'-244 ON THE FALSE ESTIMATE OF THE MILITARY CHARACTER. 



promptitude in action, are necessary to form the successful soldier. 

 He will find, moreover, that the predominant characteristic of the 

 warrior, who occupies a large space in the eye of the world, is in- 

 flexible tenacity of purpose what the French call " une volonte 

 forte." I believe, indeed, that were psychological (phrenological, 

 if you will) maps formed of all great warriors, from Alexander down 

 to Napoleon and the Duke oif Wellington, this faculty would be 

 found to occupy the largest space in their mental territory. Alex- 

 ander's early-born and never-forgotten resolution to destroy the Per- 

 sian monarchy ; Hannibal's unflinching adherence to his infantile 

 dedication to hatred and persecution of the Roman name ; Caesar's 

 long-prepared, well-matured, and successful determination to sub- 

 vert the power of the Senate ; the manifest predominance of this 

 quality in the character of Charles the Twelfth, which led to his 

 ruin at Pultawa and procured for him the appellation of Iron-head 

 from the Turks at Bender; various passages in the life of Buona- 

 parte, among others his persisting in the endeavour to subdue the 

 Peninsula, and the Duke of Wellington's equally pertinacious and 

 more fortunate resolution to frustrate his design, all tend to evince 

 the accuracy of the opinion expressed. This pertinacity of will 

 (which when directed to unattainable or pernicious objects is called 

 obstinacy) is not characteristic of warlike individuals only ; but is 

 likewise manifested by warlike states. France, under Buonaparte, 

 is an apparent but not a real example of this, for Buonaparte was, in 

 a moral sense, France. He was absolute master of the mind of the 

 country and swayed it to his will ; and hence her adherence to the 

 project of universal dominion, an adherence which produced the 

 destruction of the imperial power, was but an instance of individual 

 pertinacity. Not so with conquering Rome. Her rulers, be they 

 who they might, were the organs of the will of the state, and that 

 was steadily directed to the aggrandizement of Rome and the thral~ 

 dom of the world; purposes which, from the then condition of man- 

 kind, were crowned with ultimate accomplishment. 



Exclusive of this determined adherence to a purpose, which though 

 a moral cannot be regarded as an intellectual attribute, the mental 

 endowments of even distinguished warriors will not, I believe, be 

 found to be greater than the average amount possessed by useful 

 practical men in civil departments of life, such as successful mer- 

 chants, lawyers, and physicians; and these, if they have raised them- 

 selves from small beginnings to comparative greatness, may vie with 

 the soldier in the quality by which he is pre-eminently distinguished. 

 Whence then arises this difference, that whilst the man in civil life is 

 scarcely known beyond a small circle of acquaintance, the soldier's 

 name fills all the gazettes of Europe, and is transmitted to posterity 

 as that of the hero of the day? Simply from the relative magnitude 

 of the objects with which each is respectively conversant. But this 

 is by no means a fair measure of the mental power employed in 

 wielding them. Because one object is larger than another, it does 

 not necessarily consist of a greater number or of more intricate 

 parts. Besides this, the chief captain is not taxed with the regula- 

 tion of subordinate details, any more than the merchant of Leaden- 



