  A
B C
D
E F
H
I J
L
M
N
O
P
Q
R
S
T
V W
Z
FOOTNOTES [1] Cf. his Studies in Political and Social Ethics, pp. 169, 170. [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.” [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. [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. [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. [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.” [12] Neither, however, is there any which regards the soldier as a murderer. [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. [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 “?????fa??a” (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. [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. [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. [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. [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. [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.) [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. [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). [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. [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. [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.) [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. [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.) [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.) [49] The italics are mine.—[Tr.] [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.) [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.” [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. [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.” 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.) [A] Cf. K. v. Stengel: Der Ewige Friede, Munich, 1899; also Vaihinger: Kantstudien, Vol. IV., p. 58. [59] Cf. Idea for a Universal History, Prop. 8; Perpetual Peace, pp. 142, 157. [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. [61] It is eine unausfÜhrbare Idee. See the passage quoted from the Rechtslehre, p. 129, note. [62] Geschichte der neueren Philosophie, (4th ed., 1899), Vol. V., I. Ch. 12, p. 168 seq. [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.]) [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. [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. [73] St. Pierre actually thought that his federation would prevent civil war. See Project (1714), p. 16. [75] This was the ideal of Dante. Cf. De Monarchia, Bk. I. 54:—“We shall not find at any time except under the divine monarch Augustus, when a perfect monarchy existed, that the world was everywhere quiet.” Bluntschli (Theory of the State, I. Ch. ii., p. 26 seq.) gives an admirable account of the different attempts made to realise a universal empire in the past—the Empire of Alexander the Great, based upon a plan of uniting the races of east and west; the Roman Empire which sought vainly to stamp its national character upon mankind; the Frankish Monarchy; the Holy Roman Empire which fell to pieces through the want of a central power strong enough to overcome the tendency to separation and nationalisation; and finally the attempt of Napoleon I., whose mistake was the same as that which wrecked the Roman Empire—a neglect of the strength of foreign national sentiment. [76] Reason requires a State of nations. This is the ideal, and Kant’s proposal of a federation of states is a practical substitute from which we may work to higher things. Kant, like Fichte, (Werke, VII. 467) strongly disapproves of a universal monarchy such as that of which Dante dreamed—a modern Roman Empire. The force of necessity, he says, will bring nations at last to become members of a cosmopolitan state, “or if such a state of universal peace proves (as has often been the case with too great states) a greater danger to freedom from another point of view, in that it introduces despotism of the most terrible kind, then this same necessity must compel the nations to enter a state which indeed has the form not of a cosmopolitan commonwealth under one sovereign, but of a federation regulated by legal principles determined by a common code of international law.” (Das mag in d. Theorie richtig sein, Werke, (Rosenkranz) VII., p. 225). Cf. also Theory of Ethics, (Abbott), p. 341, note; Perpetual Peace, pp. 155, 156. [77] See the Philosophie d. Rechts, (Werke, Vol. VIII.) Part iii. § 324 and appendix. [78] Cf. Die Braut von Messina:— “Denn der Mensch verkÜmmert im Frieden, MÜssige Ruh’ ist das Grab des Muths. Das Gesetz ist der Freund des Schwachen, Alles will es nur eben machen, MÖchte gerne die Welt verflachen; Aber der Krieg lÄsst die Kraft erscheinen, Alles erhebt er zum Ungemeinen, Selber dem Feigen erzeugt er den Muth.” This passage perhaps scarcely gives a fair representation of Schiller’s views on the question, which, if we judge from Wilhelm Tell, must have been very moderate. War, he says, in this oft-quoted passage, is sometimes a necessity. There is a limit to the power of tyranny and, when the burden becomes unbearable, an appeal to Heaven and the sword. Wilhelm Tell: Act. II. Sc. 2. “Nein, eine Grenze hat Tyrannenmacht. Wenn der GedrÜckte nirgends Recht kann finden, Wenn unertrÄglich wird die Last greift er Hinauf getrosten Muthes in den Himmel Und holt herunter seine ew’gen Rechte, Die droben hangen unverÄusserlich Und unzerbrechlich, wie die Sterne selbst— Der alte Urstand der Natur kehrt wieder, Wo Mensch dem Menschen gegenÜber steht— Zum letzten Mittel, wenn kein andres mehr Verfangen will, ist ihm das Schwert gegeben.” [79] Letter to Bluntschli, dated Berlin, 11th Dec., 1880 (published in Bluntschli’s Gesammelte Kleine Schriften, Vol. II., p. 271). [80] Cf. Tennyson’s Maud: Part I., vi. and xiii. “Why do they prate of the blessings of Peace? we have made them a curse, Pickpockets, each hand