ny other play; had rather he had made it by thrusting than by
batting;--much more, than by betting. Much rather that he should ride
war horses, than back race horses; and--I say it sternly and
deliberately--much rather would I have him slay his neighbour, than
cheat him.

But remember, so far as this may be true, the game of war is only that
in which the _full personal power of the human creature_ is brought out
in management of its weapons. And this for three reasons:--

First, the great justification of this game is that it truly, when well
played, determines _who is the best man_;--who is the highest bred, the
most self-denying, the most fearless, the coolest of nerve, the swiftest
of eye and hand. You cannot test these qualities wholly, unless there is
a clear possibility of the struggle's ending in death. It is only in the
fronting of that condition that the full trial of the man, soul and
body, comes out. You may go to your game of wickets, or of hurdles, or
of cards, and any knavery that is in you may stay unchallenged all the
while. But if the play may be ended at any moment by a lance-thrust, a
man will probably make up his accounts a little before he enters it.
Whatever is rotten and evil in him will weaken his hand more in holding
a sword hilt, than in balancing a billiard cue; and on the whole, the
habit of living lightly hearted, in daily presence of death, always has
had, and must have, a tendency both to the making and testing of honest
men. But for the final testing, observe, you must make the issue of
battle strictly dependent on fineness of frame, and firmness of hand.
You must not make it the question, which of the combatants has the
longest gun, or which has got behind the biggest tree, or which has the
wind in his face, or which has gunpowder made by the best chemist, or
iron smelted with the best coal, or the angriest mob at his back. Decide
your battle, whether of nations, or individuals, on _those_ terms;--and
you have only multiplied confusion, and added slaughter to iniquity. But
decide your battle by pure trial which has the strongest arm, and
steadiest heart,--and you have gone far to decide a great many matters
besides, and to decide them rightly.

And the other reasons for this mode of decision of cause, are the
diminution both of the material destructiveness, or cost, and of the
physical distress of war. For you must not think that in speaking to you
in this (as you may imagine), fantast