This may seem absurd, and perhaps it is; but why?  The comparison is not between the qualities of the men or between the results achieved.  Great results often are brought about by very small forces, as when some state of equilibrium is disturbed, and vice versa.  The comparison attempted is simply between the power of a certain army and the power of a certain fleet.  And while it is true that, for some purposes, such as overcoming small resistance, great power may not be as efficacious as feeble power or even gentleness, yet, nevertheless, it must be clear that, for the overcoming of great resistance quickly great power must be applied.

The existence of a certain power is quite independent of the desirability of using it.  The existence of the power is all the writer wishes to insist upon at present; the question of its employment will be considered later.

Not only is the power of a fleet immeasurably greater than that of an army, but it must always be so, from the very nature of things.  The speed of an army, while exercising the functions of an army, and the power of a musket, while exercising its functions as a weapon of one soldier, cannot change much from what they were when Sherman went marching through Georgia.  But, thanks to mechanical science, there is no limit in sight to the power to which a fleet may attain.

The power of a navy is of recent growth, but it is increasing and is going to continue to increase.  Every advance of civilization will advance the navy.  Every new discovery and invention will directly or indirectly serve it.  The navy, more than any other thing, will give opportunity for mechanism and to mechanism.  Far beyond any possible imagination of to-day, it will become the highest expression of the Genius of Mechanism, and the embodiment of its spirit.

The amount of money now being spent by the United States on its navy is so great that the expenditure can be justified only on the basis that great naval power is essential to the country.

Is it essential, and if so, why?

Primary Use for a Navy.—­To answer this wisely, it may be well to remind ourselves that the principal object of all the vocations of men is directly or indirectly the acquiring of money.  Money, of course, is not wealth; but it is a thing which can be so easily exchanged for wealth, that it is the thing which most people work for.  Of course, at bottom, the most important work is the getting of food out of the ground; but inasmuch as people like to congregate together in cities, the thing taken out of the ground in one place must be transported to other places; and inasmuch as every person wants every kind of thing that he can get, a tremendous system of interchange, through the medium of money, has been brought about, which is called “trade.”  For the protection of property and life, and in order that trade may exist at all, an enormous amount of human machinery is employed which we call “government.”