lusting for all that is not its own; And lust of gain, in the spirit of Cain, is it better or worse Than the heart of the citizen hissing in war on his own hearthstone? For I trust if an enemy’s fleet came yonder round by the hill, And the rushing battle-bolt sang from the three-decker out of the foam, That the smooth-faced snub-nosed rogue would leap from his counter and till, And strike, if he could, were it but with his cheating yardwand, home.” See too Part III., ii. and iv. “And it was but a dream, yet it lighten’d my despair When I thought that a war would arise in defence of the right, That an iron tyranny now should bend or cease, The glory of manhood stand on his ancient height, Nor Britain’s one sole God be the millionaire: No more shall commerce be all in all, and Peace Pipe on her pastoral hillock a languid note, And watch her harvest ripen, her herd increase, Nor the cannon-bullet rest on a slothful shore, And the cobweb woven across the cannon’s throat Shall shake its threaded tears in the wind no more. Let it go or stay, so I wake to the higher aims Of a land that has lost for a little her lust of gold, And love of a peace that was full of wrongs and shames, Horrible, hateful, monstrous, not to be told; And hail once more to the banner of battle unroll’d! Tho’ many a light shall darken, and many shall weep For those that are crush’d in the clash of jarring claims, For God’s just wrath shall be wreak’d on a giant liar; And many a darkness into the light shall leap, And shine in the sudden making of splendid names, And noble thought be freer under the sun, And the heart of a people beat with one desire.” [81] Moltke strangely enough was, at an earlier period, of the opinion that war, even when it is successful, is a national misfortune. Cf. Kehrbach’s preface to Kant’s essay, Zum Ewigen Frieden, p. XVII. [82] See his discussion on constitutional monarchy in Germany. (Hist. u. Pol. AufsÄtze, Bd. III., p. 533 seq.) [83] See Die Piccolomini: Act. I. Sc. 4. [84] An admirable short account of popular feeling on this matter is to be found in Lawrence’s Principles of International Law, § 240. [85] The first Peace Society was founded in London in 1816, and the first International Peace Congress held in 1843. [86] In Eng. trans. see p. 358. [87] See “A Plan for a Universal and Perpetual Peace” in the Principles of International Law (Works, Vol. II). One of the main principles advocated by Bentham in this essay (written between 1787 and 1789) is that every state should give up its colonies. [88] See his Kleine Schriften. [89] Institutes of the Law of Nations (1884), Vol. II., Ch. XIV. [90] John Stuart Mill holds that the multiplication of federal unions would be a benefit to the world. [See his Considerations on Representative Government (1865), Ch. XVII., where he discusses the conditions necessary to render such unions successful.] But the Peace Society is scarcely justified, on the strength of what is here, in including Mill among writers who have made definite proposals of peace or federation. (See Inter. Trib.) [91] See what Lawrence says (op. cit., § 241) of neutralisation and the limits of its usefulness as a remedy for war. [92] Montesquieu: Esprit des Lois, X. Ch. 2. “The life of governments is like that of man. The latter has a right to kill in case of natural defence: the former have a right to wage war for their own preservation.” See also Vattel (Law of Nations, II. Ch. XVIII. § 332):—“But if anyone would rob a nation of one of her essential rights, or a right without which she could not hope to support her national existence,—if an ambitious neighbour threatens the liberty of a republic, if he attempts to subjugate and enslave her,—she will take counsel only from her own courage. She will not even attempt the method of conferences, in the case of a contention so odious as this. She will, in such a quarrel, exert her utmost efforts, exhaust every resource and lavish her blood to the last drop if necessary. To listen to the slightest proposal in a matter of this kind is to risk everything.” [93] The difficulties in the way of hard and fast judgments on a complicated problem of this kind are convincingly demonstrated in a recent essay by Professor D. G. Ritchie (Studies in Political and Social Ethics, Sonnenschein, 1902). Professor Ritchie considers in detail a number of concrete cases which occurred in the century between 1770 and 1870. “Let any one take the judgments he would pass on these or any similarly varied cases, and I think he will find that we do not restrict our approval to wars of self-defence, that we do not approve self-defence under all circumstances, that there are some cases in which we approve of absorption of smaller states by larger, that there are cases in which we excuse intervention of third parties in quarrels with which at first they had nothing to do, and that we sometimes approve war even when begun without the authority of any already existing sovereign. Can any principles be found underlying such judgments? In the first place we ought not to disguise from ourselves the fact that our judgments after the result are based largely on success. ... I think it will be found that our judgments on the wars of the century from 1770 to 1870 turn very largely on the question, Which of the conflicting forces was making for constitutional government and for social progress? or, to put it in wider terms, Which represented the higher civilisation? And thus it is that we may sometimes approve the rise of a new state and sometimes the absorption of an old.” (Op. cit., pp. 152, 155.) [94] See Fred. W. Holls: The Peace Conference at the Hague, Macmillan, 1900. [95] The feeling of the Congress expressed itself thus cautiously:—“Messieurs les plÉnipotentiaires n’hÉsitent pas À exprimer, au nom de leur