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.