ness, they _must_ express
themselves by art; and to say that a state is without such expression,
is to say that it is sunk from its proper level of manly nature. So
that, when I tell you that war is the foundation of all the arts, I mean
also that it is the foundation of all the high virtues and faculties of
men.

It was very strange to me to discover this; and very dreadful--but I saw
it to be quite an undeniable fact. The common notion that peace and the
virtues of civil life flourished together, I found, to be wholly
untenable. Peace and the _vices_ of civil life only flourish together.
We talk of peace and learning, and of peace and plenty, and of peace and
civilisation; but I found that those were not the words which the Muse
of History coupled together: that on her lips, the words were--peace and
sensuality, peace and selfishness, peace and corruption, peace and
death. I found, in brief, that all great nations learned their truth of
word, and strength of thought, in war; that they were nourished in war,
and wasted by peace; taught by war, and deceived by peace; trained by
war, and betrayed by peace;--in a word, that they were born in war, and
expired in peace.

Yet now note carefully, in the second place, it is not _all_ war of
which this can be said--nor all dragon's teeth, which, sown, will start
up into men. It is not the ravage of a barbarian wolf-flock, as under
Genseric or Suwarrow; nor the habitual restlessness and rapine of
mountaineers, as on the old borders of Scotland; nor the occasional
struggle of a strong peaceful nation for its life, as in the wars of the
Swiss with Austria; nor the contest of merely ambitious nations for
extent of power, as in the wars of France under Napoleon, or the just
terminated war in America. None of these forms of war build anything but
tombs. But the creative or foundational war is that in which the
natural restlessness and love of contest among men are disciplined, by
consent, into modes of beautiful--though it may be fatal--play: in which
the natural ambition and love of power of men are disciplined into the
aggressive conquest of surrounding evil: and in which the natural
instincts of self-defence are sanctified by the nobleness of the
institutions, and purity of the households, which they are appointed to
defend. To such war as this all men are born; in such war as this any
man may happily die; and forth from such war as this have arisen
throughout the extent of past