Lecky ("Rationalism in Europe," p. 76) says: "Protestantism could not possibly have existed without a general diffusion of the Bible, and that diffusion was impossible until after the two inventions of paper and printing.... Before those inventions, pictures and material images were the chief means of religious instruction." And thus religious belief became necessarily material, crude, anthropomorphic.

"Battles are no longer the spectacular heroics of the past. The army of to-day and to-morrow is a sombre gigantic machine devoid of melodramatic heroics ... a machine that it requires years to form in separate parts, years to assemble them together, and other years to make them work smoothly and irresistibly" (Homer Lea in "The Valor of Ignorance," p. 49).

General von Bernhardi, in his work on cavalry, deals with this very question of the bad influence on tactics of the "pomp of war," which he admits must disappear, adding very wisely: "The spirit of tradition consists not in the retention of antiquated forms, but in acting in that spirit which in the past led to such glorious success." The plea for the retention of the soldier because of his "spirit" could not be more neatly disposed of. See p. 111 of the English edition of Bernhardi's work (Hugh Rees, London).