Chapter III: Appendix: Ii.—concerning the Harmony of Politics with Morals (1)

ACCORDING TO THE TRANSCENDENTAL IDEA OF PUBLIC RIGHT 184

INDEX 197

TRANSLATOR’S INTRODUCTION

This is an age of unions. Not merely in the economic sphere, in the working world of unworthy ends and few ideals do we find great practical organizations; but law, medicine, science, art, trade, commerce, politics and political economy—we might add philanthropy—standing institutions, mighty forces in our social and intellectual life, all have helped to swell the number of our nineteenth century Conferences and Congresses. It is an age of Peace Movements and Peace Societies, of peace-loving monarchs and peace-seeking diplomats. This is not to say that we are preparing for the millennium. Men are working together, there is a newborn solidarity of interest, but rivalries between nation and nation, the bitternesses and hatreds inseparable from competition are not less keen; prejudice and misunderstanding not less frequent; subordinate conflicting interests are not fewer, are perhaps, in view of changing political conditions and an ever-growing international commerce, multiplying with every year. The talisman is, perhaps, self-interest, but, none the less, the spirit of union is there; it is impossible to ignore a clearly marked tendency towards international federation, towards political peace. This slow movement was not born with Peace Societies; its consummation lies perhaps far off in the ages to come. History at best moves slowly. But something of its past progress we shall do well to know. No political idea seems to have so great a future before it as this idea of a federation of the world. It is bound to realise itself some day; let us consider what are the chances that this day come quickly, what that it be long delayed. What obstacles lie in the way, and how may they be removed? What historical grounds have we for hoping that they may ever be removed? What, in a word, is the origin and history of the idea of a perpetual peace between nations, and what would be the advantage, what is the prospect of realising it?

The international relations of states find their expression, we are told, in war and peace. What has been the part played by these great counteracting forces in the history of nations? What has it been in prehistoric times, in the life of man in what is called the “state of nature”? “It is no easy enterprise,” says Rousseau, in more than usually careful language, “to disentangle that which is original from that which is artificial in the actual state of man, and to make ourselves well acquainted with a state which no longer exists, which perhaps never has existed and which probably never will exist in the future.” (Preface to the _Discourse on the Causes of Inequality_, 1753, publ. 1754.) This is a difficulty which Rousseau surmounts only too easily. A knowledge of history, a scientific spirit may fail him: an imagination ever ready to pour forth detail never does. Man lived, says he, “without industry, without speech, without habitation, without war, without connection of any kind, without any need of his fellows or without any desire to harm them ... sufficing to himself.”[2] (_Discourse on the Sciences and Arts_, 1750.) Nothing, we are now certain, is less probable. We cannot paint the life of man at this stage of his development with any definiteness, but the conclusion is forced upon us that our race had no golden age,[3] no peaceful beginning, that this early state was indeed, as Hobbes held, a state of war, of incessant war between individuals, families and, finally, tribes.

[2] For the inconsistency between the views expressed by Rousseau
on this subject in the _Discourses_ and in the _Contrat Social_
(Cf. I. Chs. VI., VIII.) see Ritchie’s _Natural Right_, Ch.
III., pp. 48, 49; Caird’s essay on Rousseau in his _Essays on
Literature and Philosophy_, Vol. I.; and Morley’s _Rousseau_,
Vol. I., Ch. V.; Vol. II., Ch. XII.

[3] The theory that the golden age was identical with the
state of nature, Professor D. G. Ritchie ascribes to Locke
(see _Natural Right_, Ch. II., p. 42). Locke, he says, “has an
idea of a golden age” existing even after government has come
into existence—a time when people did not need “to examine the
original and rights of government.” [_Civil Government_, II., §
111.] A little confusion on the part of his readers (perhaps in
his own mind) makes it possible to regard the state of nature as
itself the golden age, and the way is prepared for the favourite
theory of the eighteenth century:—

“Nor think in nature’s state they blindly trod;
The state of nature was the reign of God:
Self-love and social at her birth began,
Union the bond of all things and of man.
Pride then was not, nor arts that pride to aid;
Man walk’d with beast, joint tenant of the shade;
The same his table, and the same his bed;
No murder cloath’d him, and no murder fed.”

[_Essay on Man_, III., 147 _seq._]

In these lines of Pope’s the state of nature is identified with
the golden age of the Greek and Latin poets; and “the reign of
God” is an equivalent for Locke’s words, “has a law of nature to
govern it.”

_The Early Conditions of Society._

For the barbarian, war is the rule; peace the exception. His gods, like those of Greece, are warlike gods; his spirit, at death, flees to some Valhalla. For him life is one long battle; his arms go with him even to the grave. Food and the means of existence he seeks through plunder and violence. Here right is with might; the battle is to the strong. Nature has given all an equal claim to all things, but not everyone can have them. This state of fearful insecurity is bound to come to an end. “Government,” says Locke, (_On Civil Government_, Chap. VIII., § 105) “is hardly to be avoided amongst men that live together.”[4] A constant dread of attack and a growing consciousness of the necessity of presenting a united front against it result in the choice of some leader—the head of a family perhaps—who acts, it may be, only as captain of the hosts, as did Joshua in Israel, or who may discharge the simple duties of a primitive governor or king.[5] Peace within is found to be strength without. The civil state is established, so that “if there needs must be war, it may not yet be against all men, nor yet without some helps.” (Hobbes: _On Liberty_, Chap. I., § 13.) This foundation of the state is the first establishment in history of a peace institution. It changes the character of warfare, it gives it method and system; but it does not bring peace in its train. We have now, indeed, no longer a wholesale war of all against all, a constant irregular raid and plunder of one individual by another; but we have the systematic, deliberate war of community against community, of nation against nation.[6]

[4] Cf. _Republic_, II. 369. “A state,” says Socrates, “arises
out of the needs of mankind: no one is self-sufficing, but all of
us have many wants.”

