The Navy as a Fighting Machine | Page 5

and nations have not lived so long as tribes and nations
of softer fibre. This seems to have been due, however, either to the
environments in which the two have lived, or to the fact that the softer
nation has had available some forces that the other did not have. The
native Indians of North America were more warlike than the colonists
from Europe that landed on their shores; but the Indians were armed
with spears and arrows, and the colonists with guns.
Now, those guns were the product of the arts of peace; no nation that
had pursued a warlike life exclusively could have produced them or
invented the powder that discharged them. This fact indicates what a
thousand other facts of history also indicate, that civilization and the
peaceful arts contribute to the longevity of nations--not only by
promoting personal comfort, and by removing causes of internal strife,
and thus enabling large bodies of people to dwell together happily, but
also by increasing their military power. Every nation which has
achieved greatness has cultivated assiduously both the arts of peace and
the arts of war. Every nation which has long maintained that greatness

has done so by maintaining the policy by which she acquired it. _Every
nation that has attained and then lost greatness, has lost it by losing the
proper balance between the military and the peaceful arts; never by
exalting unduly the military, but always by neglecting them, and
thereby becoming vulnerable to attack_.
In other words, the history of every great nation that has declined
shows three periods, the rise, the table-land of greatness, and the
decline. During the rise, the military arts hold sway; on the table-land,
the arts of peace and war are fairly balanced; during the decline the
peaceful arts hold sway. Facilis descensus Averni. The rise is
accomplished by expending energy, for which accomplishment the
possession of energy is the first necessity; the height of the table-land
attained represents the amount of energy expended; the length of time
that the nation maintains itself upon this table-land, before starting on
the inevitable descent therefrom, represents her staying power and
constitutes her longevity as a great nation.
How long shall any nation stay upon the table-land? As long as she
continues to adapt her life wisely to her environment; as long as she
continues to be as wise as she was while climbing up; for while
climbing, she had not only to exert force, she had also to guide the
force with wisdom. So we see that, in the ascent, a nation has to use
both force and wisdom; on the table-land, wisdom; in the decline,
neither. Among the nations of antiquity one might suppose that,
because of the slowness of transportation and communication, and the
feebleness of weapons compared with those of modern days, much
longer periods of time would be required for the rise of any nation, and
also a longer period before her descent began. Yet the vast empire of
Alexander lasted hardly a day after he expired, and the Grecian cities
maintained their greatness but a century and a half; while Great Britain,
France, and Germany have been great nations for nearly a thousand
years.
Why have they endured longer than the others?
The answer is hard to find; because many causes, and some of them
obscure, have contributed to the result. But, as we observe the kind of

constitution and the mode of life of long-lived people, in order to
ascertain what kind of constitution and mode of life conduce to
longevity in people, so perhaps we may logically do the same with
nations.
Observing the constitution and mode of life of the British, French, and
German nations, we are struck at once with the fact that those peoples
have been by constitution active, ambitious, intelligent, and brave; and
that they have observed in their national life a skilfully balanced
relation between the arts of peace and the arts of war; neglecting
neither and allowing neither to wax great at the expense of the other. In
all those countries the first aim has been protection from both external
attack and internal disorder. Protection from external attack has been
gained by military force and highly trained diplomacy; protection from
internal disorder has been gained first by military force, and second by
wise laws, just courts, and the encouragement of religion and of those
arts and sciences that lead to comfort and happiness in living.
China may attract the attention of some as an instance of longevity; but
is China a nation in the usual meaning of the word? Certainly, she is
not a great nation. It is true that no other nation has actually conquered
her of late; but this has been largely by reason of her remoteness from
the active