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ASSEMBLY OF FORCES IN TIME.
WE have here to deal with a conception which in real life diffuses many kinds of illusory light.

A clear definition and development of the idea is therefore necessary, and we hope to be allowed a short analysis.
War is the shock of two opposing forces in collision with each other, from which it follows as a matter of course that the stronger not only destroys the other, but carries it forward with it in its movement.

This fundamentally admits of no successive action of powers, but makes the simultaneous application of all forces intended for the shock appear as a primordial law of War.
So it is in reality, but only so far as the struggle resembles also in practice a mechanical shock, but when it consists in a lasting, mutual action of destructive forces, then we can certainly imagine a successive action of forces.

This is the case in tactics, principally because firearms form the basis of all tactics, but also for other reasons as well.