The Plan of the War comprehends the whole Military Act; through it that Act becomes a whole, which must have one final determinate object, in which all particular objects must become absorbed. No war is commenced, or, at least, no war should be commenced, if people acted wisely, without saying to themselves, What is to be attained by and in the same; the first is the final object; the other is the intermediate aim. By this chief consideration the whole course of the war is prescribed, the extent of the means and the measure of energy are determined; its influence manifests itself down to the smallest organ of action.
We said, in the first chapter, that the overthrow of the enemy is the natural end of the act of War; and that if we would keep within the strictly philosophical limits of the idea, there can be no other in reality.
As this idea must apply to both the belligerent parties, it must follow, that there can be no suspension in the Military Act, and peace cannot take place until one or other of the parties concerned is overthrown.
In the chapter on the suspension of the Belligerent Act, we have shown how the simple principle of hostility applied to its embodiment, man, and all circumstances out of which it makes a war, is subject to checks and modifications from causes which are inherent in the apparatus of war.
But this modification is not nearly sufficient to carry us from the original conception of War to the concrete form in which it almost everywhere appears. Most wars appear only as an angry feeling on both sides, under the influence of which, each side takes up arms to protect himself, and to