Obstinacy is no fault of the understanding; we use the term as denoting
a resistance against our better judgment, and it would be inconsistent
to charge that to the understanding, as the understanding is the power
of judgment. Obstinacy is A FAULT OF THE FEELINGS or heart. This
inflexibility of will, this impatience of contradiction, have their
origin only in a particular kind of egotism, which sets above every
other pleasure that of governing both self and others by its own mind
alone. We should call it a kind of vanity, were it not decidedly
something better. Vanity is satisfied with mere show, but obstinacy
rests upon the enjoyment of the thing.
We say, therefore, force of character degenerates into obstinacy
whenever the resistance to opposing judgments proceeds not from better
convictions or a reliance upon a trustworthy maxim, but from a feeling
of opposition. If this definition, as we have already admitted, is of
little assistance practically, still it will prevent obstinacy from
being considered merely force of character intensified, whilst it is
something essentially different—something which certainly lies close to
it and is cognate to it, but is at the same time so little an
intensification of it that there are very obstinate men who from want
of understanding have very little force of character.
Having in these high attributes of a great military Commander made
ourselves acquainted with those qualities in which heart and head
co-operate, we now come to a speciality of military activity which
perhaps may be looked upon as the most marked if it is not the most
important, and which only makes a demand on the power of the mind
without regard to the forces of feelings. It is the connection which
exists between War and country or ground.
This connection is, in the first place, a permanent condition of War,
for it is impossible to imagine our organised Armies effecting any
operation otherwise than in some given space; it is, secondly, of the
most decisive importance, because it modifies, at times completely
alters, the action of all forces; thirdly, while on the one hand it
often concerns the most minute features of locality, on the other it
may apply to immense tracts of country.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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