gouvernements, le voeu, que les Etats entre lesquels s’ÉlÉverait un dissentiment sÉrieux, avant d’en appeler aux armes, eussent recours, en tant que les circonstances l’admettraient, aux bons offices d’une puissance amie.” [96] Esprit des Lois, XIII. Chap. 17. “A new distemper has spread itself over Europe: it has infected our princes, and induces them to keep up an exorbitant number of troops. It has its redoublings, and of necessity becomes contagious. For as soon as one prince augments what he calls his troops, the rest of course do the same: so that nothing is gained thereby but the public ruin. Each monarch keeps as many armies on foot as if his people were in danger of being exterminated: and they give the name of Peace to this general effort of all against all.” Montesquieu is of course writing in the days of mercenary troops; but the cost to the nation of our modern armies, both in time of peace and of war, is incomparably greater. [97] Even St. Pierre was alive to this danger (Projet, Art. VIII: in the English translation of 1714, p. 160):—“The European Union shall endeavour to obtain in Asia, a permanent society like that of Europe, that Peace may be maintain’d There also; and especially that it may have no cause to fear any Asiatic Sovereign, either as to its tranquillity, or its Commerce in Asia.” [98] Bentham’s suggestion would be useful here! See above, p. 79, note. [99] The best thing for Europe might be that Russia (perhaps including China) should be regarded as a serious danger by all the civilised powers of the West. That would bring us nearer to the United States of Europe and America (for the United States, America, is Russia’s neighbour on the East) than anything else. [100] Trade in barbarous or savage countries is still increased by war, especially on the French and German plan which leaves no open door to other nations. Here the trade follows the flag. And war, of course, among civilised races causes small nations to disappear and their tariffs with them. This is beneficial to trade, but to a degree so trifling that it may here be neglected. [101] Cf. also the civil war of 1847 in Switzerland. [102] See Werke, VII., p. 467. [103] The other he knew was impossible. Peace within the state meant decay and death. In the antagonism of nations, he saw nature’s means of educating the race: it was a law of existence, a law of progress, and, as such, eternal. [104] For a vivid picture of the material advantages offered by such a union and of the dismal future that may lie before an unfederated Europe, we cannot do better than read Mr. Andrew Carnegie’s recent Rectorial Address to the students of St. Andrews University (Oct 1902). Unfortunately, Mr. Carnegie’s enthusiasm stops here: he does not tell us by what means the difficulties at present in the way of a federation, industrial or political, are to be overcome. [105] Professor D. G. Ritchie remarks that it is less an over-estimation of the value of peace than a too easy-going acceptance of abstract and unanalysed phrases about the rights of nations that injures the work of the Peace Society. Cf. his note on the principles of the Peace Congresses (op. cit., p. 172). [106] The day is past, when a nation could enjoy the exclusive advantages of its own inventions. Vattel naively recommends that we should keep the knowledge of certain kinds of trade, the building of war-ships and the like, to ourselves. Prudence, he says, prevents us from making an enemy stronger and the care of our own safety forbids it. (Law of Nations, II. Ch. I. § 16.) [107] The text used in this translation is that edited by Kehrbach. [Tr.] [108] 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.” (Leibniz: Letter to Grimarest, quoted above, p. 37, note 44.) [Tr.] [109] On the honourable interpretation of treaties, see Vattel (op. cit., II. Ch. XVII., esp. §§ 263-296, 291). See also what he says of the validity of treaties and the necessity for holding them sacred (II. Ch. XII. §§ 157, 158: II. Ch. XV). [Tr.] [110] “Even the smoothest way,” says Hume, (Of the Original Contract) “by which a nation may receive a foreign master, by marriage or a will, is not extremely honourable for the people; but supposes them to be disposed of, like a dowry or a legacy, according to the pleasure or interest of their rulers.” [Tr.] [111] An hereditary kingdom is not a state which can be inherited by another state, but one whose sovereign power can be inherited by another physical person. The state then acquires a ruler, not the ruler as such (that is, as one already possessing another realm) the state. [112] This has been one of the causes of the extraordinary admixture of races in the modern Austrian empire. Cf. the lines of Matthias Corvinus of Hungary (quoted in Sir W. Stirling Maxwell’s Cloister Life of Charles the Fifth, Ch. I., note):— “Bella gerant alii, tu, felix Austria, nube! Nam quae Mars aliis, dat tibi regna Venus.” [Tr.] [113] A Bulgarian Prince thus answered the Greek Emperor who magnanimously offered to settle a quarrel with him, not by shedding the blood of his subjects, but by a duel:—“A smith who has tongs will not take the red-hot iron from the fire with his hands.” (This note is a-wanting in the second Edition of 1796. It is repeated in Art. II., see p. 130.) [Tr.] [114] See Vattel: Law of Nations, II. Ch. IV. § 55. No foreign power, he says, has a right to judge the conduct and administration of any sovereign or oblige him to alter it. “If he loads his subjects with taxes, or if he treats them with severity, the nation alone is concerned; and no other is called upon to offer redress for his behaviour, or oblige him to follow more wise and equitable maxims.... But (loc. cit. § 56) when the bands of the political society are broken, or at least suspended, between the sovereign and his people, the