Good points all, but what about a poem, or a painting, or a book, a terrific movie? A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do.

And what about an instrument of war and conquest and imperial ambition?

---John Ruskin, 1851
For one thing this century will in after ages be considered to have done in a superb manner and one thing I think only. . . it will always be said of us, with unabated reverence,'They built ships of the Line.' Take it all in all, a ship of the Line is the most honorable thing that man as a gregarious animal has ever produced. By himself, unhelped, he can do better things than ships of the line; he can make poems and pictures, and other such concentrations of what is best in him. But as a being living in flocks, and hammering out, with alternate strokes and mutual agreement, what is necessary for him in those flocks to get or produce the ship of the line is his first work. Into that he has put as much of his human patience, common sense, forethought, experimental philosophy, self control, habits of order and obedience, thoroughly wrought handwork, defiance of brute elements, careless courage, careful patriotism, and calm expectation of the judgement of God, as can well be put into a space of 300 feet long by 80 broad. And I am thankful to have lived in an age when I could see this thing so done.