Chapter IV: Appendix: Ii.—concerning the Harmony of Politics with Morals (2)

This scheme of the king or his minister was expanded with great thoroughness and clear-sightedness by the Abbé St. Pierre: none of the many later plans for a perpetual peace has been so perfect in details. He proposes that there should be a permanent and perpetual union between, if possible, all Christian sovereigns—of whom he suggests nineteen, excluding the Czar—“to preserve unbroken peace in Europe,” and that a permanent Congress or senate should be formed by deputies of the federated states. The union should protect weak sovereigns, minors during a regency, and so on, and should banish civil as well as international war—it should “render prompt and adequate assistance to rulers and chief magistrates against seditious persons and rebels.” All warfare henceforth is to be waged between the troops of the federation—each nation contributing an equal number—and the enemies of European security, whether outsiders or rebellious members of the union. Otherwise, where it is possible, all disputes occurring within the union are to be settled by the arbitration of the senate, and the combined military force of the federation is to be applied to drive the Turks out of Europe. There is to be a rational rearrangement of boundaries, but after this no change is to be permitted in the map of Europe. The union should bind itself to tolerate the different forms of faith.

The objections to St. Pierre’s scheme are, many of them, obvious. He himself produces sixty-two arguments likely to be raised against his plan, and he examines these in turn with acuteness and eloquence. But there are other criticisms which he was less likely to be able to forestall. Of the nineteen states he names as a basis of the federation, some have disappeared and the governments of others have completely changed. Indeed St. Pierre’s scheme did not look far beyond the present. But it has besides a too strongly political character.[38] From this point of view, the Abbé’s plan amounts practically to a European coalition against the Ottoman Empire. Moreover, we notice with a smile that the French statesman and patriot is not lost in the cosmopolitan political reformer. “The kingdom of Spain shall not go out of the House of Bourbon!”[39] France is to enjoy more than the privileges of honour; she is to reap distinct material and political advantages from the union. Humanity is to be a brotherhood, but, in the federation of nations, France is to stand first.[40] We see that these “rêves d’un homme de bien,” as Cardinal Dubois called them, are not without their practical element. But the great mistake of St. Pierre is this: he actually thought that his plan could be put into execution in the near future, that an ideal of this kind was realisable at once.[41] “I, myself, form’d it,” he says in the preface, “in full expectation to see it one Day executed.” As Hobbes, says, “there can be nothing so absurd, but may be found in the books of philosophers.”[42] St. Pierre was not content to make his influence felt on the statesmen of his time and prepare the way for the abolition of all arbitrary forms of government. This was the flaw which drew down upon the good Abbé Voltaire’s sneering epigram[43] and the irony of Leibniz.[44] Here, above all, in this unpractical enthusiasm his scheme differs from that of Kant.

[38] The same objection was raised by Leibniz (see his
_Observations_ on St. Pierre’s _Projet_) to the scheme of Henry
IV., who, says Leibniz, thought more of overthrowing the house of
Austria than of establishing a society of sovereigns.

[39] _Project_, Art. VI., Eng. trans. (1714), p. 119.

[40] St. Pierre was not blind to this aspect of the question.
Among the critical objections which he anticipates to his plan is
this,—that it promises too great an increase of strength to the
house of France, and that therefore the author would have been
wiser to conceal his nationality.

[41] St. Pierre, in what may be called an apology for the wording
of the title of his book (above, p. 32, _note_), justifies his
confidence in these words:—“The Pilot who himself seems uncertain
of the Success of his Voyage is not likely to persuade the
Passenger to embark.... I am persuaded, that it is not impossible
to find out Means sufficient and practicable to settle an
Everlasting Peace among Christians; and even believe, that the
Means which I have thought of are of that Nature.” (Preface to
_Project_, Eng. trans., 1714.)

[42] _Leviathan_, I. Ch. V.

[43] See too Voltaire’s allusion to St. Pierre in his
_Dictionary_, under “Religion.”

[44] Leibniz regarded the project of St. Pierre with an
indifference, somewhat tinged with contempt. In a letter to
Grimarest, (_Leibnit. Opera_, Dutens’ ed., 1768, Vol. V., pp.
65, 66: in _Epist._, ed. Kortholt., Vol. III., p. 327) he
writes:—“I have seen something of M. de St. Pierre’s plan for
maintaining perpetual peace in Europe. It reminds me of an
inscription outside of a churchyard which ran, ‘_Pax Perpetua_.
For the dead, it is true, fight no more. But the living, are of
another mind, and the mightiest among them have little respect
for tribunals.’” This is followed by the ironical suggestion
that a court of arbitration should be established at Rome of
which the Pope should be made president; while at the same time
the old spiritual authority should be restored to the Church,
and excommunication be the punishment of non-compliance with the
arbitral decree. “Such plans,” he adds, “are as likely to succeed
as that of M. de St. Pierre. But as we are allowed to write
novels, why should we find fault with fiction which would bring
back the golden age?” But see also _Observations sur le Projet
d’une Paix Perpétuelle de M. l’Abbé de St. Pierre_ (Dutens, V.,
esp. p. 56) and the letter to Remond de Montmort (_ibid._ pp. 20,
21) where Leibniz considers this project rather more seriously.