contending parties may then be considered at two distinct powers; and, since they are both equally independent of all foreign authority, nobody has a right to judge them. Either may be in the right; and each of those who grant their assistance may imagine that he is giving his support to the better cause.” [Tr.] [115] It has been hitherto doubted, not without reason, whether there can be laws of permission (leges permissivÆ) of pure reason as well as commands (leges prÆceptivÆ) and prohibitions (leges prohibitivÆ). For law in general has a basis of objective practical necessity: permission, on the other hand, is based upon the contingency of certain actions in practice. It follows that a law of permission would enforce what cannot be enforced; and this would involve a contradiction, if the object of the law should be the same in both cases. Here, however, in the present case of a law of permission, the presupposed prohibition is aimed merely at the future manner of acquisition of a right—for example, acquisition through inheritance: the exemption from this prohibition (i.e. the permission) refers to the present state of possession. In the transition from a state of nature to the civil state, this holding of property can continue as a bona fide, if usurpatory, ownership, under the new social conditions, in accordance with a permission of the Law of Nature. Ownership of this kind, as soon as its true nature becomes known, is seen to be mere nominal possession (possessio putativa) sanctioned by opinion and customs in a natural state of society. After the transition stage is passed, such modes of acquisition are likewise forbidden in the subsequently evolved civil state: and this power to remain in possession would not be admitted if the supposed acquisition had taken place in the civilized community. It would be bound to come to an end as an injury to the right of others, the moment its illegality became patent. I have wished here only by the way to draw the attention of teachers of the Law of Nature to the idea of a lex permissiva which presents itself spontaneously in any system of rational classification. I do so chiefly because use is often made of this concept in civil law with reference to statutes; with this difference, that the law of prohibition stands alone by itself, while permission is not, as it ought to be, introduced into that law as a limiting clause, but is thrown among the exceptions. Thus “this or that is forbidden”,—say, Nos. 1, 2, 3, and so on in an infinite progression,—while permissions are only added to the law incidentally: they are not reached by the application of some principle, but only by groping about among cases which have actually occurred. Were this not so, qualifications would have had to be brought into the formula of laws of prohibition which would have immediately transformed them into laws of permission. Count von WindischgrÄtz, a man whose wisdom was equal to his discrimination, urged this very point in the form of a question propounded by him for a prize essay. One must therefore regret that this ingenious problem has been so soon neglected and left unsolved. For the possibility of a formula similar to those of mathematics is the sole real test of a legislation that would be consistent. Without this, the so-called jus certum will remain forever a mere pious wish: we can have only general laws valid on the whole; no general laws possessing the universal validity which the concept law seems to demand. [116] “From this diffidence of one another, there is no way for any man to secure himself, so reasonable, as anticipation; that is, by force, or wiles, to master the persons of all men he can, so long, till he see no other power great enough to endanger him: and this is no more than his own conservation requireth, and is generally allowed.” (Hobbes: Lev. I. Ch. XIII.) [Tr.] [117] Hobbes thus describes the establishment of the state. “A commonwealth is said to be instituted, when a multitude of men do agree, and covenant, every one, with every one, that to whatsoever man, or assembly of men, shall be given by the major part, the right to present the person of them all, that is to say, to be their representative; everyone, as well he that voted for it, as he that voted against it, shall authorize all the actions and judgments, of that man, or assembly of men, in the same manner, as if they were his own, to the end, to live peaceably amongst themselves, and be protected against other men.” (Lev. II. Ch. XVIII.) There is a covenant between them, “as if every man should say to every man, I authorise and give up my right of governing myself, to this man, or to this assembly of men, on this condition, that thou give up thy right to him, and authorize all his actions in like manner.” (Lev. II. Ch. XVII.) [Tr.] [118] It is usually accepted that a man may not take hostile steps against any one, unless the latter has already injured him by act. This is quite accurate, if both are citizens of a law-governed state. For, in becoming a member of this community, each gives the other the security he demands against injury, by means of the supreme authority exercising control over them both. The individual, however, (or nation) who remains in a mere state of nature deprives me of this security and does me injury, by mere proximity. There is perhaps no active (facto) molestation, but there is a state of lawlessness, (status injustus) which, by its very existence, offers a continual menace to me. I can therefore compel him, either to enter into relations with me under which we are both subject to law, or to withdraw from my neighbourhood. So that the postulate upon which the following articles are based is:—“All men who have the power to exert a mutual influence upon one another must be under a civil government