Courage before danger to the person, again, is of two kinds.  First, it may be indifference to danger, whether proceeding from the organism of the individual, contempt of death, or habit:  in any of these cases it is to be regarded as a permanent condition.

Secondly, courage may proceed from positive motives, such as personal pride, patriotism, enthusiasm of any kind.  In this case courage is not so much a normal condition as an impulse.

We may conceive that the two kinds act differently.  The first kind is more certain, because it has become a second nature, never forsakes the man; the second often leads him farther.  In the first there is more of firmness, in the second, of boldness.  The first leaves the judgment cooler, the second raises its power at times, but often bewilders it.  The two combined make up the most perfect kind of courage.

War is the province of physical exertion and suffering.  In order not to be completely overcome by them, a certain strength of body and mind is required, which, either natural or acquired, produces indifference to them.  With these qualifications, under the guidance of simply a sound understanding, a man is at once a proper instrument for War; and these are the qualifications so generally to be met with amongst wild and half-civilised tribes.  If we go further in the demands which War makes on it, then we find the powers of the understanding predominating.  War is the province of uncertainty:  three-fourths of those things upon which action in War must be calculated, are hidden more or less in the clouds of great uncertainty.  Here, then, above all a fine and penetrating mind is called for, to search out the truth by the tact of its judgment.

An average intellect may, at one time, perhaps hit upon this truth by accident; an extraordinary courage, at another, may compensate for the want of this tact; but in the majority of cases the average result will always bring to light the deficient understanding.

War is the province of chance.  In no sphere of human activity is such a margin to be left for this intruder, because none is so much in constant contact with him on all sides.  He increases the uncertainty of every circumstance, and deranges the course of events.

From this uncertainty of all intelligence and suppositions, this continual interposition of chance, the actor in War constantly finds things different from his expectations; and this cannot fail to have an influence on his plans, or at least on the presumptions connected with these plans.  If this influence is so great as to render the pre-determined plan completely nugatory, then, as a rule, a new one must be substituted in its place; but at the moment the necessary data are often wanting for this, because in the course of action circumstances press for immediate decision, and allow no time to look about for fresh data, often not enough for mature consideration.