What's the Criterium of Toughness?

i think that someone like durrant would have had a much easier time saying, well, you know, as toughness declined and morals waned. But there's no way to measure something like sos silk slippers of voltaire thew. i'm not sure that we would do all the same horrible things to day that were required for some of these earlier wars. That's a part of toughness too. And one might make the case that those are the virtues that allow us to think of ourselves as more evolved, more advanced, more merciful, more understanding, better people.