of some kind.” A legal constitution is, according to the nature of the individuals who compose the state:— (1) A constitution formed in accordance with the right of citizenship of the individuals who constitute a nation (jus civitatis). (2) A constitution whose principle is international law which determines the relations of states (jus gentium). (3) A constitution formed in accordance with cosmopolitan law, in as far as individuals and states, standing in an external relation of mutual reaction, may be regarded as citizens of one world-state (jus cosmopoliticum). This classification is not an arbitrary one, but is necessary with reference to the idea of perpetual peace. For, if even one of these units of society were in a position physically to influence another, while yet remaining a member of a primitive order of society, then a state of war would be joined with these primitive conditions; and from this it is our present purpose to free ourselves. [119] Lawful, that is to say, external freedom cannot be defined, as it so often is, as the right [Befugniss] “to do whatever one likes, so long as this does not wrong anyone else.”[B] For what is this right? It is the possibility of actions which do not lead to the injury of others. So the explanation of a “right” would be something like this:—“Freedom is the possibility of actions which do not injure anyone. A man does not wrong another—whatever his action—if he does not wrong another”: which is empty tautology. My external (lawful) freedom is rather to be explained in this way: it is the right through which I require not to obey any external laws except those to which I could have given my consent. In exactly the same way, external (legal) equality in a state is that relation of the subjects in consequence of which no individual can legally bind or oblige another to anything, without at the same time submitting himself to the law which ensures that he can, in his turn, be bound and obliged in like manner by this other. The principle of lawful independence requires no explanation, as it is involved in the general concept of a constitution. The validity of this hereditary and inalienable right, which belongs of necessity to mankind, is affirmed and ennobled by the principle of a lawful relation between man himself and higher beings, if indeed he believes in such beings. This is so, because he thinks of himself, in accordance with these very principles, as a citizen of a transcendental world as well as of the world of sense. For, as far as my freedom goes, I am bound by no obligation even with regard to Divine Laws—which are apprehended by me only through my reason—except in so far as I could have given my assent to them; for it is through the law of freedom of my own reason that I first form for myself a concept of a Divine Will. As for the principle of equality, in so far as it applies to the most sublime being in the universe next to God—a being I might perhaps figure to myself as a mighty emanation of the Divine spirit,—there is no reason why, if I perform my duty in the sphere in which I am placed, as that aeon does in his, the duty of obedience alone should fall to my share, the right to command to him. That this principle of equality, (unlike the principle of freedom), does not apply to our relation to God is due to the fact that, to this Being alone, the idea of duty does not belong. As for the right to equality which belongs to all citizens as subjects, the solution of the problem of the admissibility of an hereditary nobility hinges on the following question:—“Does social rank—acknowledged by the state to be higher in the case of one subject than another—stand above desert, or does merit take precedence of social standing?” Now it is obvious that, if high position is combined with good family, it is quite uncertain whether merit, that is to say, skill and fidelity in office, will follow as well. This amounts to granting the favoured individual a commanding position without any question of desert; and to that, the universal will of the people—expressed in an original contract which is the fundamental principle of all right—would never consent. For it does not follow that a nobleman is a man of noble character. In the case of the official nobility, as one might term the rank of higher magistracy—which one must acquire by merit—the social position is not attached like property to the person but to his office, and equality is not thereby disturbed; for, if a man gives up office, he lays down with it his official rank and falls back into the rank of his fellows. [B] Hobbes’ definition of freedom is interesting. See Lev. II. Ch. XXI.:—“A Freeman, is he, that in those things, which by his strength and wit he is able to do, is not hindered to do what he has a will to.” [Tr.] [120] Cf. Cowper: The Winter Morning Walk:— “But is it fit, or can it bear the shock Of rational discussion, that a man, Compounded and made up like other men Of elements tumultuous, ....... ............... Should when he pleases, and on whom he will, Wage war, with any or with no pretence Of provocation giv’n or wrong sustain’d, And force the beggarly last doit, by means That his own humour dictates, from the clutch Of poverty, that thus he may procure His thousands, weary of penurious life, A splendid opportunity to die?” ............... ............... “He deems a thousand or ten thousand lives Spent in the purchase of renown for him, An easy reckoning.” [Tr.] [121] Cf. Hobbes: On Dominion, Ch. VII. § 1. “As for the difference of cities, it is taken from the difference of the persons to whom the supreme power is committed. This power is committed either to one man, or council, or some one court consisting of many men.” [Tr.] [122] The lofty appellations which are often given to a ruler—such as the Lord’s