appeared advisable at one station, when looked at from the
next above it may have to be rejected.

The search for the causes of events and the comparison of means with
ends must always go hand in hand in the critical review of an act, for
the investigation of causes leads us first to the discovery of those
things which are worth examining.

This following of the clue up and down is attended with considerable
difficulty, for the farther from an event the cause lies which we are
looking for, the greater must be the number of other causes which must
at the same time be kept in view and allowed for in reference to the
share which they have in the course of events, and then eliminated,
because the higher the importance of a fact the greater will be the
number of separate forces and circumstances by which it is conditioned.
If we have unravelled the causes of a battle being lost, we have
certainly also ascertained a part of the causes of the consequences
which this defeat has upon the whole War, but only a part, because the
effects of other causes, more or less according to circumstances, will
flow into the final result.

The same multiplicity of circumstances is presented also in the
examination of the means the higher our point of view, for the higher
the object is situated, the greater must be the number of means employed
to reach it. The ultimat