h they
form with one another, than on the nature of the roads and the country
through which they pass.

But to treat upon Strategy according to these elements would be the
most unfortunate idea that could be conceived, for these elements are
generally manifold, and intimately connected with each other in every
single operation of War. We should lose ourselves in the most soulless
analysis, and as if in a horrid dream, we should be for ever trying in
vain to build up an arch to connect this base of abstractions with facts
belonging to the real world. Heaven preserve every theorist from such an
undertaking! We shall keep to the world of things in their totality, and
not pursue our analysis further than is necessary from time to time to
give distinctness to the idea which we wish to impart, and which
has come to us, not by a speculative investigation, but through the
impression made by the realities of War in their entirety.

CHAPTER III. MORAL FORCES

WE must return again to this subject, which is touched upon in the third
chapter of the second book, because the moral forces are amongst the
most important subjects in War. They form the spirit which permeates the
whole being of War. These forces fasten themselves soonest and with the
greatest affinity on to the Will which puts in motion and guides the
whole mass of powers, uniting with it as it were in one stream, because
this is a moral force itself. Unfortunately they will escape from all
book-analysis, for they will neither be brought into numbers nor into
classes, and require to be both seen and felt.

The spirit and other moral qualities which animate an Army, a General,
or Governments, public opinion in provinces in which a War is raging,
the moral effect of a victory or of a defeat, are things which in
themselves vary very much in their nature, and which also, according
as they stand with regard to our object and our relations, may have an
influence in different ways.

Although little or nothing can be said about these things in books,
still they belong to the theory of the Art of War, as much as everything
else which constitutes War. For I must here once more repeat that it is
a miserable philosophy if, according to the old plan, we establish rules
and principles wholly regardless of all moral forces, and then, as soon
as these forces make their appearance, we begin to count exceptions
which we thereby establish as it were theoretically, that is, make into