If, in disease, nature acts more than medicine for curing or killing.
If, in jurisprudence, it is not very advantageous to come to terms when
one is in the right, and to plead when one is in the wrong.
If literature contributes to the glory of a nation or to its decadence.
If one should or should not make the people superstitious.
If there is anything true in metaphysics, history and moral philosophy.
If taste is arbitrary, and if there is in fact good taste and bad taste,
etc., etc.
To decide all these questions right away, take an example of what is the
most extreme in each; compare the two opposed extremes, and you will at
once discover which is true.
You wish to know if leadership can infallibly determine the success of
the war; look at the most extreme case, the most opposed situations, in
which leadership alone will infallibly triumph. The enemy's army is
forced to pass through a deep mountain gorge; your general knows it: he
makes a forced march, he takes possession of the heights, he holds the
enemy shut in a pass; they must either die or surrender. In this extreme
case, luck cannot have any part in the victory. It is therefore
demonstrated that skill can determine the success of a campaign; from
that alone is it proved that war is an art.
Now imagine an advantageous but less decisive position; success is not
so certain, but it is always very probable.
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