taufen and the Hohenzollern which has been woven into the
life of the present and has become an aesthetic setting for the idea
of future greatness.

In the religion of valor, also, we may find aesthetic elements. Valor
represents in this cult the spirit of the superior man. It is an
aristocratic idea. Military life is full of this theme. The ideals of
_noblesse oblige_, honor, the spirit of sportsmanship, enter into it,
and all these concepts are in part aesthetic in nature. It is neither
as moral nor as practical ideas that they have so deeply influenced
society, but because of their appeal to the sense of the beautiful.
All this aspect of war and military life, both in its motives and in
its forms, is closely related to the pure beauty of art. The play
spirit also, which in some of its developments at least is aesthetic,
enters into the motives of war. War, we say, is the great adventure.
It is the realization of power. It is an expression of the love of the
sense of freedom. It is the great game, in which everything is staked.
The love of danger and the love of gambling with life that it contains
have roots that are also roots of various forms of art.

Another element, aesthetic in motive and form, obviously related to
the reproductive functions of the individual, is the display motive.
This motive of display is concerned especially with the idea of
courage. It is of course a deep desire of the male to display courage
before the female. This display motive must be the main motive of the
_uniform_ and all the other ornamental aspects of military life. Rank,
titles and decorations belong to the same movement. They are
indications of the advancement of the man in those essential qualities
of the soldier, the chief of which is courage. The aesthetic forms in
which courage is represented help to sustain it, and are an important
element in morale, and they also serve a purpose in creating or
adding to the allurement of the service and the fascination of war. It
is the craving for the display of courage, the desire of the man "to
show the stuff that is in him," that gives to war some of its most
persistent aesthetic forms, and these aesthetic forms help both to
make the display of courage effective and to create courage.

Among these aesthetic elements of war must be considered of course the
rhythms, the forms, all the concerted action, the marching (which may
be regarded as one of the forms of the dance), the parade, the