This very brief survey of history shows that every great nation has started from a small beginning and risen sometimes gradually, sometimes rapidly to greatness; and then fallen, sometimes gradually, sometimes rapidly, to mediocrity, dependence, or extinction; that the instrument which has effected the rise has always been military power, usually exerted by armies on the land, sometimes by navies on the sea; and that the instrument which has effected the actual fall has always been the military power of an adversary.  In other words, the immediate instrument that has decided the rise and the fall of nations has been military power.

That this should have been so need not surprise us, since nations have always been composed of human beings, influenced by the same hopes and fears and governed by the same laws of human nature.  And as the most potent influence that could be brought to bear upon a man was a threat against his life, and as it was the province of military power to threaten life, it was unavoidable that military power should be the most potent influence that could be brought to bear upon a nation.

The history of the world has been in the main a history of war and a narrative of wars.  No matter how far back we go, the same horrible but stimulating story meets our eyes.  In ancient days, when every weapon was rude, and manipulated by one man only, the injury a single weapon could do was small, the time required for preparation was but brief, and the time required for recuperation after war was also brief.  At that time, military power was almost the sole element in the longevity of a tribe, or clan, or nation; and the warriors were the most important men among the people.  But as civilization increased, the life not only of individuals but of nations became more complex, and warriors had to dispute with statesmen, diplomatists, poets, historians, and artists of various types, the title to pre-eminence.  Yet even in savage tribes and even in the conduct of savage wars, the value of wisdom and cunning was perceived, and the stimulating aid of the poet and the orator was secured.  The relative value of men of war and men of peace depended during each period on the conditions prevailing then—­in war, warriors held the stage; in peace, statesmen and artists had their day.

Naturally, during periods when war was the normal condition, the warrior was the normal pillar of the state.  In how great a proportion of the time that history describes, war was the normal condition and peace the abnormal, few realize now in our country, because of the aloofness of the present generation from even the memory of war.  Our last great war ended in 1865; and since then only the light and transient touch of the Spanish War has been laid upon us.  Even that war ended seventeen years ago and since then only the distant rumblings of battles in foreign lands have been borne across the ocean to our ears.

These rumblings have disturbed us very little.  Feeling secure behind the 3,000-mile barrier of the ocean, we have lent an almost incredulous ear to the story that they tell and the menace that they bear; though the story of the influence of successful and unsuccessful wars upon the rise and fall of nations is told so harshly and so loudly that, in order not to hear it, one must tightly stop his ears.