and that can only be ascertained by experience; and there is
no other way of learning and appreciating it but by experience. In the
middle ages, when firearms were first invented, their effect, owing to
their rude make, was materially but trifling compared to what it now is,
but their effect morally was much greater. One must have witnessed the
firmness of one of those masses taught and led by Buonaparte, under the
heaviest and most unintermittent cannonade, in order to understand what
troops, hardened by long practice in the field of danger, can do,
when by a career of victory they have reached the noble principle of
demanding from themselves their utmost efforts. In pure conception no
one would believe it. On the other hand, it is well known that there are
troops in the service of European Powers at the present moment who would
easily be dispersed by a few cannon shots.

But no empirical science, consequently also no theory of the Art of War,
can always corroborate its truths by historical proof; it would also be,
in some measure, difficult to support experience by single facts. If
any means is once found efficacious in War, it is repeated; one nation
copies another, the thing becomes the fashion, and in this manner it
comes into use, supported by experience, and takes its place in theory,
which contents itself with appealing to experience in general in order
to show its origin, but not as a verification of its truth.

But it is quite otherwise if experience is to be used in order to
overthrow some means in use, to confirm what is doubtful, or introduce
something new; then particular examples from history must be quoted as
proofs.

Now, if we consider closely the use of historical proofs, four points of
view readily present themselves for the purpose.

First, they may be used merely as an EXPLANATION of an idea. In every
abstract consideration it is very easy to be misunderstood, or not to
be intelligible at all: when an author is afraid of this, an
exemplification from history serves to throw the light which is wanted
on his idea, and to ensure his being intelligible to his reader.

Secondly, it may serve as an APPLICATION of an idea, because by means of
an example there is an opportunity of showing the action of those minor
circumstances which cannot all be comprehended and explained in any
general expression of an idea; for in that consists, indeed, the
difference between theory and experience. Both these cases