Anointed, the Administrator of the Divine Will upon earth and Vicar of God—have been many times censured as flattery gross enough to make one giddy. But it seems to me without cause. Far from making a prince arrogant, names like these must rather make him humble at heart, if he has any intelligence—which we take for granted he has—and reflects that he has undertaken an office which is too great for any human being. For, indeed, it is the holiest which God has on earth—namely, the right of ruling mankind: and he must ever live in fear of injuring this treasure of God in some respect or other. [123] Mallet du Pan boasts in his seemingly brilliant but shallow and superficial language that, after many years experience, he has come at last to be convinced of the truth of the well known saying of Pope [Essay on Man, III. 303]:— “For Forms of Government let fools contest; Whate’er is best administered is best.” If this means that the best administered government is best administered, then, in Swift’s phrase, he has cracked a nut to find a worm in it. If it means, however, that the best conducted government is also the best kind of government,—that is, the best form of political constitution,—then it is utterly false: for examples of wise administration are no proof of the kind of government. Who ever ruled better than Titus and Marcus Aurelius, and yet the one left Domitian, the other Commodus, as his successor? This could not have happened where the constitution was a good one, for their absolute unfitness for the position was early enough known, and the power of the emperor was sufficiently great to exclude them. [124] “For as amongst masterless men, there is perpetual war, of every man against his neighbour; no inheritance, to transmit to the son, nor to expect from the father; no propriety of goods, or lands; no security; but a full and absolute liberty in every particular man: so in states, and commonwealths not dependent on one another, every commonwealth, not every man, has an absolute liberty, to do what it shall judge, that is to say, what that man, or assembly that representeth it, shall judge most conducing to their benefit. But withal, they live in the condition of a perpetual war, and upon the confines of battle, with their frontiers armed, and cannons planted against their neighbours round about.” (Hobbes: Leviathan, II. Ch. XXI.) [Tr.] [125] But see p. 136, where Kant seems to speak of a State of nations as the ideal. Kant expresses himself, on this point, more clearly in the Rechtslehre, Part. II. § 61:—“The natural state of nations,” he says here, “like that of individual men, is a condition which must be abandoned, in order that they may enter a state regulated by law. Hence, before this can take place, every right possessed by these nations and every external “mine” and “thine” [id est, symbol of possession] which states acquire or preserve through war are merely provisional, and can become peremptorily valid and constitute a true state of peace only in a universal union of states, by a process analogous to that through which a people becomes a state. Since, however, the too great extension of such a State of nations over vast territories must, in the long run, make the government of that union—and therefore the protection of each of its members—impossible, a multitude of such corporations will lead again to a state of war. So that perpetual peace, the final goal of international law as a whole, is really an impracticable idea [eine unausfÜhrbare Idee]. The political principles, however, which are directed towards this end, (that is to say, towards the establishment of such unions of states as may serve as a continual approximation to that ideal), are not impracticable; on the contrary, as this approximation is required by duty and is therefore founded also upon the rights of men and of states, these principles are, without doubt, capable of practical realization.” [Tr.] [126] A Greek Emperor who magnanimously volunteered to settle by a duel his quarrel with a Bulgarian Prince, got the following answer:—“A smith who has tongs will not pluck the glowing iron from the fire with his hands.” [127] “Both sayings are very true: that man to man is a kind of God; and that man to man is an arrant wolf. The first is true, if we compare citizens amongst themselves; and the second, if we compare cities. In the one, there is some analogy of similitude with the Deity; to wit, justice and charity, the twin sisters of peace. But in the other, good men must defend themselves by taking to them for a sanctuary the two daughters of war, deceit and violence: that is, in plain terms, a mere brutal rapacity.” (Hobbes: Epistle Dedicatory to the Philosophical Rudiments concerning Government and Society.) [Tr.] [128] “The strongest are still never sufficiently strong to ensure them the continual mastership, unless they find means of transforming force into right, and obedience into duty. From the right of the strongest, right takes an ironical appearance, and is rarely established as a principle.” (Contrat Social, I. Ch. III.) [Tr.] [129] “The natural state,” says Hobbes, (On Dominion, Ch. VII. § 18) “hath the same proportion to the civil, (I mean, liberty to subjection), which passion hath to reason, or a beast to a man.” Locke speaks thus of man, when he puts himself into the state of war with another:—“having quitted reason, which God hath given to be the rule betwixt man and man, and the common bond whereby human kind is united into one fellowship and society; and having renounced the way of peace which that teaches, and made use of the force of war, to compass his unjust ends upon another, where he has no right; and so revolting from his own kind to that of beasts, by making force, which is theirs, to be his rule of right, he renders