Do you speak from the wisdom which is experience, or that which aspires to prediction ?" "Are they not allied?
Is it not he best accustomed to calculation who can solve at a glance any new problem in the arithmetic of chances ?" "You evade my question." "No; but I will adapt my answer the better to your comprehension, for it is upon this very point that I have sought you.

Listen to me!" Zanoni fixed his eyes earnestly on his listener, and continued: "For the accomplishment of whatever is great and lofty, the clear perception of truths is the first requisite,--truths adapted to the object desired.
The warrior thus reduces the chances of battle to combinations almost of mathematics.

He can predict a result, if he can but depend upon the materials he is forced to employ.

At such a loss he can cross that bridge; in such a time he can reduce that fort.

Still more accurately, for he depends less on material causes than ideas at his command, can the commander of the purer science or diviner art, if he once perceive the truths that are in him and around, foretell what he can achieve, and in what he is condemned to fail.