ions
carried up to their full logical conclusions. In real action most men
are guided merely by the tact of judgment which hits the object more or
less accurately, according as they possess more or less genius.

This is the way in which all great Generals have acted, and therein
partly lay their greatness and their genius, that they always hit upon
what was right by this tact. Thus also it will always be in action, and
so far this tact is amply sufficient. But when it is a question, not
of acting oneself, but of convincing others in a consultation, then
all depends on clear conceptions and demonstration of the inherent
relations, and so little progress has been made in this respect that
most deliberations are merely a contention of words, resting on no firm
basis, and ending either in every one retaining his own opinion, or in a
compromise from mutual considerations of respect, a middle course really
without any value.(*)

(*) Herr Clausewitz evidently had before his mind the
endless consultations at the Headquarters of the Bohemian
Army in the Leipsic Campaign 1813.

Clear ideas on these matters are therefore not wholly useless; besides,
the human mind has a general tendency to clearness, and always wants to
be consistent with the necessary order of things.

Owing to the great difficulties attending a philosophical construction
of the Art of War, and the many attempts at it that have failed, most
people have come to the conclusion that such a theory is impossible,
because it concerns things which no standing law can embrace. We should
also join in this opinion and give up any attempt at a theory, were it
not that a great number of propositions make themselves evident without
any difficulty, as, for instance, that the defensive form, with a
negative object, is the stronger form, the attack, with the positive
object, the weaker--that great results carry the little ones with
them--that, therefore, strategic effects may be referred to certain
centres of gravity--that a demonstration is a weaker application of
force than a real attack, that, therefore, there must be some special
reason for resorting to the former--that victory consists not merely
in the conquest on the field of battle, but in the destruction of armed
forces, physically and morally, which can in general only be effected by
a pursuit after the battle is gained--that successes are always greatest
at the point where the victory has been gaine