[5] See Hume’s account of the origin of government (_Treatise_,
III., Part II., Sect. VIII.). There are, he says, American
tribes “where men live in concord and amity among themselves
without any established government; and never pay submission
to any of their fellows, except in time of war, when their
captain enjoys a shadow of authority, which he loses after their
return from the field, and the establishment of peace with the
neighbouring tribes. This authority, however, instructs them in
the advantages of government, and teaches them to have recourse
to it, when either by the pillage of war, by commerce, or by any
fortuitous inventions, their riches and possessions have become
so considerable as to make them forget, on every emergence, the
interest they have in the preservation of peace and justice....
Camps are the true mothers of cities; and as war cannot be
administered, by reason of the suddenness of every exigency,
without some authority in a single person, the same kind of
authority naturally takes place in that civil government, which
succeeds the military.”

Cf. Cowper: _The Winter Morning Walk_:—

“. . . . . . . . . . . . . . and ere long,
When man was multiplied and spread abroad
In tribes and clans, and had begun to call
These meadows and that range of hills his own,
The tasted sweets of property begat
Desire of more; . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Thus wars began on earth. These fought for spoil,
And those in self-defence. Savage at first
The onset, and irregular. At length
One eminent above the rest, for strength,
For stratagem, or courage, or for all,
Was chosen leader. Him they served in war,
And him in peace for sake of warlike deeds
Rev’renced no less. . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Thus kings were first invented.”

[6] “Among uncivilised nations, there is but one profession
honourable, that of arms. All the ingenuity and vigour of the
human mind are exerted in acquiring military skill or address.”
Cf. Robertson’s _History of Charles V._, (_Works_, 1813, vol. V.)
Sect. I. vii.

_War in Classical Times._

In early times, there were no friendly neighbouring nations: beyond the boundaries of every nation’s territory, lay the land of a deadly foe. This was the way of thinking, even of so highly cultured a people as the Greeks, who believed that a law of nature had made every outsider, every barbarian their inferior and their enemy.[7] Their treaties of peace, at the time of the Persian War, were frankly of the kind denounced by Kant, mere armistices concluded for the purpose of renewing their fighting strength. The ancient world is a world of perpetual war in which defeat meant annihilation. In the East no right was recognised in the enemy; and even in Greece and Rome the fate of the unarmed was death or slavery.[8] The barbaric or non-Grecian states had, according to Plato and Aristotle, no claim upon humanity, no rights in fact of any kind. Among the Romans things were little better. According to Mr. T. J. Lawrence—see his _Principles of International Law_, III., §§ 21, 22—they were worse. For Rome stood alone in the world: she was bound by ties of kinship to no other state. She was, in other words, free from a sense of obligation to other races. War, according to Roman ideas, was made by the gods, apart altogether from the quarrels of rulers or races. To disobey the sacred command, expressed in signs and auguries would have been to hold in disrespect the law and religion of the land. When, in the hour of victory, the Romans refrained from pressing their rights against the conquered—rights recognised by all Roman jurists—it was from no spirit of leniency, but in the pursuit of a prudent and far-sighted policy, aiming at the growth of Roman supremacy and the establishment of a world-embracing empire, shutting out all war as it blotted out natural boundaries, reducing all rights to the one right of imperial citizenship. There was no real _jus belli_, even here in the cradle of international law; the only limits to the fury of war were of a religious character.

[7] Similarly we find that the original meaning of the Latin word
“_hostis_” was “a stranger.”

[8] In Aristotle we find the high-water mark of Greek thinking
on this subject. “The object of military training,” says he,
(_Politics_, Bk. IV. Ch. XIV., Welldon’s translation—in older
editions Bk. VII.) “should be not to enslave persons who do
not deserve slavery, but firstly to secure ourselves against
becoming the slaves of others; secondly, to seek imperial power
not with a view to a universal despotic authority, but for the
benefit of the subjects whom we rule, and thirdly, to exercise
despotic power over those who are deserving to be slaves. That
the legislator should rather make it his object so to order his
legislation upon military and other matters as to promote leisure
and peace is a theory borne out by the facts of history.” ...
(_loc. cit._ Ch. XV.). “War, as we have remarked several times,
has its end in peace.”

Aristotle strongly condemns the Lacedæmonians and Cretans for
regarding war and conquest as the sole ends to which all law and
education should be directed. Also in non-Greek tribes like the
Scythians, Persians, Thracians and Celts he says, only military
power is admired by the people and encouraged by the state.
“There was formerly too a law in Macedonia that any one who had
never slain an enemy should wear the halter about his neck.”
Among the Iberians too, a military people, “it is the custom to
set around the tomb of a deceased warrior a number of obelisks
corresponding to the number of enemies he has killed.... Yet
... it may well appear to be a startling paradox that it should
be the function of a Statesman to succeed in devising the means
of rule and mastery over neighbouring peoples whether with or
against their own will. How can such action be worthy of a
statesman or legislator, when it has not even the sanction of
law?” (_op. cit._, IV. Ch. 2.)

