"The complete overthrow of the enemy is the natural end of the art of war." "As this idea must apply to both the belligerent parties, it must follow, that there can be no suspension in the military act, and peace cannot take place until one or other of the parties concerned is completely overthrown." This is what Clausewitz means by Absolute War, that is war carried to its absolute and logical conclusion with the utmost force, the utmost effort and the utmost energy. He then proceeds to show that war, owing "to all the natural inertia and friction of its parts, the whole of the inconsistency, the vagueness and hesitation (or timidity) of the human mind," usually takes a weaker or less absolute form according to circumstances. "All this, theory must admit, but it is its duty to give the foremost place to the absolute form of war, and to use that form as a general point of direction." He then proceeds to show that war finally took its absolute form under Napoleon. To-day we may say that war takes its absolute form in the modern great national war, which is waged by each belligerent with the whole concentrated physical and mental power of the nation-in-arms. This requires to be gone into a little more in detail, for it is a most important point. Clausewitz in Book VIII. approaches this part of his subject by an historical survey of war from the time of the Roman Empire to that of Napoleon. He shows how as the feudal system gradually merged into the later monarchical States of Europe, armies gradually became less and less national, more and more mercenary. Omitting this, we arrive at the seventeenth century. He says: "The end of the seventeenth century, the time of Louis XIV., is to be regarded as the point in history at which the standing military power, such as it existed in the eighteenth century, reached its zenith. That military force was based on enlistment and money. States had organized themselves into complete unities; and the governments, by commuting the personal services of their subjects into money payments, had concentrated their whole power in their treasuries. Through the rapid strides in social improvements, and a more enlightened system of government, this power had become very great in comparison with what it had been. France appeared in the field with a standing army of a couple of hundred thousand men, and the other Powers in proportion."