_Rousseau’s Criticism of St. Pierre._

Rousseau took St. Pierre’s project[45] much more seriously than either Leibniz or Voltaire. But sovereigns, he thought, are deaf to the voice of justice; the absolutism of princely power would never allow a king to submit to a tribunal of nations. Moreover war was, according to Rousseau’s experience, a matter not between nations, but between princes and cabinets. It was one of the ordinary pleasures of royal existence and one not likely to be voluntarily given up.[46] We know that history has not supported Rousseau’s contention. Dynastic wars are now no more. The Great Powers have shown themselves able to impose their own conditions, where the welfare and security of Europe have seemed to demand it. Such a development seemed impossible enough in the eighteenth century. In the military organisation of the nations of Europe and in the necessity of making their internal development subordinate to the care for their external security, Rousseau saw the cause of all the defects in their administration.[47] The formation of unions on the model of the Swiss Confederation or the German _Bund_ would, he thought, be in the interest of all rulers. But great obstacles seemed to him to lie in the way of the realisation of such a project as that of St. Pierre. “Without doubt,” says Rousseau in conclusion, “the proposal of a perpetual peace is at present an absurd one.... It can only be put into effect by methods which are violent in themselves and dangerous to humanity. One cannot conceive of the possibility of a federative union being established, except by a revolution. And, that granted, who among us would venture to say whether this European federation is to be desired or to be feared? It would work, perhaps, more harm in a moment than it would prevent in the course of centuries.” (_Jugement sur la Paix Perpétuelle._)

[45] “C’est un livre solide et sensé,” says Rousseau (_Jugement
sur la Paix Perpétuelle_), “et il est très important qu’il
existe.” [This _Jugement_ is appended to Rousseau’s _Extrait du
Projet de Paix Perpétuelle de Monsieur l’Abbé de Saint-Pierre_,
1761.]

[46] Cf. Cowper: _The Winter Morning Walk_:—

“Great princes have great playthings. Some have play’d
At hewing mountains into men, and some
At building human wonders mountain high.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Some seek diversion in the tented field,
And make the sorrows of mankind their sport.
But war’s a game, which, were their subjects wise,
Kings should not play at. Nations would do well
T’extort their truncheons from the puny hands
Of heroes, whose infirm and baby minds
Are gratified with mischief, and who spoil,
Because men suffer it, their toy the world.”

[47] “Les troupes réglées, peste et dépopulation de l’Europe,
ne sont bonnes qu’a deux fins: ou pour attaquer et conquérir
les voisins, ou pour enchâiner et asservir les citoyens.”
(_Gouvernement de Pologne_, Ch. XII.)

_The Position of Hobbes._

The most profound and searching analysis of this problem comes from Immanuel Kant, whose indebtedness in the sphere of politics to Hobbes, Locke, Montesquieu and Rousseau it is difficult to overestimate. Kant’s doctrine of the sovereignty of the people comes to him from Locke through Rousseau. His explanation of the origin of society is practically that of Hobbes. The direct influence on politics of this philosopher, apart from his share in moulding the Kantian theory of the state, is one we cannot afford to neglect. His was a great influence on the new science just thrown on the world by Grotius, and his the first clear and systematic statement we have of the nature of society and the establishment of the state. The natural state of man, says Hobbes, is a state of war,[48] a _bellum omnium contra omnes_, where all struggle for honour and for preferment and the prizes to which every individual is by natural right equally entitled, but which can of necessity fall only to the few, the foremost in the race. Men hate and fear the society of their kind, but through this desire to excel are forced to seek it: only where there are many can there be a first. This state of things, this apparent sociability which is brought about by and coupled with the least sociable of instincts, becomes unendurable. “It is necessary to peace,” writes Hobbes (_On Dominion_, Ch. VI. 3) “that a man be so far forth protected against the violence of others, that he may live securely; that is, that he may have no just cause to fear others, so long as he doth them no injury. Indeed, to make men altogether safe from mutual harms, so as they cannot be hurt or injuriously killed, is impossible; and, therefore, comes not within deliberation.” But to protect them so far as is possible the state is formed. Hobbes has no great faith in human contracts or promises. Man’s nature is malicious and untrustworthy. A coercive power is necessary to guarantee this long-desired security within the community. “We must therefore,” he adds, “provide for our security, not by compacts, but by punishments; and there is then sufficient provision made, when there are so great punishments appointed for every injury, as apparently it prove a greater evil to have done it, than not to have done it. For all men, by a necessity of nature, choose that which to them appears to be the less evil.” (_Op. cit._, Ch. VI. 4.)

[48] Hobbes realises clearly that there probably never was such a
state of war all over the world nor a state of nature conforming
to a common type. The case is parallel to the use of the term
“original contract” as an explanation of the manner in which the
civil state came to be formed. (Cf. p. 52, _note_.)

See also Hume (_Inquiry concerning the Principles of Morals,_
Sect. III. Part I.). “This _poetical_ fiction of the _golden age_
is, in some respects, of a piece with the _philosophical_ fiction
of the _state of nature_; only that the former is represented
as the most charming and most peaceable condition, which can
possibly be imagined; whereas the latter is painted out as a
state of mutual war and violence, attended with the most extreme
necessity.” This fiction of a state of nature as a state of war,
says Hume, (in a note to this passage) is not the invention of
Hobbes. Plato (_Republic_, II. III. IV.) refutes a hypothesis
very like it, and Cicero (_Pro Sext._ l. 42) regards it as a fact
universally acknowledged.

