but resent the implication that he or it is unable or unwilling to meet force with force. The life of soldiers and of armies is their spirit, and that spirit receives a serious wound when it seems--even superficially--to recoil before a threat; while with the weakening of the military body falls an element of political strength which has no analogue in Great Britain or the United States, the chief military power of which must lie ever in navies, never an aggressive factor such as armies have been. Now, the United States has made an announcement that she will support by force a policy which may bring her into collision with states of military antecedents, indisposed by their interests to acquiesce in our position, and still less willing to accept it under appearance of threat. What preparation is necessary in case such a one is as determined to fight against our demands as we to fight for them? Preparation for war, rightly understood, falls under two heads,--preparation and preparedness. The one is a question mainly of material, and is constant in its action. The second involves an idea of completeness. When, at a particular moment, preparations are completed, one is prepared--not otherwise. There may have been made a great deal of very necessary preparation for war without being prepared. Every constituent of preparation may be behindhand, or some elements may be perfectly ready, while others are not. In neither case can a state be said to be prepared. In the matter of preparation for war, one clear idea should be absorbed first by every one who, recognizing that war is still a possibility, desires to see his country ready. This idea is that, however defensive in origin or in political character a war may be, the assumption of a simple defensive in war is ruin. War, once declared, must be waged offensively, aggressively. The enemy must not be fended off, but smitten down. You may then spare him every exaction, relinquish every gain; but till down he must be struck incessantly and remorselessly. Preparation, like most other things, is a question both of kind and of degree, of quality and of quantity. As regards degree, the general lines upon which it is determined have been indicated broadly in the preceding part of this article. The measure of degree is the estimated force which the strongest _probable_ enemy can bring against you, allowance being made for clear drawbacks upon his total force, imposed by his own embarrassments and responsibilities in other parts of the world. The calculation is partly military, partly political, the latter, however, being the dominant factor in the premises.