Clausewitz did for the Life-History of Nations nearly half
a century before him, for both have proved the existence
of the same law in each case, viz., "The survival of the
fittest"--the "fittest," as Huxley long since pointed out,
not being necessarily synonymous with the ethically
"best." Neither of these thinkers was concerned with
the ethics of the struggle which each studied so exhaustively,
but to both men the phase or condition presented
itself neither as moral nor immoral, any more than
are famine, disease, or other natural phenomena, but as
emanating from a force inherent in all living organisms
which can only be mastered by understanding its nature.
It is in that spirit that, one after the other, all the
Nations of the Continent, taught by such drastic lessons as
Koniggrtz and Sedan, have accepted the lesson, with the
result that to-day Europe is an armed camp, and peace is
maintained by the equilibrium of forces, and will continue
just as long as this equilibrium exists, and no longer. 

Whether this state of equilibrium is in itself a good or