himself liable to be destroyed by the injured person, and the rest of mankind that will join with him in the execution of justice, as any other wild beast, or noxious brute, with whom mankind can have neither society nor security.” (Civil Government, Ch. XV. § 172.) [Tr.] [130] Cf. Rousseau: Gouvernement de Pologne, Ch. V. Federate government is “the only one which unites in itself all the advantages of great and small states.” [Tr.] [131] On the conclusion of peace at the end of a war, it might not be unseemly for a nation to appoint a day of humiliation, after the festival of thanksgiving, on which to invoke the mercy of Heaven for the terrible sin which the human race are guilty of, in their continued unwillingness to submit (in their relations with other states) to a law-governed constitution, preferring rather in the pride of their independence to use the barbarous method of war, which after all does not really settle what is wanted, namely, the right of each state in a quarrel. The feasts of thanksgiving during a war for a victorious battle, the hymns which are sung—to use the Jewish expression—“to the Lord of Hosts” are not in less strong contrast to the ethical idea of a father of mankind; for, apart from the indifference these customs show to the way in which nations seek to establish their rights—sad enough as it is—these rejoicings bring in an element of exultation that a great number of lives, or at least the happiness of many, has been destroyed. [132] Cf. Aeneidos, I. 294 seq. “Furor impius intus, Saeva sedens super arma, et centum vinctus aËnis Post tergum nodis, fremet horridus ore cruento.” [Tr.] [133] Cf. Vattel (op. cit., II. ch. IX. § 123):—“The right of passage is also a remnant of the primitive state of communion, in which the entire earth was common to all mankind, and the passage was everywhere free to each individual according to his necessities. Nobody can be entirely deprived of this right.” See also above, p. 65, note. [Tr.] [134] In order to call this great empire by the name which it gives itself—namely, China, not Sina or a word of similar sound—we have only to look at Georgii: Alphab. Tibet., pp. 651-654, particularly note b., below. According to the observation of Professor Fischer of St. Petersburg, there is really no particular name which it always goes by: the most usual is the word Kin, i.e. gold, which the inhabitants of Tibet call Ser. Hence the emperor is called the king of gold, i.e. the king of the most splendid country in the world. This word Kin may probably be Chin in the empire itself, but be pronounced Kin by the Italian missionaries on account of the gutturals. Thus we see that the country of the Seres, so often mentioned by the Romans, was China: the silk, however, was despatched to Europe across Greater Tibet, probably through Smaller Tibet and Bucharia, through Persia and then on. This leads to many reflections as to the antiquity of this wonderful state, as compared with Hindustan, at the time of its union with Tibet and thence with Japan. On the other hand, the name Sina or Tschina which is said to be given to this land by neighbouring peoples leads to nothing. Perhaps we can explain the ancient intercourse of Europe with Tibet—a fact at no time widely known—by looking at what Hesychius has preserved on the matter. I refer to the shout, ???? ?pa? (Konx Ompax), the cry of the Hierophants in the Eleusinian mysteries (cf. Travels of Anacharsis the Younger, Part V., p. 447, seq.). For, according to Georgii Alph. Tibet., the word Concioa which bears a striking resemblance to Konx means God. Pak-cio (ib. p. 520) which might easily be pronounced by the Greeks like pax means promulgator legis, the divine principle permeating nature (called also, on p. 177, Cencresi). Om, however, which La Croze translates by benedictus, i.e. blessed, can when applied to the Deity mean nothing but beatified (p. 507). Now P. Franc. Horatius, when he asked the Lhamas of Tibet, as he often did, what they understood by God (Concioa) always got the answer:—“it is the assembly of all the saints,” i.e. the assembly of those blessed ones who have been born again according to the faith of the Lama and, after many wanderings in changing forms, have at last returned to God, to Burchane: that is to say, they are beings to be worshipped, souls which have undergone transmigration (p. 223). So the mysterious expression Konx Ompax ought probably to mean the holy (Konx), blessed, (Om) and wise (Pax) supreme Being pervading the universe, the personification of nature. Its use in the Greek mysteries probably signified monotheism for the Epoptes, in distinction from the polytheism of the people, although elsewhere P. Horatius scented atheism here. How that mysterious word came by way of Tibet to the Greeks may be explained as above; and, on the other hand, in this way is made probable an early intercourse of Europe with China across Tibet, earlier perhaps than the communication with Hindustan. (There is some difference of opinion as to the meaning of the words ???? ?pa?