than this deep and philosophical analysis of "War" by Clausewitz.

It reveals "War," stripped of all accessories, as the exercise of force
for the attainment of a political object, unrestrained by any law save
that of expediency, and thus gives the key to the interpretation
of German political aims, past, present, and future, which is
unconditionally necessary for every student of the modern conditions of
Europe. Step by step, every event since Waterloo follows with logical
consistency from the teachings of Napoleon, formulated for the first
time, some twenty years afterwards, by this remarkable thinker.

What Darwin accomplished for Biology generally Clausewitz did for the
Life-History of Nations nearly half a century before him, for both have
proved the existence of the same law in each case, viz., "The survival
of the fittest"--the "fittest," as Huxley long since pointed out, not
being necessarily synonymous with the ethically "best." Neither of
these thinkers was concerned with the ethics of the struggle which
each studied so exhaustively, but to both men the phase or condition
presented itself neither as moral nor immoral, any more than are famine,
disease, or other natural phenomena, but as emanating from a force
inherent in all living organisms which can only be mastered by
understanding its nature. It is in that spirit that, one after the
other, all the Nations of the Continent, taught by such drastic lessons
as Koniggrätz and Sedan, have accepted the lesson, with the result
that to-day Europe is an armed camp, and peace is maintained by
the equilibrium of forces, and will continue just as long as this
equilibrium exists, and no longer.

Whether this state of equilibrium is in itself a good or desirable thing
may be open to argument. I have discussed it at length in my "War and