Among the eminent persons of the nineteenth century, Napoleon Bonaparte is far the best known, and the most powerful; and owes his predominance to the fidelity with which he expresses the tone of thought and belief, the aims of the masses of active and cultivated men. It is Swedenborg’s theory, that every organ is made up of homogeneous particles; or, as it is sometimes expressed, every whole is made of similars; that is, the lungs are composed of infinitely small lungs; the liver, of infinitely small livers; the kidney, of little kidneys, etc. Following this analogy, if any man is found to carry with him the power and affections of vast numbers, if Napoleon is France, if Napoleon is Europe, it is because the people whom he sways are little Napoleons.

His career is so near to our own times and so commonly familiar, that it is not essential to describe any of those operations which were, within the memory of some men yet living, the wonder and dread of Europe. In certain respects Napoleon was the greatest of all soldiers. He had, to be sure, the history of other great captains to profit by; he had not to invent; he had only to improve. But he did for the military art what constitutes the greatest advance in any art, he reduced it to its most simple, most perfect form; and his and Frederick’s campaigns furnished the final material from which Jomini and his followers could elucidate the science; for it has taken more than two thousand years of the written history of war to produce a written science of war...