We see that Aristotle disapproves of a glorification of war for
its own sake, and regards it as justifiable only in certain
circumstances. Methods of warfare adopted and proved in the East
would not have been possible in Greece. An act of treachery,
for example, such as that of Jael, (_Judges_ IV. 17) which was
extolled in songs of praise by the Jews, (_loc. cit._ V. 24) the
Greek people would have been inclined to repudiate. The stories
of Roman history, the behaviour of Fabricius, for instance,
or Regulus and the honourable conduct of prisoners on various
occasions released on parole, show that this consciousness of
certain principles of honour in warfare was still more highly
developed in Rome.

Socrates in the _Republic_ (V. 469, 470) gives expression to a
feeling which was gradually gaining ground in Greece, that war
between Hellenic tribes was much more serious than war between
Greeks and barbarians. In such civil warfare, he considered,
the defeated ought not to be reduced to slavery, nor the slain
despoiled, nor Hellenic territory devastated. For any difference
between Greek and Greek is to “be regarded by them as discord
only—a quarrel among friends, which is not to be called war”....
“Our citizens [_i.e._ in the ideal republic] should thus deal
with their Hellenic enemies; and with barbarians as the Hellenes
now deal with one another.” (V. 471.)

The views of Plato and Aristotle on this and other questions were
in advance of the custom and practice of their time.

The treatment of a defeated enemy among the Jews rested upon a similar religious foundation. In the East, we find a special cruelty in the conduct of war. The wars of the Jews and Assyrians were wars of extermination. The whole of the _Old Testament_, it has been said, resounds with the clash of arms.[9] “An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth!” was the command of Jehovah to his chosen people. Vengeance was bound up in their very idea of the Creator. The Jews, unlike the followers of Mahomet, attempted, and were commanded to attempt no violent conversion[10]; they were then too weak a nation; but they fought, and fought with success against the heathen of neighbouring lands, the Lord of Hosts leading them forth to battle. The God of Israel stood to his chosen people in a unique and peculiarly logical relation. He had made a covenant with them; and, in return for their obedience and allegiance, cared for their interests and advanced their national prosperity. The blood of this elect people could not be suffered to intermix with that of idolaters. Canaan must be cleared of the heathen, on the coming of the children of Israel to their promised land; and mercy to the conquered enemy, even to women, children or animals was held by the Hebrew prophets to be treachery to Jehovah. (_Sam._ XV.; _Josh._ VI. 21.)

[9] “The Lord is a man of war,” said Moses (_Exodus_ XV. 3). Cf.
_Psalms_ XXIV. 8. He is “mighty in battle.”

[10] This was bound up with the very essence of Islam; the devout
Mussulman could suffer the existence of no unbeliever. Tolerance
or indifference was an attitude which his faith made impossible.
“When ye encounter the unbelievers,” quoth the prophet (_Koran_,
ch. 47), “strike off their heads, until ye have made a great
slaughter among them.... Verily if God pleased he could take
vengeance on them without your assistance; but he commandeth you
to fight his battles.”

The propagation of the faith by the sword was not only commanded
by the Mohammedan religion: it was that religion itself.

Hence the attitude of the Jews to neighbouring nations[11] was still more hostile than that of the Greeks. The cause of this difference is bound up with the transition from polytheism to monotheism. The most devout worshipper of the national gods of ancient times could endure to see other gods than his worshipped in the next town or by a neighbouring nation. There was no reason why all should not exist side by side. Religious conflicts in polytheistic countries, when they arose, were due not to the rivalry of conflicting faiths, but to an occasional attempt to put one god above the others in importance. There could be no interest here in the propagation of belief through the sword. But, under the Jews, these relations were entirely altered. Jehovah, their Creator, became the one invisible God. Such an one can suffer no others near him; their existence is a continual insult to him. Monotheism is, in its very nature, a religion of intolerance. Its spirit among the Jews was warlike: it commanded the subjugation of other nations, but its instrument was rather extermination than conversion.

[11] See _Acts_ X. 28:—“Ye know that it is an unlawful thing for
a man that is a Jew to keep company, or come unto one of another
nation.”

_The Attitude of Christianity and the Early Church to War._

From the standpoint of the peace of nations, we may say that the Christian faith, compared with other prominent monotheistic religious systems, occupies an intermediate position between two extremes—the fanaticism of Islam, and to a less extent of Judaism, and the relatively passive attitude of the Buddhist who thought himself bound to propagate his religion, but held himself justified only in the employment of peaceful means. Christianity, on the other hand, contains no warlike principles: it can in no sense be called a religion of the sword, but circumstances gave the history of the Church, after the first few centuries of its existence, a character which cannot be called peace-loving.

This apparent contradiction between the spirit of the new religion and its practical attitude to war has led to some difference of opinion as to the actual teaching of Christ. The _New Testament_ seems, at a superficial glance, to furnish support as readily to the champions of war as to its denouncers. The Messiah is the Prince of Peace (_Is._ IX. 6, 7; _Heb._ VI.), and here lies the way of righteousness (_Rom._ III. 19): but Christ came not to bring peace, but a sword (_Matth._ X. 34). Such statements may be given the meaning which we wish them to bear—the quoting of Scripture is ever an unsatisfactory form of evidence; but there is no direct statement in the _New Testament_ in favour of war, no saying of Christ which, fairly interpreted, could be understood too regard this proof of human imperfection as less condemnable than any other.[12] When men shall be without sin, nation shall rise up against nation no more. But man the individual can attain peace only when he has overcome the world, when, in the struggle with his lower self, he has come forth victorious. This is the spiritual sword which Christ brought into the world—strife, not with the unbeliever, but with the lower self: meekness and the spirit of the Word of God are the weapons with which man must fight for the Faith.

