of a War.

For the present we content ourselves with having brought the subject
up to this point, and having thereby fixed the chief point of view from
which War and its theory are to be studied.

28. RESULT FOR THEORY.

War is, therefore, not only chameleon-like in character, because it
changes its colour in some degree in each particular case, but it is
also, as a whole, in relation to the predominant tendencies which are
in it, a wonderful trinity, composed of the original violence of its
elements, hatred and animosity, which may be looked upon as blind
instinct; of the play of probabilities and chance, which make it a
free activity of the soul; and of the subordinate nature of a political
instrument, by which it belongs purely to the reason.

The first of these three phases concerns more the people the second,
more the General and his Army; the third, more the Government. The
passions which break forth in War must already have a latent existence
in the peoples. The range which the display of courage and talents
shall get in the realm of probabilities and of chance depends on
the particular characteristics of the General and his Army, but the
political objects belong to the Government alone.

These three tendencies, which appear like so many different law-givers,
are deeply rooted in the nature of the subject, and at the same time
variable in degree. A theory which would leave any one of them out
of account, or set up any arbitrary relation between them, would
immediately become involved in such a contradiction with the reality,
that it might be regarded as destroyed at once by that alone.

The problem is, therefore, that theory shall keep itself poised in
a manner between these three tendencies, as between three points of
attraction.

The way in which alone this difficult problem can be solved we shall
examine in the book on the "Theory of War." In every case the conception
of War, as here defined, will be the first ray of light which shows
us the true foundation of theory, and which first separates the great
masses and allows us to distinguish them from one another.

CHAPTER II. END AND MEANS IN WAR

HAVING in the foregoing chapter ascertained the complicated and variable
nature of War, we shall now occupy ourselves in examining into the
influence which this nature has upon the end and means in War.

If we ask, first of all, for the object upon which the whole effort of
War is to be directed, in