The first class includes all that can be called forth by moral qualities
and effects; to the second belong the whole mass of the military force,
its organisation, the proportion of the three arms, &c. &c.; to the
third, the angle of the lines of operation, the concentric and eccentric
movements in as far as their geometrical nature has any value in
the calculation; to the fourth, the influences of country, such as
commanding points, hills, rivers, woods, roads, &c. &c.; lastly, to the
fifth, all the means of supply. The separation of these things once for
all in the mind does good in giving clearness and helping us to estimate
at once, at a higher or lower value, the different classes as we pass
onwards. For, in considering them separately, many lose of themselves
their borrowed importance; one feels, for instance, quite plainly that
the value of a base of operations, even if we look at nothing in it but
its relative position to the line of operations, depends much less in
that simple form on the geometrical element of the angle which they
form with one another, than on the nature of the roads and the country
through which they pass.

But to treat upon Strategy according to these elements would be the
most unfortunate idea that could be conceived, for these elements are
generally manifold, and intimately connected with each other in every
single operation of War. We should lose ourselves in the most soulless
analysis, and as if in a horrid dream, we should be for ever trying in
vain to build up an arch to connect this base of abstractions with facts
belonging to the real world. Heaven preserve every theorist from such an
undertaking! We shall keep to the world of things in their totality, and
not pursue our analysis further than is necessary from time to time to
give distinctness to the idea which we wish to impart, and which
has come to us, not by a speculative investigation, but through the
impression made by the realities of War in their entirety.