[12] Neither, however, is there any which regards the soldier as
a murderer.

An elect people there was no longer: Israel had rejected its Messiah. Instead there was a complete brotherhood of all men, the bond and the free, as children of one God. The aim of the Church was a world-empire, bound together by a universal religion. In this sense, as sowing the first seeds of a universal peace, we may speak of Christianity as a re-establishment of peace among mankind.

The later attitude of Christians to war, however, by no means corresponds to the earliest tenets of the Church. Without doubt, certain sects, from the beginning of our era and through the ages up to the present time, held, like the Mennonites and Quakers in our day, that the divine command, “Love your enemies,” could not be reconciled with the profession of a soldier. The early Christians were reproached under the Roman Emperors, before the time of Constantine, with avoiding the citizen’s duty of military service.[13] “To those enemies of our faith,” wrote Origen (_Contra Celsum_, VIII., Ch. LXXIII., Anti-Nicene Christian Library), “who require us to bear arms for the commonwealth, and to slay men, we can reply: ‘Do not those who are priests at certain shrines, and those who attend on certain gods, as you account them, keep their hands free from blood, that they may with hands unstained and free from human blood offer the appointed sacrifices to your gods; and even when war is upon you, you never enlist the priests in the army. If that, then, is a laudable custom, how much more so, that while others are engaged in battle, these too should engage as the priests and ministers of God, keeping their hands pure, and wrestling in prayers to God on behalf of those who are fighting in a righteous cause, and for the king who reigns righteously, that whatever is opposed to those who act righteously may be destroyed!’ ... And we do take our part in public affairs, when along with righteous prayers we join self-denying exercises and meditations, which teach us to despise pleasures, and not to be led away by them. And none fight better for the king than we do. We do not indeed fight under him, although he require it; but we fight on his behalf, forming a special army—an army of piety—by offering our prayers to God.” The Fathers of the Church, Justin Martyr, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Ambrose and the rest gave the same testimony against war. The pagan rites connected with the taking of the military oath had no doubt some influence in determining the feeling of the pious with regard to this life of bloodshed; but the reasons lay deeper. “Shall it be held lawful,” asked Tertullian, (_De Corona_, p. 347) “to make an occupation of the sword, when the Lord proclaims that he who uses the sword shall perish by the sword? And shall the son of peace take part in the battle when it does not become him even to sue at law? And shall he apply the chain, and the prison, and the torture, and the punishment, who is not the avenger even of his own wrongs?”

[13] In the early centuries of our era Christians seem to
have occasionally refused to serve in the army from religious
scruples. But soldiers were not always required to change their
profession after baptism. And in _Acts_ X., for example, nothing
is said to indicate that the centurion, Cornelius, would have to
leave the Roman army. See Tertullian: _De Corona_ (Anti-Nicene
Christian Library), p. 348.

The doctrine of the Church developed early in the opposite direction. It was its fighting spirit and not a love of peace that made Christianity a state religion under Constantine. Nor was Augustine the first of the Church Fathers to regard military service as permissible. To come to a later time, this change of attitude has been ascribed partly to the rise of Mahometan power and the wave of fanaticism which broke over Europe. To destroy these unbelievers with fire and sword was regarded as a deed of piety pleasing to God. Hence the wars of the Crusades against the infidel were holy wars, and appear as a new element in the history of civilisation. The nations of ancient times had known only civil and foreign war.[14] They had rebelled at home, and they had fought mainly for material interests abroad. In the Middle Ages there were, besides, religious wars and, with the rise of Feudalism, private war:[15] among all the powers of the Dark Ages and for centuries later, none was more aggressive than the Catholic Church, nor a more active and untiring defender of its rights and claims, spiritual or temporal. It was in some respects a more warlike institution than the states of Greece and Rome. It struggled through centuries with the Emperor:[16] it pronounced its ban against disobedient states and disloyal cities: it pursued with its vengeance each heretical or rebellious prince: unmindful of its early traditions about peace, it showed in every crisis a fiercely military spirit.[17]

[14] There were so-called “Sacred Wars” in Greece, but these were
due mainly to disputes caused by the Amphictyonic League. They
were not religious, in the sense in which we apply the epithet to
the Thirty Years’ war.

[15] “The administration of justice among rude illiterate people,
was not so accurate, or decisive, or uniform, as to induce men
to submit implicitly to its determinations. Every offended baron
buckled on his armour, and sought redress at the head of his
vassals. His adversary met him in like hostile array. Neither
of them appealed to impotent laws which could afford them no
protection. Neither of them would submit points, in which their
honour and their passions were warmly interested, to the slow
determination of a judicial inquiry. Both trusted to their swords
for the decision of the contest.” Robertson’s _History of Charles
V._, (_Works_, vol. V.) Sect. I., p. 38.

[16] Erasmus in the “Ἰχθυοφαγία” (_Colloquies_, Bailey’s ed.,
Vol. II., pp. 55, 56) puts forward the suggestion that a general
peace might be obtained in the Christian world, if the Emperor
would remit something of his right and the Pope some part of his.

