“En los principios aquí consignados por escrito, en mi opinión, se abordan las cuestiones principales que componen la llamada Estrategia. Los consideraba tan solo como materiales, y apenas había avanzado tanto en orden a moldearlos hasta formar un todo.
“These materials have been amassed without any regularly preconceived plan. My view was at first, without regard to system and strict connection, to put down the results of my reflections upon the most important points in quite brief, precise, compact propositions. The manner in which Montesquieu has treated his subject floated before me in idea. I thought that concise, sententious chapters, which I proposed at first to call grains, would attract the attention of the intelligent just as much by that which was to be developed from them, as by that which they contained in themselves. I had, therefore, before me in idea, intelligent readers already acquainted with the subject. But my nature, which always impels me to development and systematising, at last worked its way out also in this instance. For some time I was able to confine myself to extracting only the most important results from the essays, which, to attain clearness and conviction in my own mind, I wrote upon different subjects, to concentrating in that manner their spirit in a small compass; but afterwards my peculiarity gained ascendency completely—I have developed what I could, and thus naturally have supposed a reader not yet acquainted with the subject.
“Cuanto más avanzaba en la obra, y cuanto más me entregaba al espíritu de investigación, tanto más me sentía conducido también a la sistematización; y así fue como, capítulo tras capítulo, se ha ido intercalando.
“Mi propósito definitivo ha sido ahora repasar el conjunto una vez más, para fundamentar mediante una mayor explicación buena parte de los primeros tratados, y tal vez condensar en resultados muchos análisis de los posteriores, y hacer así un todo moderado a partir de ello, dando