This is indeed a fine theory. It would make the wily Frederick who surely did not believe in these maneuvers, laugh until he cried. [50] This is to escape from a difficulty by a means always recognized as impossible, and more impossible than ever to-day. Fearing that the soldier will escape from command, can not better means be found to hold him than to require of him and his officer, impracticable fire? This, ordered and not executed by the soldiers, and even by the officers, is an attack on the discipline of the unit. "Never order the impossible," says discipline, "for the impossible becomes then a disobedience." How many requisites there are to make fire at command possible, conditions among the soldiers, among their officers. Perfect these conditions, they say. All right, perfect their training, their discipline, etc.; but to obtain fire at command it is necessary to perfect their nerves, their physical force, their moral force, to make bronze images of them, to do away with excitement, with the trembling of the flesh. Can any one do this? Frederick's soldiers were brought, by blows of the baton, to a terrible state of discipline. Yet their fire was fire at will. Discipline had reached its limits. Man in battle, let us repeat again, is a being to whom the instinct of self-preservation at times dominates everything else. Discipline, whose purpose is to dominate this instinct by a feeling of greater terror, can not wholly achieve it. Discipline goes so far and no farther. We cannot deny the existence of extraordinary instances when discipline and devotion have raised man above himself. But these examples are extraordinary, rare. They are admired as exceptions, and the exception proves the rule. As to perfection, consider the Spartans. If man was ever perfected for war it was he; and yet he has been beaten, and fled. In spite of training, moral and physical force has limits. The Spartans, who should have stayed to the last man on the battle field, fled. The British with their phlegmatic coolness and their terrible rolling fire, the Russians, with that inertia that is called their tenacity, have given way before attack. The German has given way, he who on account of his subordination and stability has been called excellent war material. Again an objection is raised. Perhaps with recruits the method may be impracticable. But with veterans--But with whom is war commenced? Methods are devised precisely for young and inexperienced troops.