nciples cannot be kept quite
apart except by pedantry; but it is almost exclusively with the
first--that of the competition between nation and nation, or tribe and
tribe (for I must use these words in their largest sense, and so as to
include every cohering aggregate of human beings)--that I can deal now;
and even as to that I can but set down a few principal considerations.
The progress of the military art is the most conspicuous, I was about
to say the most SHOWY, fact in human history. Ancient civilisation may
be compared with modern in many respects, and plausible arguments
constructed to show that it is better; but you cannot compare the two
in military power. Napoleon could indisputably have conquered
Alexander; our Indian army would not think much of the Retreat of the
Ten Thousand. And I suppose the improvement has been continuous: I have
not the slightest pretence to special knowledge; but, looking at the
mere surface of the facts, it seems likely that the aggregate battle
array, so to say, of mankind, the fighting force of the human race, has
constantly and invariably grown. It is true that the ancient
civilisation long resisted the 'barbarians,' and was then destroyed by
the barbarians. But the barbarians had improved. 'By degrees,' says a
most accomplished writer,[4] 'barbarian mercenaries came to form the
largest, or at least the most effective, part of the Roman armies. The
body-guard of Augustus had been so composed; the praetorians were
generally selected from the bravest frontier troops, most of them
Germans.' 'Thus,' he continues, 'in many ways was the old antagonism
broken down, Romans admitting barbarians to rank and office; barbarians
catching something of the manners and culture of their neighbours. And
thus, when the final movement came, the Teutonic tribes slowly
established themselves through the provinces, knowing something of the
system to which they came, and not unwilling to be considered its
members.' Taking friend and foe together, it may be doubted whether the
fighting capacity of the two armies was not as great at last, when the
Empire fell, as ever it was in the long period while the Empire
prevailed. During the Middle Ages the combining power of men often
failed; in a divided time you cannot collect as many soldiers as in a
concentrated time. But this difficulty is political, not military. If
you added up the many little hosts of any century of separation, they
would perhaps be found eq