Cf. also Spinoza (_Tract. Pol._ c. ii. § 14): “Homines ex natura
hostes.” And (c. v. § 2): “Homines civiles non nascuntur sed
fiunt.” These expressions are to be understood, says Bluntschli
(_Theory of the State_, IV. Ch. vi., p. 284, _note_ a), “rather
as a logical statement of what _would be_ the condition of
man apart from civil society, than as distinctly implying a
historical theory.”

While starting from the same premises, Spinoza carries Hobbes’
political theories to their logical conclusion. If we admit that
right lies with might, then right is with the people in any
revolution successfully carried out. (But see Hobbes’ Preface to
the _Philosophical Rudiments_ and Kant’s _Perpetual Peace_, p.
188, _note_.) Spinoza, in a letter, thus alludes to this point of
difference:—“As regards political theories, the difference which
you inquire about between Hobbes and myself, consists in this,
that I always preserve natural right intact, and only allot to
the chief magistrates in every state a right over their subjects
commensurate with the excess of their power over the power of
the subjects. This is what always takes place in the state of
nature.” (Epistle 50, _Works_, Bohn’s ed., Vol. II.)

These precautions secure that relative peace within the state which is one of the conditions of the safety of the people. But it is, besides, the duty of a sovereign to guarantee an adequate protection to his subjects against foreign enemies. A state of defence as complete and perfect as possible is not only a national duty, but an absolute necessity. The following statement of the relation of the state to other states shows how closely Hobbes has been followed by Kant. “There are two things necessary,” says Hobbes, (_On Dominion_, Ch. XIII. 7) “for the people’s defence; to be warned and to be forearmed. _For the state of commonwealths considered in themselves, is natural, that is to say, hostile._[49] Neither, if they cease from fighting, is it therefore to be called peace; but rather a breathing time, in which one enemy observing the motion and countenance of the other, values his security not according to pacts, but the forces and counsels of his adversary.”

[49] The italics are mine.—[Tr.]

Hobbes is a practical philosopher: no man was less a dreamer, a follower after ideals than he. He is, moreover, a pessimist, and his doctrine of the state is a political absolutism,[50] the form of government which above all has been, and is, favourable to war. He would no doubt have ridiculed the idea of a perpetual peace between nations, had such a project as that of St. Pierre—a practical project, counting upon a realisation in the near future—been brought before him. He might not even have accepted it in the very much modified form which Kant adopts, that of an ideal—an unattainable ideal—towards which humanity could not do better than work. He expected the worst possible from man the individual. _Homo homini lupus._ The strictest absolutism, amounting almost to despotism, was required to keep the vicious propensities of the human animal in check. States he looked upon as units of the same kind, members also of a society. They had, and openly exhibited, the same faults as individual men. They too might be driven with a strong enough coercive force behind them, but not without it; and such a coercive force as this did not exist in a society of nations. Federation and federal troops are terms which represent ideas of comparatively recent origin. Without something of this kind, any enduring peace was not to be counted upon. International relations were and must remain at least potentially warlike in character. Under no circumstances could ideal conditions be possible either between the members of a state or between the states themselves. Human nature could form no satisfactory basis for a counsel of perfection.

[50] Professor Paulsen (_Immanuel Kant_, 2nd ed., 1899, p.
359—Eng. trans., p. 353) points out that pessimism and absolutism
usually go together in the doctrines of philosophers. He gives as
instances Hobbes, Kant and Schopenhauer.

Hobbes (_On Dominion_, Ch. X. 3, _seq._) regarded an absolute
monarchy as the only proper form of government, while in the
opinion of Locke, (_On Civil Government_, II. Ch. VII. §§ 90,
91) it was no better than a state of nature. Kant would not have
gone quite so far. As a philosopher, he upheld the sovereignty
of the people and rejected a monarchy which was not governed in
accordance with republican principles; as a citizen, he denied
the right of resistance to authority. (Cf. _Perpetual Peace_, pp.
126, 188, _note_.)

Hence Hobbes never thought of questioning the necessity of war. It was in his eyes the natural condition of European society; but certain rules were necessary both for its conduct and, where this was compatible with a nation’s dignity and prosperity, for its prevention. He held that international law was only a part of the Law of Nature, and that this Law of Nature laid certain obligations upon nations and their kings. Mediation must be employed between disputants as much as possible, the person of the mediators of peace being held inviolate; an umpire ought to be chosen to decide a controversy, to whose judgment the parties in dispute agree to submit themselves; such an arbiter must be impartial. These are all what Hobbes calls precepts of the Law of Nature. And he appeals to the Scriptures in confirmation of his assertion that peace is the way of righteousness and that the laws of nature of which these are a few are also laws of the heavenly kingdom. But peace is like the straight path of Christian endeavour, difficult to find and difficult to keep. We must seek after it where it may be found; but, having done this and sought in vain, we have no alternative but to fall back upon war. Reason requires “that every man ought to endeavour peace,” (_Lev._ I. Ch. XIV.) “as far as he has hope of obtaining it; and when he cannot obtain it, that he may seek, and use, all helps, and advantages of war.”[51] This, says Hobbes elsewhere, (_On Liberty_, Ch. I. 15) is the dictate of right reason, the first and fundamental law of nature.

[51] We find the same rule laid down as early as the time of
Dante. Cf. _De Monarchia_, Bk. II. 9:—“When two nations quarrel
they are bound to try in every possible way to arrange the
quarrel by means of discussion: it is only when this is hopeless
that they may declare war.”

