ct? The baker only heats
his oven if he has bread to put into it; the horse is only yoked to the
carriage if we mean to drive; why then make the enormous effort of a War
if we look for nothing else by it but like efforts on the part of the
enemy?

So much in justification of the general principle; now as to its
modifications, as far as they lie in the nature of the thing and are
independent of special cases.

There are three causes to be noticed here, which appear as innate
counterpoises and prevent the over-rapid or uncontrollable movement of
the wheel-work.

The first, which produces a constant tendency to delay, and is thereby
a retarding principle, is the natural timidity and want of resolution
in the human mind, a kind of inertia in the moral world, but which is
produced not by attractive, but by repellent forces, that is to say, by
dread of danger and responsibility.

In the burning element of War, ordinary natures appear to become
heavier; the impulsion given must therefore be stronger and more
frequently repeated if the motion is to be a continuous one. The
mere idea of the object for which arms have been taken up is seldom
sufficient to overcome this resistant force, and if a warlike
enterprising spirit is not at the head, who feels himself in War in his
natural element, as much as a fish in the ocean, or if there is not the
pressure from above of some great responsibility, then standing still
will be the order of the day, and progress will be the exception.

The second cause is the imperfection of human perception and judgment,
which is greater in War than anywhere, because a person hardly knows
exactly his own position from one moment to another, and can only
conjecture on slight grounds that of the enemy, which is purposely
concealed; this often gives rise to the case of both parties looking
upon one and the same object as advantageous for them, while in reality
the interest of one must preponderate; thus then each may think he acts
wisely by waiting another moment, as we have already said in the fifth
chapter of the second book.

The third cause which catches hold, like a ratchet wheel in machinery,
from time to time producing a complete standstill, is the greater
strength of the defensive form. A may feel too weak to attack B, from
which it does not follow that B is strong enough for an attack on A. The
addition of strength, which the defensive gives is not merely lost
by assuming the offensive, bu