[17] Cf. Robertson, _op. cit._, Sect. III., p. 106, _seq._

For more than a thousand years the Church counted fighting clergy[18] among its most active supporters. This strange anomaly was, it must be said, at first rather suffered in deference to public opinion than encouraged by ecclesiastical canons and councils, but it gave rise to great discontent at the time of the Reformation.[19] The whole question of the lawfulness of military service for Christians was then raised again. “If there be anything in the affairs of mortals,” wrote Erasmus at this time (_Opera_, II., _Prov._, 951 C) “which it becomes us deliberately to attack, which we ought indeed to shun by every possible means, to avert and to abolish, it is certainly war, than which there is nothing more wicked, more mischievous or more widely destructive in its effects, nothing harder to be rid of, or more horrible and, in a word, more unworthy of a man, not to say of a Christian.”[20] The mediæval Church indeed succeeded, by the establishment of such institutions as the Truce of God, in setting some limits to the fury of the soldier: but its endeavours (and it made several to promote peace)[21] were only to a trifling extent successful. Perhaps custom and public opinion in feudal Europe were too strong, perhaps the Church showed a certain apathy in denouncing the evils of a military society: no doubt the theoretical tenets of its doctrine did less to hinder war than its own strongly military tendency, its lust for power and the force of its example did to encourage it.

[18] Robertson (_op. cit._, Note XXI., p. 483) quotes the
following statement: “flamma, ferro, caede, possessiones
ecclesiarum praelati defendebant.” (Guido Abbas ap. Du Cange, p.
179.)

[19] J. A. Farrar, in a pamphlet, (reprinted from the
_Gentleman’s Magazine_, vol. 257, 1884) on _War and
Christianity_, quotes the following passage from Wycliffe in
which he protests against this blot upon the Church and Christian
professions.—“Friars now say that bishops can fight best of all
men, and that it falleth most properly to them, since they are
lords of all this world. They say Christ bade His disciples sell
their coats, and buy them swords; but whereto, if not to fight?
Thus friars make a great array, and stir up many men to fight.
But Christ taught not His apostles to fight with a sword of iron,
but with the sword of God’s Word, and which standeth in meekness
of heart and in the prudence of man’s tongue.... If man-slaying
in others be odious to God, much more in priests, who should be
vicars of Christ.” See also the passage where Erasmus points
out that King David was not permitted to build a temple to God,
because he was a man of blood. “Nolo clericos ullo sanguine
contaminari. Gravis impietas!” (_Opera_, IX., 370 B.)

This question had already been considered by Thomas Aquinas, who
decided that the clergy ought not to be allowed to fight, because
the practices of warfare, although right and meritorious in
themselves, were not in accordance with a holy calling. (_Summa_,
II. 2: Qu. 40.)

Aquinas held that war—excluding private war—is justifiable in a
just cause. So too did Luther, (cf. his pamphlet: _Ob Kriegsleute
auch in seligem Stande sein können?_) Calvin and Zwingli, the
last of whom died sword in hand.

With regard to the question of a fighting clergy, the passage
quoted from Origen (pp. 14, 15, above) has considerable interest,
Origen looks upon the active participation of priests in warfare
as something which everyone would admit to be impossible.

[20] See also the _Querela Pacis_, 630 B., (_Opera_,
IV.):—“Whosoever preaches Christ, preaches peace.” Erasmus even
goes the length of saying that the most iniquitous peace is
better than the most just war (_op. cit._, 636 C).

[21] Cf. Robertson, _op. cit._, Note XXI. p. 483 and Sect. I., p.
39.

Hence, in spite of Christianity and its early vision of a brotherhood of men, the history of the Middle Ages came nearer to a realization of the idea of perpetual war than was possible in ancient times. The tendency of the growth of Roman supremacy was to diminish the number of wars, along with the number of possible causes of racial friction. It united many nations in one great whole, and gave them, to a certain extent, a common culture and common interests; even, when this seemed prudent, a common right of citizenship. The fewer the number of boundaries, the less the likelihood of war. The establishment of great empires is of necessity a force, and a great and permanent force working on the side of peace. With the fall of Rome this guarantee was removed.

_The Development of the New Science of International Law._

Out of the ruins of the old feudal system arose the modern state as a free independent unity. Private war between individuals or classes of society was now branded as a breach of the peace: it became the exclusive right of kings to appeal to force. War, wrote Gentilis[22] towards the end of sixteenth century, is the just or unjust conflict between states. Peace was now regarded as the normal condition of society. As a result of these great developments in which the name “state” acquired new meaning, jurisprudence freed itself from the trammelling conditions of mediæval Scholasticism. Men began to consider the problem of the rightfulness or wrongfulness of war, to question even the possibility of a war on rightful grounds. Out of theses new ideas—partly too as one of the fruits of the Reformation,[23]—arose the first consciously formulated principles of the science of international law, whose fuller, but not yet complete, development belongs to modern times.

[22] It is uncertain in what year the _De Jure Belli_ of Gentilis
was published—a work to which Grotius acknowledges considerable
indebtedness. Whewell, in the preface to his translation of
Grotius, gives the date 1598, but some writers suppose it to have
been ten years earlier.