_Kant’s Idea of a Perpetual Peace._

With regard to the problems of international law, Kant is of course a hundred and fifty years ahead of Hobbes. But he starts from the same point: his theory of the beginning of society is practically identical with that of the older philosopher. Men are by nature imperfect creatures, unsociable and untrustworthy, cursed by a love of glory, of possession, and of power, passions which make happiness something for ever unattainable by them. Hobbes is content to leave them here with their imperfections, and let a strong government help them out as it may. But not so Kant. He looks beyond man the individual, developing slowly by stages scarcely measurable, progressing at one moment, and the next, as it seems, falling behind: he looks beyond the individual, struggling and never attaining, to the race. Here Kant is no pessimist. The capacities implanted in man by nature are not all for evil: they are, he says, “destined to unfold themselves completely in the course of time, and in accordance with the end to which they are adapted.” (_Idea of a Universal History from a Cosmopolitan Point of View_, 1784. Prop. 1.) This end of humanity is the evolution of man from the stage of mere self-satisfied animalism to a high state of civilisation. Through his own reason man is to attain a perfect culture, intellectual and moral. In this long period of struggle, the potential faculties which nature or Providence has bestowed upon him reach their full development. The process in which this evolution takes place is what we call history.

To man nature has given none of the perfect animal equipments for self-preservation and self-defence which she has bestowed on others of her creatures. But she has given to him reason and freedom of will, and has determined that through these faculties and without the aid of instinct he shall win for himself a complete development of his capacities and natural endowments. It is, says Kant, no happy life that nature has marked out for man. He is filled with desires which he can never satisfy. His life is one of endeavour and not of attainment: not even the consciousness of the well-fought battle is his, for the struggle is more or less an unconscious one, the end unseen. Only in the race, and not in the individual, can the natural capacities of the human species reach full development. Reason, says Kant, (Prop. 2, _op. cit._) “does not itself work by instinct, but requires experiments, exercise and instruction in order to advance gradually from one stage of insight to another. Hence each individual man would necessarily have to live an enormous length of time, in order to learn by himself how to make a complete use of all his natural endowments. Or, if nature should have given him but a short lease of life, as is actually the case, reason would then require an almost interminable series of generations, the one handing down its enlightenment to the other, in order that the seeds she has sown in our species may be brought at last to a stage of development which is in perfect accordance with her design.” Man the individual shall travel towards the land of promise and fight for its possession, but not he, nor his children, nor his children’s children shall inherit the land. “Only the latest comers can have the good fortune of inhabiting the dwelling which the long series of their predecessors have toiled—though,” adds Kant, “without any conscious intent—to build up without even the possibility of participating in the happiness which they were preparing.” (Proposition 3.)

The means which nature employs to bring about this development of all the capacities implanted in men is their mutual antagonism in society—what Kant calls the “unsocial sociableness of men, that is to say, their inclination to enter into society, an inclination which yet is bound up at every point with a resistance which threatens continually to break up the society so formed.” (Proposition 4.) Man hates society, and yet there alone he can develop his capacities; he cannot live there peaceably, and yet cannot live without it. It is the resistance which others offer to his inclinations and will—which he, on his part, shows likewise to the desires of others—that awakens all the latent powers of his nature and the determination to conquer his natural propensity to indolence and love of material comfort and to struggle for the first place among his fellow-creatures, to satisfy, in outstripping them, his love of glory and possession and power. “Without those, in themselves by no means lovely, qualities which set man in social opposition to man, so that each finds his selfish claims resisted by the selfishness of all the others, men would have lived on in an Arcadian shepherd life, in perfect harmony, contentment, and mutual love; but all their talents would forever have remained hidden and undeveloped. Thus, kindly as the sheep they tended, they would scarcely have given to their existence a greater value than that of their cattle. And the place among the ends of creation which was left for the development of rational beings would not have been filled. Thanks be to nature for the unsociableness, for the spiteful competition of vanity, for the insatiate desires of gain and power! Without these, all the excellent natural capacities of humanity would have slumbered undeveloped. Man’s will is for harmony; but nature knows better what is good for his species: her will is for dissension. He would like a life of comfort and satisfaction, but nature wills that he should be dragged out of idleness and inactive content and plunged into labour and trouble, in order that he may be made to seek in his own prudence for the means of again delivering himself from them. The natural impulses which prompt this effort,—the causes of unsociableness and mutual conflict, out of which so many evils spring,—are also in turn the spurs which drive him to the development of his powers. Thus, they really betray the providence of a wise Creator, and not the interference of some evil spirit which has meddled with the world which God has nobly planned, and enviously overturned its order.” (Proposition 4: Caird’s translation in _The Critical Philosophy of Kant_, Vol. II., pp. 550, 551.)

The problem now arises, How shall men live together, each free to work out his own development, without at the same time interfering with a like liberty on the part of his neighbour? The solution of this problem is the state. Here the liberty of each member is guaranteed and its limits strictly defined. A perfectly just civil constitution, administered according to the principles of right, would be that under which the greatest possible amount of liberty was left to each citizen within these limits. This is the ideal of Kant, and here lies the greatest practical problem which has presented itself to humanity. An ideal of this kind is difficult of realisation. But nature imposes no such duty upon us. “Out of such crooked material as man is made,” says Kant, “nothing can be hammered quite straight.” (Proposition 6.) We must make our constitution as good as we can and, with that, rest content.

