The causes of this diminution of prestige are various. Some are moral,
such as the increased respect for human life, and the disfavour with
which the more aggressive, crueler qualities have come to be regarded.
Others, however, and perhaps these are of more importance, are purely
esthetic. Through a combination of circumstances, modern warfare,
although more tragic than was ancient warfare, and even more deadly,
nevertheless has been deprived of its spectacular features.
Capacity for esthetic appreciation has its limits. Nobody is able to
visualize a battle in which two million men are engaged; it can only be
imagined as a series of smaller battles. In one of these modern battles,
substantially all the traditional elements which we have come to
associate with war, have disappeared. The horse, which bulks so largely
in the picture of a battle as it presents itself to our minds, scarcely
retains any importance at all; for the most part, automobiles, bicycles
and motor cycles have taken its place. These contrivances may be useful,
but they do not make the same appeal to the popular imagination.