So long as there was continual fighting there was a likelihood of improvement in martial virtues, and in early times many virtues are really 'martial'--that is, tend to success in war--which in later times we do not think of so calling, because the original usefulness is hid by their later usefulness.
Bagehot observes that continuous warfare historically fostered martial virtues that were once essential for success.
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More from Walter Bagehot
These anomalies, in a hundred instances, mark the old boundaries of a constitutional struggle.
The lessons are good where its primitive assumptions hold, but may be false where those assumptions fail.
At last it strikes you that they grew up, house by house, on the devious tracks of the old green lanes; and if you follow on to the existing fields, you may often find the change half complete.
I cannot, therefore, join in the full cry against anomalies; in my judgment it may quickly overrun the scent, and so miss what we should be glad to find.
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