The direct cause of this transition from a state of nature and conditions of unlimited freedom to civil society with its coercive and restraining forces is found in the evils of that state of nature as they are painted by Hobbes. A wild lawless freedom becomes impossible for man: he is compelled to seek the protection of a civil society. He lives in uncertainty and insecurity: his liberty is so far worthless that he cannot peacefully enjoy it. For this peace he voluntarily yields up some part of his independence. The establishment of the state is in the interest of his development to a higher civilisation. It is more—the guarantee of his existence and self-preservation. This is the sense, says Professor Paulsen, in which Kant like Hobbes regards the state as “resting on a contract,”[52] that is to say, on the free will of all.[53] _Volenti non fit injuria._ Only, adds Paulsen, we must remember that this contract is not a historical fact, as it seemed to some writers of the eighteenth century, but an “idea of reason”: we are speaking here not of the history of the establishment of the state, but of the reason of its existence. (Paulsen’s _Kant_, p. 354.)[54]

[52] Rousseau (_Contrat Social_: I. vi.) regards the social
contract as tacitly implied in every actual society: its articles
“are the same everywhere, and are everywhere tacitly admitted
and recognised, even though they may never have found formal
expression” in any constitution. In the same way he speaks of
a state of nature “which no longer exists, which perhaps never
has existed.” (Preface to the _Discourse on the Causes of
Inequality_.) But Rousseau’s interpretation of these terms is, on
the whole, literal in spite of these single passages. He speaks
throughout the _Contrat Social_, as if history could actually
record the signing and drawing up of such documents. Hobbes,
Hooker, (_Ecclesiastical Polity_, I. sect. 10—see also Ritchie:
_Darwin and Hegel_, p. 210 _seq._) Hume and Kant use more careful
language. “It cannot be denied,” writes Hume, (_Of the Original
Contract_) “that all government is, at first, founded on a
contract and that the most ancient rude combinations of mankind
were formed chiefly by that principle. In vain are we asked in
what records this charter of our liberties is registered. It was
not written on parchment, nor yet on leaves or barks of trees. It
preceded the use of writing and all the other civilised arts of
life. But we trace it plainly in the nature of man, and in the
equality, or something approaching equality, which we find in all
the individuals of that species.”

This fine passage expresses admirably the views of Kant on this
point. Cf. _Werke_, (Rosenkranz) IX. 160. The original contract
is merely an idea of reason, one of those ideas which we think
into things in order to explain them.

Hobbes does not professedly make the contract historical, but in
Locke’s _Civil Government_ (II. Ch. VIII. § 102) there is some
attempt made to give it a historical basis.—By consent all were
equal, “till by the same consent they set rulers over themselves.
So that their politic societies all began from a voluntary union,
and the mutual agreement of men freely acting in the choice of
their governors, and forms of government.”

Bluntschli points out (_Theory of the State_, IV. ix., p. 294
and _note_) that the same theory of contract on which Hobbes’
doctrine of an absolute government was based was made the
justification of violent resistance to the government at the time
of the French Revolution. The theory was differently applied by
Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau. According to the first, men leave
the “state of nature” when they surrender their rights to a
sovereign, and return to that state during revolution. But, for
Rousseau, this sovereign authority is the people: a revolution
would be only a change of ministry. (See _Cont. Soc._, III. Ch.
xviii.) Again Locke holds revolution to be justifiable in all
cases where the governments have not fulfilled the trust reposed
by the people in them. (Cf. Kant’s _Perpetual Peace_, p. 188,
_note_).

[53] “If you unite many men,” writes Rousseau, (_Cont. Soc._, IV.
I.) “and consider them as one body, they will have but one will;
and that will must be to promote the common safety and general
well-being of all.” This _volonté générale_, the common element
of all particular wills, cannot be in conflict with any of them.
(_Op. cit._, II. iii.)

[54] In Eng. trans., see p. 348.

In this civil union, self-sought, yet sought reluctantly, man is able to turn his most unlovable qualities to a profitable use. They bind this society together. They are the instrument by which he wins for himself self-culture. It is here with men, says Kant, as it is with the trees in a forest: “just because each one strives to deprive the other of air and sun, they compel each other to seek both above, and thus they grow beautiful and straight. Whereas those that, in freedom and isolation from one another, shoot out their branches at will, grow stunted and crooked and awry.” (Proposition 5, _op. cit._) Culture, art, and all that is best in the social order are the fruits of that self-loving unsociableness in man.

The problem of the establishment of a perfect civil constitution cannot be solved, says this treatise (_Idea for a Universal History_), until the external relations of states are regulated in accordance with principles of right. For, even if the ideal internal constitution were attained, what end would it serve in the evolution of humanity, if commonwealths themselves were to remain like individuals in a state of nature, each existing in uncontrolled freedom, a law unto himself? This condition of things again cannot be permanent. Nature uses the same means as before to bring about a state of law and order. War, present or near at hand, the strain of constant preparation for a possible future campaign or the heavy burden of debt and devastation left by the last,—these are the evils which must drive states to leave a lawless, savage state of nature, hostile to man’s inward development, and seek in union the end of nature, peace. All wars are the attempts nature makes to bring about new political relations between nations, relations which, in their very nature, cannot be, and are not desired to be, permanent. These combinations will go on succeeding each other, until at last a federation of all powers is formed for the establishment of perpetual peace. This is the end of humanity, demanded by reason. Justice will reign, not only in the state, but in the whole human race when perpetual peace exists between the nations of the world.