[23] This came about in two ways. The Church of Rome discouraged
the growth of national sentiment. At the Reformation the
independence and unity of the different nations were for the
first time recognised. That is to say, the Reformation laid the
foundation for a science of international law. But, from another
point of view, it not only made such a code of rules possible,
it made it necessary. The effect of the Reformation was not to
diminish the number of wars in which religious belief could play
a part. Moreover, it displaced the Pope from his former position
as arbiter in Europe without setting up any judicial tribunal in
his stead.

From the beginning of history every age, every people has something to show here, be it only a rudimentary sense of justice in their dealings with one another. We may instance the Amphictyonic League in Greece which, while it had a merely Hellenic basis and was mainly a religious survival, shows the germ of some attempt at arbitration between Greek states. Among the Romans we have the _jus feciale_[24] and the _jus gentium_, as distinguished from the civil law of Rome, and certain military regulations about the taking of booty in war. Ambassadors were held inviolate in both countries; the formal declaration of war was never omitted. Many Roman writers held the necessity of a just cause for war. But nowhere do these considerations form the subject matter of a special science.

[24] Cf. Cicero: _De Officiis_, I. xi. “Belli quidem aequitas
sanctissime feciali populi Romani jure perscripta est.” (See the
reference to Lawrence’s comments on this subject, p. 9 above.)

“Wars,” says Cicero, “are to be undertaken for this end,
that we may live in peace without being injured; but when we
obtain the victory, we must preserve those enemies who behaved
without cruelty or inhumanity during the war: for example,
our forefathers received, even as members of their state, the
Tuscans, the Æqui, the Volscians, the Sabines and the Hernici,
but utterly destroyed Carthage and Numantia.... And, while
we are bound to exercise consideration toward those whom we
have conquered by force, so those should be received into
our protection who throw themselves upon the honour of our
general, and lay down their arms,” (_op. cit._, I. xi., Bohn’s
Translation).... “In engaging in war we ought to make it appear
that we have no other view but peace.” (_op. cit._, I. xxiii.)

In fulfilling a treaty we must not sacrifice the spirit to the
letter (_De Officiis_, I. x). “There are also rights of war, and
the faith of an oath is often to be kept with an enemy.” (_op.
cit._, III. xxix.)

This is the first statement by a classical writer in which the
idea of justice being due to an enemy appears. Cicero goes
further. Particular states, he says, (_De Legibus_, I. i.) are
only members of a whole governed by reason.

In the Middle Ages the development of these ideas received little encouragement. All laws are silent in the time of war,[25] and this was a period of war, both bloody and constant. There was no time to think of the right or wrong of anything. Moreover, the Church emphasised the lack of rights in unbelievers, and gave her blessing on their annihilation.[26] The whole Christian world was filled with the idea of a spiritual universal monarchy. Not such as that in the minds of Greek and Jew and Roman who had been able to picture international peace only under the form of a great national and exclusive empire. In this great Christian state there were to be no distinctions between nations; its sphere was bounded by the universe. But, here, there was no room or recognition for independent national states with equal and personal rights. This recognition, opposed by the Roman Church, is the real basis of international law. The Reformation was the means by which the personality of the peoples, the unity and independence of the state were first openly admitted. On this foundation, mainly at first in Protestant countries, the new science developed rapidly. Like the civil state and the Christian religion, international law may be called a peace institution.

[25] The saying is attributed to Pompey:—“Shall I, when I am
preparing for war, think of the laws?”

[26] This implied, however, the idea of a united Christendom as
against the infidel, with which we may compare the idea of a
united Hellas against Persia. In such things we have the germ not
only of international law, but of the ideal of federation.

_Grotius, Puffendorf and Vattel._

In the beginning of the seventeenth century, Grotius laid the foundations of a code of universal law (_De Jure Belli et Pacis_, 1625) independent of differences of religion, in the hope that its recognition might simplify the intercourse between the newly formed nations. The primary object of this great work, written during the misery and horrors of the Thirty Years’ war, was expressly to draw attention to these evils and suggest some methods by which the severity of warfare might be mitigated. Grotius originally meant to explain only one chapter of the law of nations:[27] his book was to be called _De Jure Belli_, but there is scarcely any subject of international law which he leaves untouched. He obtained, moreover, a general recognition for the doctrine of the Law of Nature which exerted so strong an influence upon succeeding centuries; indeed, between these two sciences, as between international law and ethics, he draws no very sharp line of demarcation, although, on the whole, in spite of an unscientific, scholastic use of quotation from authorities, his treatment of the new field is clear and comprehensive. Grotius made the attempt to set up an ethical principle of right, in the stead of such doctrines of self-interest as had been held by many of the ancient writers. There was a law, he held, established in each state purely with a view to the interests of that state, but, besides this, there was another higher law in the interest of the whole society of nations. Its origin was divine; the reason of man commanded his obedience. This was what we call international law.[28]

[27] See Maine’s _Ancient Law_, pp. 50-53: pp. 96-101. Grotius
wrongly understood “Jus Gentium,” (“a collection of rules
and principles, determined by observation to be common to
the institutions which prevailed among the various Italian
tribes”) to mean “Jus _inter_ gentes.” The Roman expression for
International Law was not “Jus Gentium,” but “Jus Feciale.”

