Struggle

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1907 edition. Excerpt: ... THE PRINCIPLE OF LOGIC AND JUSTICE Let us imagine an extended field of varied shape on which two armies are in battle. Let us picture a column firing, then advancing at a rapid pace then stopping to kneel down and fire again. Then, a hand-to-hand encounter with the bayonet, a cavalry in rapid ride impatient to use lance and sabre, men crouching behind earthworks and firing with caution, balls bursting and bullets flying wherever the eye can see. Let us fancy the general in consultation with his staff following the events with intense interest, studying their purport and sending out orders. This picture may serve us as the model or the allegory for a machec. We set the problem, to analyze the situation and to read the thought in the general's brain. The two parties will make exertions continually. Let us consider the happenings of the machee within a very small interval of time, of, say the millionth part of a second duration. Then a few bullets will fly through a little space, a few muscles will make a trifling movement, a man will sink, a shot will be* prepared, the brain of the general will begin to form a strategic thought, ammunition carriages will roll a little distance, etc., etc. The changes in the situation will be exceedingly small. The totality of all simultaneous small movements of a party may be called a "small maneuvre." At every moment both parties execute therefore a small maneuvre which minutely and exactly describes the change taking place at that moment. The effects of the machee have a definite direction. The fire of each gun and each battery is directed to where the aims are near and dense. If the struggle is eumachic, all forces are engaged in the direction where they may achieve the best results, and if the contest...