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MORAL FORCES.
WE must return again to this subject, which is touched upon in the third chapter of the second book, because the moral forces are amongst the most important subjects in War.

They form the spirit which permeates the whole being of War.

These forces fasten themselves soonest and with the greatest affinity on to the Will which puts in motion and guides the whole mass of powers, uniting with it as it were in one stream, because this is a moral force itself.

Unfortunately they will escape from all book-analysis, for they will neither be brought into numbers nor into classes, and require to be both seen and felt.
The spirit and other moral qualities which animate an Army, a General, or Governments, public opinion in provinces in which a War is raging, the moral effect of a victory or of a defeat, are things which in themselves vary very much in their nature, and which also, according as they stand with regard to our object and our relations, may have an influence in different ways.
Although little or nothing can be said about these things in books, still they belong to the theory of the Art of War, as much as everything else which constitutes War.