This is the point of view of the _Idea for a Universal History_. But equally, we may say, law and justice will reign between nations, when a legally and morally perfect constitution adorns the state. External perpetual peace presupposes internal peace—peace civil, social, economic, religious. Now, when men are perfect—and what would this be but perfection—how can there be war? Cardinal Fleury’s only objection—no light one—to St. Pierre’s project was that, as even the most peace-loving could not avoid war, all men must first be men of noble character. This seems to be what is required in the treatise on _Perpetual Peace_. Kant demands, to a certain extent, the moral regeneration of man. There must be perfect honesty in international dealings, good faith in the interpretation and fulfilment of treaties and so on (Art. 1)[55]: and again, every state must have a republican constitution—a term by which Kant understands a constitution as nearly as possible in accordance with the spirit of right. (Art. 1.)[56] This is to say that we have to start with our reformation at home, look first to the culture and education and morals of our citizens, then to our foreign relations. This is a question of self-interest as well as of ethics. On the civil and religious liberty of a state depends its commercial success. Kant saw the day coming, when industrial superiority was to be identified with political pre-eminence. The state which does not look to the enlightenment and liberty of its subjects must fail in the race. But the advantages of a high state of civilisation are not all negative. The more highly developed the individuals who form a state, the more highly developed is its consciousness of its obligations to other nations. In the ignorance and barbarism of races lies the great obstacle to a reign of law among states. Uncivilised states cannot be conceived as members of a federation of Europe. First, the perfect civil constitution according to right: then the federation of these law-abiding Powers. This is the path which reason marks out. The treatise on _Perpetual Peace_ seems to be in this respect more practical than the _Idea for a Universal History_. But it matters little which way we take it. The point of view is the same in both cases: the end remains the development of man towards good, the order of his steps in this direction is indifferent.

[55] See p. 107.

[56] See p. 120.

_The Political and Social Conditions of Kant’s Time._

The history of the human race, viewed as a whole, Kant regards as the realisation of a hidden plan of nature to bring about a political constitution internally and externally perfect—the only condition under which the faculties of man can be fully developed. Does experience support this theory? Kant thought that, to a certain degree, it did. This conviction was not, however, a fruit of his experience of citizenship in Prussia, an absolute dynastic state, a military monarchy waging perpetual dynastic wars of the kind he most hotly condemned. Kant had no feeling of love to Prussia,[57] and little of a citizen’s patriotic pride, or even interest, in its political achievements. This was partly because of his sympathy with republican doctrines: partly due to his love of justice and peculiar hatred of war,[58] a hatred based, no doubt, not less on principle than on a close personal experience of the wretchedness it brings with it. It was not the political and social conditions in which he lived which fostered Kant’s love of liberty and gave him inspiration, unless in the sense in which the mind reacts upon surrounding influences. Looking beyond Prussia to America, in whose struggle for independence he took a keen interest, and looking to France where the old dynastic monarchy had been succeeded by a republican state, Kant seemed to see the signs of a coming democratisation of the old monarchical society of Europe. In this growing influence on the state of the mass of the people who had everything to lose in war and little to gain by victory, he saw the guarantee of a future perpetual peace. Other forces too were at work to bring about this consummation. There was a growing consciousness that war, this costly means of settling a dispute, is not even a satisfactory method of settlement. Hazardous and destructive in its effect, it is also uncertain in its results. Victory is not always gain; it no longer signifies a land to be plundered, a people to be sold to slavery. It brings fresh responsibilities to a nation, at a time when it is not always strong enough to bear them. But, above all, Kant saw, even at the end of the eighteenth century, the nations of Europe so closely bound together by commercial interests that a war—and especially a maritime war where the scene of conflict cannot be to the same extent localised as on land—between any two of them could not but seriously affect the prosperity of the others.[59] He clearly realised that the spirit of commerce was the strongest force in the service of the maintenance of peace, and that in it lay a guarantee of future union.

[57] Unlike Hegel whose ideal was the Prussian state, as it was
under Frederick the Great. An enthusiastic supporter of the power
of monarchy, he showed himself comparatively indifferent to the
progress of constitutional liberty.

[58] Isolated passages are sometimes quoted from Kant in support
of a theory that the present treatise is at least half ironical[A]
and that his views on the question of perpetual peace did not
essentially differ from those of Leibniz. “Even war,” he says,
(_Kritik d. Urteilskraft_, I. Book ii. § 28.) “when conducted in
an orderly way and with reverence for the rights of citizens has
something of the sublime about it, and the more dangers a nation
which wages war in this manner is exposed to and can courageously
overcome, the nobler does its character grow. While, on the other
hand, a prolonged peace usually has the effect of giving free
play to a purely commercial spirit, and side by side with this,
to an ignoble self-seeking, to cowardice and effeminacy; and the
result of this is generally a degradation of national character.”

[A] Cf. K. v. Stengel: _Der Ewige Friede_, Munich, 1899; also
Vaihinger: _Kantstudien_, Vol. IV., p. 58.

This is certainly an admission that war which does not violate
the Law of Nations has a good side as well as a bad. We could
look for no less in so clear-sighted and unprejudiced a thinker.
Kant would have been the first to admit that under certain
conditions a nation can have no higher duty than to wage war.
War is necessary, but it is in contradiction to reason and the
spirit of right. The “scourge of mankind,” “making more bad men
than it takes away,” the “destroyer of every good,” Kant calls it
elsewhere. (_Theory of Ethics_, Abbott’s trans., 4th ed., p. 341,
_note_.)