“Having adopted from the Antonine jurisconsults,” says Maine,
“the position that the Jus Gentium and the Jus Naturæ were
identical, Grotius, with his immediate predecessors and his
immediate successors, attributed to the Law of Nature an
authority which would never perhaps have been claimed for it,
if “Law of Nations” had not in that age been an ambiguous
expression. They laid down unreservedly that Natural Law is the
code of states, and thus put in operation a process which has
continued almost down to our own day, the process of engrafting
on the international system rules which are supposed to have
been evolved from the unassisted contemplation of the conception
of Nature. There is, too, one consequence of immense practical
importance to mankind which, though not unknown during the early
modern history of Europe, was never clearly or universally
acknowledged till the doctrines of the Grotian school had
prevailed. If the society of nations is governed by Natural
Law, the atoms which compose it must be absolutely equal. Men
under the sceptre of Nature are all equal, and accordingly
commonwealths are equal if the international state be one of
nature. The proposition that independent communities, however
different in size and power, are all equal in the view of the Law
of Nations, has largely contributed to the happiness of mankind,
though it is constantly threatened by the political tendencies
of each successive age. It is a doctrine which probably would
never have obtained a secure footing at all if International Law
had not been entirely derived from the majestic claims of Nature
by the Publicists who wrote after the revival of letters.” (_Op.
cit._, p. 100.)

[28] The name “International Law” was first given to the law of
nations by Bentham. (_Principles of Morals and Legislation, XIX._
§ xxv.)

Grotius distinctly holds, like Kant and Rousseau, and unlike Hobbes, that the state can never be regarded as a unity or institution separable from the people; the terms _civitas_, _communitas_, _coetus_, _populus_, he uses indiscriminately. But these nations, these independent units of society cannot live together side by side just as they like; they must recognise one another as members of a European society of states.[29] Law, he said, stands above force even in war, “which may only be begun to pursue the right;” and the beginning and manner of conduct of war rests on fixed laws and can be justified only in certain cases. War is not to be done away with: Grotius accepts it as fact,[30] (as Hobbes did later) as the natural method for settling the disputes which were bound constantly to arise between so many independent and sovereign nations. A terrible scourge it must ever remain, but as the only available form of legal procedure, it is sanctioned by the practice of states and not less by the law of nature and of nations. Grotius did not advance beyond this position. Every violation of the law of nations can be settled but in one way—by war, the force of the stronger.

[29] In the Peace of Westphalia, 1648, the balance of power in
Europe was recognised on the basis of terms such as these.

[30] Grotius, however, is a painstaking student of Scripture, and
is willing to say something in favour of peace—not a permanent
peace, that is to say, the idea of which would scarcely be
likely to occur to anyone in the early years of the seventeenth
century—but a plea for fewer, shorter wars. “If therefore,”
he says, “a peace sufficiently safe can be had, it is not
ill secured by the condonation of offenses, and damages, and
expenses: especially among Christians, to whom the Lord has given
his peace as his legacy. And so St. Paul, his best interpreter,
exhorts us to live at peace with all men.... May God write these
lessons—He who alone can—on the hearts of all those who have
the affairs of Christendom in their hands.” (_De Jure Belli et
Pacis_, III. Ch. XXV., Whewell’s translation.)

See also _op. cit._, II., Ch. XXIII., Sect. VIII., where
Grotius recommends that Congresses of Christian Powers should
be held with a view to the peaceful settlement of international
differences.

The necessary distinction between law and ethics was drawn by Puffendorf,[31] a successor of Grotius who gave an outwardly systematic form to the doctrine of the great jurist, without adding to it either strength or completeness. His views, when they were not based upon the system of Grotius, were strongly influenced by the speculation of Hobbes, his chronological predecessor, to whom we shall have later occasion to refer. In the works of Vattel,[32] who was, next to Rousseau, the most celebrated of Swiss publicists, we find the theory of the customs and practice in war widely developed, and the necessity for humanising its methods and limiting its destructive effects upon neutral countries strongly emphasised. Grotius and Puffendorf, while they recommend acts of mercy, hold that there is legally no right which requires that a conquered enemy shall be spared. This is a matter of humanity alone. It is to the praise of Vattel that he did much to popularise among the highest and most powerful classes of society, ideas of humanity in warfare, and of the rights and obligations of nations. He is, moreover, the first to make a clear separation between this science and the Law of Nature. What, he asks, is international law as distinguished from the Law of Nature? What are the powers of a state and the duties of nations to one another? What are the causes of quarrel among nations, and what the means by which they can be settled without any sacrifice of dignity?

[31] Puffendorf’s best known work, _De Jure Naturæ et Gentium_,
was published in 1672.

[32] _Le Droit des Gens_ was published in 1758 and translated
into English by Joseph Chitty in 1797, (2nd ed., 1834).

They are, in the first place, a friendly conciliatory attitude; and secondly, such means of settlement as mediation, arbitration and Peace Congresses. These are the refuges of a peace-loving nation, in cases where vital interests are not at stake. “Nature gives us no right to use force, except where mild and conciliatory measures are useless.” (_Law of Nations_, II. Ch. xviii. § 331.) “Every power owes it in this matter to the happiness of human society to show itself ready for every means of reconciliation, in cases where the interests at stake are neither vital nor important.” (_ibid._ § 332.) At the same time, it is never advisable that a nation should forgive an insult which it has not the power to resent.

