ke its construction adequate to reality, able at a
precise moment to cease being a dream:--(1) Arms, engines, instruments
of destruction and supply, varying according to time, place, richness of
the country, etc. (2) The equally variable human element--mercenaries, a
national army; strong, tried troops or weak and new. (3) The general
principles of war, acquired by the study of the masters. (4) More
personal is the power of reflection, the habitual solving of tactical
and strategic problems. "Battles," said Napoleon, "are thought out at
length, and in order to be successful it is necessary that we think
several times in regard to what may happen." All the foregoing should be
headed "science." Advancing more and more within the secret psychology
of the individual, we come to art, the characteristic work of pure
imagination. (5) Let us note the exact, rapid intuition at the
commencement of the opportune moments. (6) Lastly, the creative element,
the conception, a natural gift bearing the hall-mark of each inventor.
Thus "the Napoleonic esthetics was always derived from a single concept,
based on a principle that may be summed up thus:--Strict economy
wherever it can be done; expenditure without limit on the decisive
point. This principle inspires the strategy of the master; it directs
everything, especially his battle-tactics, in which it is synthetized
and summed up."[137]

Such, in analytical terms, appears the hidden spring that makes
everything move, and it is to be attributed neither to experience nor to
reasoning, nor to wise combinations, for it arises from the innermost
depths of the inventor. "The principle exists in him in a latent state,
i.e., in the depths of the unconscious, and unconsciously it is that he
applies it, when the shock of the circumstances, of goal and means,
causes to flash from his brain the spark stimulating the artistic
solution _par excellence_, one that reaches the limits of human
perfection."[138]

FOOTNOTES:

[131] Carpenter, _Mental Physiology_, chapter XI (end).

[132] Historically, the evolution has not always proceeded strictly
in this order, which, however, seems the most logical one.
Negotiable drafts were known to the Assyrians and Carthaginians. For
thousands of years Egypt used ingots, not real money, but it was
acquainted with fiduciary money. In the new world, the Peruvians
made use of the scale, the Aztecs were ignorant of its use, etc. For
details, see Letourneau, _L'Ev