[59] Cf. _Idea for a Universal History_, Prop. 8; _Perpetual
Peace_, pp. 142, 157.

This scheme of a federation of the nations of the world, in accordance with principles which would put an end to war between them, was one whose interest for Kant seemed to increase during the last twenty years of his life.[60] It was according to him an idea of reason, and, in his first essay on the subject—that of 1784—we see the place this ideal of a perpetual peace held in the Kantian system of philosophy. Its realisation is the realisation of the highest good—the ethical and political _summum bonum_, for here the aims of morals and politics coincide: only in a perfect development of his faculties in culture and in morals can man at last find true happiness. History is working towards the consummation of this end. A moral obligation lies on man to strive to establish conditions which bring its realisation nearer. It is the duty of statesmen to form a federative union as it was formerly the duty of individuals to enter the state. The moral law points the way here as clearly as in the sphere of pure ethics:—“Thou can’st, therefore thou ought’st.”

[60] The immediate stimulus to Kant’s active interest in this
subject as a practical question was the Peace of Basle (1795)
which ended the first stage in the series of wars which followed
the French Revolution.

Let us be under no misapprehension as to Kant’s attitude to the problem of perpetual peace. It is an ideal. He states plainly that he so regards it[61] and that as such it is unattainable. But this is the essence of all ideals: they have not the less value in shaping the life and character of men and nations on that account. They are not ends to be realised but ideas according to which we must live, regulative principles. We cannot, says Kant, shape our life better than in acting as if such ideas of reason have objective validity and there be an immortal life in which man shall live according to the laws of reason, in peace with his neighbour and in freedom from the trammels of sense.

[61] It is _eine unausführbare Idee_. See the passage quoted from
the _Rechtslehre_, p. 129, _note_.

Hence we are concerned here, not with an end, but with the means by which we might best set about attaining it, if it were attainable. This is the subject matter of the _Treatise on Perpetual Peace_ (1795), a less eloquent and less purely philosophical essay than that of 1784, but throughout more systematic and practical. We have to do, not with the favourite dream of philanthropists like St. Pierre and Rousseau, but with a statement of the conditions on the fulfilment of which the transition to a reign of peace and law depends.

_The Conditions of the Realisation of the Kantian Ideal._

These means are of two kinds. In the first place, what evils must we set about removing? What are the negative conditions? And, secondly, what are the general positive conditions which will make the realisation of this idea possible and guarantee the permanence of an international peace once attained? These negative and positive conditions Kant calls Preliminary and Definitive Articles respectively, the whole essay being carefully thrown into the form of a treaty. The Preliminary Articles of a treaty for perpetual peace are based on the principle that anything that hinders or threatens the peaceful co-existence of nations must be abolished. These conditions have been classified by Kuno Fischer. Kant, he points out,[62] examines the principles of right governing the different sets of circumstances in which nations find themselves—namely, (_a_) while they are actually at war; (_b_) when the time comes to conclude a treaty of peace; (_c_) when they are living in a state of peace. The six Preliminary Articles fall naturally into these groups. War must not be conducted in such a manner as to increase national hatred and embitter a future peace. (Art. 6.)[63] The treaty which brings hostilities to an end must be concluded in an honest desire for peace. (Art. 1.)[64] Again a nation, when in a state of peace, must do nothing to threaten the political independence of another nation or endanger its existence, thereby giving the strongest of all motives for a fresh war. A nation may commit this injury in two ways: (1) indirectly, by causing danger to others through the growth of its standing army (Art. 3)[65]—always a menace to the state of peace—or by any unusual war preparations: and (2) through too great a supremacy of another kind, by amassing money, the most powerful of all weapons in warfare. The National Debt (Art. 4)[66] is another standing danger to the peaceful co-existence of nations. But, besides, we have the danger of actual attack. There is no right of intervention between nations. (Art. 5.)[67] Nor can states be inherited or conquered (Art. 2),[68] or in any way treated in a manner subversive of their independence and sovereignty as individuals. For a similar reason, armed troops cannot be hired and sold as things.

[62] _Geschichte der neueren Philosophie_, (4th ed., 1899), Vol.
V., I. Ch. 12, p. 168 _seq._

[63] See p. 114.

[64] See p. 107.

[65] See p. 110.

[66] See p. 111.

[67] See p. 112.

[68] See p. 108.

These then are the negative conditions of peace.[69] There are, besides, three positive conditions:

[69] A large part of Kant’s requirements as they are expressed in
these Preliminary Articles has already been fulfilled. The first
(Art. 1) is recognised in theory at least by modern international
law. More cannot be said. A treaty of this kind is of necessity
more or less forced by the stronger on the weaker. The formal
ratification of peace in 1871 did not prevent France from longing
for the day when she might win back Alsace-Lorraine and be
revenged on Prussia. Not the treaty nor a consciousness of defeat
has kept the peace west of the Rhine, but a reluctant respect for
the fortress of Metz and the mighty army of united Germany.