_The Dream of a Perpetual Peace._

But side by side with this development and gradual popularisation of the new science of International Law, ideas of a less practical, but not less fruitful kind had been steadily making their way and obtaining a strong hold upon the popular mind. The Decree of Eternal Pacification of 1495 had abolished private war, one of the heavy curses of the Middle Ages. Why should it not be extended to banish warfare between states as well? Gradually one proposal after another was made to attain this end, or, at least, to smooth the way for its future realisation. The first of these in point of time is to be found in a somewhat bare, vague form in Sully’s _Memoirs_,[33] said to have been published in 1634. Half a century later the Quaker William Penn suggested an international tribunal of arbitration in the interests of peace.[34] But it was by the French Abbé St. Pierre that the problem of perpetual peace was fairly introduced into political literature: and this, in an age of cabinet and dynastic wars, while the dreary cost of the war of the Spanish succession was yet unpaid. St. Pierre was the first who really clearly realised and endeavoured to prove that the establishment of a permanent state of peace is not only in the interest of the weaker, but is required by the European society of nations and by the reason of man. From the beginning of the history of humanity, poets and prophets had cherished the “sweet dream” of a peaceful civilisation: it is in the form of a practical project that this idea is new.

[33] _Mémoires ou Œconomies Royales D’Estat, Domestiques,
Politiques et Militaires de Henri le Grand, par Maximilian de
Bethune, Duc de Sully._

[34] See _International Tribunals_ (1899), p. 20 _seq._ Penn’s
_Essay towards the Present and Future Peace of Europe_ was
written about 1693, but is not included in all editions of his
works.

The ancient world actually represented a state of what was almost perpetual war. This was the reality which confronted man, his inevitable doom, it seemed, as it had been pronounced to the fallen sinners of Eden. Peace was something which man had enjoyed once, but forfeited. The myth- and poetry-loving Greeks, and, later, the poets of Rome delighted to paint a state of eternal peace, not as something to whose coming they could look forward in the future, but as a golden age of purity whose records lay buried in the past, a paradise which had been, but which was no more. Voices, more scientific, were raised even in Greece in attempts, such as Aristotle’s, to show that the evolution of man had been not a course of degeneration from perfection, but of continual progress upwards from barbarism to civilisation and culture. But the change in popular thinking on this matter was due less to the arguments of philosophy than to a practical experience of the causes which operate in the interests of peace. The foundation of a universal empire under Alexander the Great gave temporary rest to nations heretofore incessantly at war. Here was a proof that the Divine Will had not decreed that man was to work out his punishment under unchanging conditions of perpetual warfare. This idea of a universal empire became the Greek ideal of a perpetual peace. Such an empire was, in the language of the Stoics, a world-state in which all men had rights of citizenship, in which all other nations were absorbed.

Parallel to this ideal among the Greeks, we find the hope in Israel of a Messiah whose coming was to bring peace, not only to the Jewish race, but to all the nations of the earth. This idea stands out in the sharpest contrast to the early nationalism of the Hebrew people, who regarded every stranger as an idolater and an enemy. The prophecies of Judaism, combined with the cosmopolitan ideas of Greece, were the source of the idea, which is expressed in the teaching of Christ, of a spiritual world-empire, an empire held together solely by the tie of a common religion.

This hope of peace did not actually die during the first thousand years of our era, nor even under the morally stagnating influences of the Middle Ages. When feudalism and private war were abolished in Europe, it wakened to a new life. Not merely in the mouths of poets and religious enthusiasts was the cry raised against war, but by scholars like Thomas More and Erasmus, jurists like Gentilis and Grotius, men high in the state and in the eyes of Europe like Henry IV. of France and the Duc de Sully or the Abbé de St. Pierre whose _Projet de Paix Perpétuelle_ (1713)[35] obtained immediate popularity and wide-spread fame. The first half of the eighteenth century was already prepared to receive and mature a plan of this kind.

[35] _Projet de traité pour rendre la paix perpétuelle entre les
souverains chrétiens._ The first two volumes of this work were
published in 1713 (trans. London, 1714); a third volume followed
in 1717.

_Henry IV. and St. Pierre._

The _Grand Dessein_ of Henry IV. is supposed to have been formed by that monarch and reproduced in Sully’s _Memoirs_, written in 1634 and discovered nearly a century later by St. Pierre. The story goes that the Abbé found the book buried in an old garden. It has been shewn, however, that there is little likelihood that this project actually originated with the king, who probably corresponded fairly well to Voltaire’s picture of him as war hero of the _Henriade_. The plan was more likely conceived by Sully, and ascribed to the popular king for the sake of the better hearing and greater influence it might in this way be likely to have, and also because, thereby, it might be less likely to create offence in political circles. St. Pierre himself may or may not have been acquainted with the facts.

The so-called _Grand Dessein_ of Henry IV. was, shortly, as follows.[36] It proposed to divide Europe between fifteen Powers,[37] in such a manner that the balance of power should be established and preserved. These were to form a Christian republic on the basis of the freedom and equality of its members, the armed forces of the federation being supported by fixed contribution. A general council, consisting of representatives from the fifteen states, was to make all laws necessary for cementing the union thus formed and for maintaining the order once established. It would also be the business of this senate to “deliberate on questions that might arise, to occupy themselves with discussing different interests, to settle quarrels amicably, to throw light upon and arrange all the civil, political and religious affairs of Europe, whether internal or foreign.” (_Mémoires_, vol. VI., p. 129 _seq._)

[36] The main articles of this and other peace projects are to
be found in _International Tribunals_, published by the Peace
Society.

[37] Professor Lorimer points out that Prussia, then the Duchy
of Brandenburg, is not mentioned. (_Institutes of the Law of
Nations_, II. Ch. VII., p. 219.)