500
And the more I thought over what I had got to say, the less I found I could say it, without some reference to this intangible or intractable question. It made all the difference, in asserting any principle of war, whether one assumed that a discharge of artillery would merely knead down a certain quantity of once living clay into a level line, as in a brickfield; or whether, out of every separately Christian-named portion of the ruinous heap, there went out, into the smoke and dead-fallen air of battle, some astonished condition of soul, unwillingly released. It made all the difference, in speaking of the possible range of commerce, whether one assumed that all bargains related only to visible property--or whether property, for the present invisible, but nevertheless real, was elsewhere purchaseable on other terms. It made all the difference, in addressing a body of men subject to considerable hardship, and having to find some way out of it--whether one could confidently say to them, 'My friends--you have only to die, and all will be right'; or whether one had any secret misgiving that such advice was more blessed to him that gave than to him that took it."
What is (John Ruskin, The Crown of Wild Olive, 1866)