Articles 2 and 6 are already commonplaces of international
law. Article 2 refers to practices which have not survived the
gradual disappearance of dynastic war. Art. 6 is the basis of
our modern law of war. Art. 3 has been fulfilled in the literal
sense that the standing armies composed of mercenary troops to
which Kant alludes exist no longer. But it is to be feared that
Kant would not think that we have made things much better, nor
regard our present system of progressive armaments as a step in
the direction of perpetual peace. Art. 4 is not likely to be
fulfilled in the near future. It is long since Cobden denounced
the institution of National Debts—an institution which, as Kant
points out, owes its origin to the English, the “commercial
people” referred to in the text. Art. 5 no doubt came to Kant
through Vattel. “No nation,” says the Swiss publicist, (_Law of
Nations_, II. Ch. iv. § 54) “has the least right to interfere
with the government of another,” unless, he adds, (Ch. v. §
70) in a case of anarchy or where the well-being of the human
race demands it. This is a recognised principle of modern
international law. Intervention is held to be justifiable only
where the obligation to respect another’s freedom of action comes
into conflict with the duty of self-preservation.

Puffendorf leaves much more room for the exercise of benevolence.
The natural affinity and kinship between men is, says he, (_Les
Devoirs de l’homme et du citoien_, II. Ch. xvi. § xi.) “a
sufficient reason to authorise us to take up defence of every
person whom one sees unjustly oppressed, when he implores our
aid _and when we can do it conveniently_.” (The italics are
mine.—[Tr.])

(_a_) The intercourse of nations is to be confined to a right of hospitality. (Art. 3.)[70] There is nothing new to us in this assertion of a right of way. The right to free means of international communication has in the last hundred years become a commonplace of law. And the change has been brought about, as Kant anticipated, not through an abstract respect for the idea of right, but through the pressure of purely commercial interests. Since Kant’s time the nations of Europe have all been more or less transformed from agricultural to commercial states whose interests run mainly in the same direction, whose existence and development depend necessarily upon “conditions of universal hospitality.” Commerce depends upon this freedom of international intercourse, and on commerce mainly depends our hope of peace.

[70] See p. 137. The main principle involved in this passage
comes from Vattel (_op. cit._, II. Ch. viii. §§ 104, 105: Ch. ix.
§§ 123, 125). A sovereign, he says, cannot object to a stranger
entering his state who at the same time respects its laws. No one
can be quite deprived of the right of way which has been handed
down from the time when the whole earth was common to all men.

(_b_) The first Definitive Article[71] requires that the constitution of every state should be republican. What Kant understands by this term is that, in the state, law should rule above force and that its constitution should be a representative one, guaranteeing public justice and based on the freedom and equality of its members and their mutual dependence on a common legislature. Kant’s demand is independent of the _form_ of the government. A constitutional monarchy like that of Prussia in the time of Frederick the Great, who regarded himself as the first servant of the state and ruled with the wisdom and forethought which the nation would have had the right to demand from such an one—such a monarchy is not in contradiction to the idea of a true republic. That the state should have a constitution in accordance with the principles of right is the essential point.[72] To make this possible, the law-giving power must lie with the representatives of the people: there must be a complete separation, such as Locke and Rousseau demand, between the legislature and executive. Otherwise we have despotism. Hence, while Kant admitted absolutism under certain conditions, he rejected democracy where, in his opinion, the mass of the people was despot.

[71] See p. 120.

[72] Kant believed that, in the newly formed constitution of the
United States, his ideal with regard to the external forms of
the state as conforming to the spirit of justice was most nearly
realised. Professor Paulsen draws attention, in the following
passage, to the fact that Kant held the English government of
the eighteenth century in very low esteem. (_Kant_, p. 357,
_note_. See Eng. trans., p. 352, _note_.) It was not the English
state, he says, which furnished Kant with an illustration of
his theory:—“Rather in it he sees a form of despotism only
slightly veiled, not Parliamentary despotism, as some people
have thought, but monarchical despotism. Through bribery of the
Commons and the Press, the King had actually absolute power, as
was evident, above all, from the fact that he had often waged war
without, and in defiance of, the will of the people. Kant has
a very unfavourable opinion of the English state in every way.
Among the collected notes written by him in the last ten years
of the century and published by Reicke (_Lose Blätter_, I. 129)
the following appears:—‘The English nation (_gens_) regarded as
a people (_populus_) and looked upon side by side with other
races is, as a collection of individuals, of all mankind the
most highly to be esteemed. But as a state, compared with other
states, it is the most destructive, high-handed and tyrannical,
and the most provocative of war among them all.’”

Kuno Fischer (_op. cit._, Vol. V., I. Ch. 11, pp. 150, 151) to
whom Professor Paulsen’s reference may here perhaps allude,
states that Kant’s objection to the English constitution is that
it was an oligarchy, Parliament being not only a legislative
body, but through its ministers also executive in the interests
of the ruling party or even of private individuals in that party.
It seems more likely that what most offended a keen observer of
the course of the American War of Independence was the arbitrary
and ill-directed power of the king. But see the passage quoted
by Fischer (pp. 152, 153) from the _Rechtslehre_ (Part II. Sect.
I.) which is, he says, unmistakeably directed against the English
constitution and certain temporary conditions in the political
history of the country.

An internal constitution, firmly established on the principles of right, would not only serve to kill the seeds of national hatred and diminish the likelihood of foreign war. It would do more: it would destroy sources of revolution and discontent within the state. Kant, like many writers on this subject, does not directly allude to civil war[73] and the means by which it may be prevented or abolished. Actually to achieve this would be impossible: it is beyond the power of either arbitration or disarmament. But in a representative government and the liberty of a people lie the greatest safeguards against internal discontent. Civil peace and international peace must to a certain extent go hand in hand.

[73] St. Pierre actually thought that his federation would
prevent civil war. See _Project_ (1714), p. 16.