—according to Liddell and Scott, a corruption of ????, ????? p??. Kant’s inferences here seem to be more than far-fetched. Lobeck, in his Aglaophamus (p. 775), gives a quite different interpretation which has, he says, been approved by scholars. And Whately (Historic Doubts relative to Napoleon Bonaparte, 3rd. ed., Postscript) uses Konx Ompax as a pseudonym. [Tr.]) [135] In the mechanical system of nature to which man belongs as a sentient being, there appears, as the underlying ground of its existence, a certain form which we cannot make intelligible to ourselves except by thinking into the physical world the idea of an end preconceived by the Author of the universe: this predetermination of nature on the part of God we generally call Divine Providence. In so far as this providence appears in the origin of the universe, we speak of Providence as founder of the world (providentia conditrix; semel jussit, semper parent. Augustine). As it maintains the course of nature, however, according to universal laws of adaptation to preconceived ends, [i.e. teleological laws] we call it a ruling providence (providentia gubernatrix). Further, we name it the guiding providence (providentia directrix), as it appears in the world for special ends, which we could not foresee, but suspect only from the result. Finally, regarding particular events as divine purposes, we speak no longer of providence, but of dispensation (directio extraordinaria). As this term, however, really suggests the idea of miracles, although the events are not spoken of by this name, the desire to fathom dispensation, as such, is a foolish presumption in men. For, from one single occurrence, to jump at the conclusion that there is a particular principle of efficient causes and that this event is an end and not merely the natural [naturmechanische] sequence of a design quite unknown to us is absurd and presumptuous, in however pious and humble a spirit we may speak of it. In the same way to distinguish between a universal and a particular providence when regarding it materialiter, in its relation to actual objects in the world (to say, for instance, that there may be, indeed, a providence for the preservation of the different species of creation, but that individuals are left to chance) is false and contradictory. For providence is called universal for the very reason that no single thing may be thought of as shut out from its care. Probably the distinction of two kinds of providence, formaliter or subjectively considered, had reference to the manner in which its purposes are fulfilled. So that we have ordinary providence (e.g. the yearly decay and awakening to new life in nature with change of season) and what we may call unusual or special providence (e.g. the bringing of timber by ocean currents to Arctic shores where it does not grow, and where without this aid the inhabitants could not live). Here, although we can quite well explain the physico-mechanical cause of these phenomena—in this case, for example, the banks of the rivers in temperate countries are over-grown with trees, some of which fall into the water and are carried along, probably by the Gulf Stream—we must not overlook the teleological cause which points to the providential care of a ruling wisdom above nature. But the concept, commonly used in the schools of philosophy, of a co-operation on the part of the Deity or a concurrence (concursus) in the operations going on in the world of sense, must be dropped. For it is, firstly, self-contradictory to couple the like and the unlike together (gryphes jungere equis) and to let Him who is Himself the entire cause of the changes in the universe make good any shortcomings in His own predetermining providence (which to require this must be defective) during the course of the world; for example, to say that the physician has restored the sick with the help of God—that is to say that He has been present as a support. For causa solitaria non juvat. God created the physician as well as his means of healing; and we must ascribe the result wholly to Him, if we will go back to the supreme First Cause which, theoretically, is beyond our comprehension. Or we can ascribe the result entirely to the physician, in so far as we follow up this event, as explicable in the chain of physical causes, according to the order of nature. Secondly, moreover, such a way of looking at this question destroys all the fixed principles by which we judge an effect. But, from the ethico-practical point of view which looks entirely to the transcendental side of things, the idea of a divine concurrence is quite proper and even necessary: for example, in the faith that God will make good the imperfection of our human justice, if only our feelings and intentions are sincere; and that He will do this by means beyond our comprehension, and therefore we should not slacken our efforts after what is good. Whence it follows, as a matter of course, that no one must attempt to explain a good action as a mere event in time by this concursus; for that would be to pretend a theoretical knowledge of the supersensible and hence be absurd. [136] Id est, which we cannot dissever from the idea of a creative skill capable of producing them. [Tr.] [138] Of all modes of livelihood the life of the hunter is undoubtedly most incompatible with a civilised condition of society. Because, to live by hunting, families must isolate themselves from their neighbours, soon becoming estranged and spread over widely scattered forests, to be before long on terms of hostility, since each requires a great deal of space to obtain food and raiment. God’s command to Noah not to shed blood (I. Genesis, IX. 4-6)
is frequently quoted, and was afterwards—in another connection it is true—made by the baptised Jews a condition to which Christians, newly converted from heathendom, had to conform. Cf. Acts XV. 20; XXI. 25. This command seems originally to have been nothing else than a prohibition of the life of the hunter; for here the possibility of eating raw flesh must often occur, and, in forbidding the one custom, we condemn the other. [139] About 1000 English miles. [140] The question might be put:—“If it is nature’s will that these Arctic shores should not remain unpopulated, what will become of their inhabitants, if, as is to be expected, at some time or other no more driftwood should be brought to them? For we may believe that, with the advance of civilisation, the inhabitants of temperate zones will utilise better the wood which grows on the banks of their rivers, and not let it fall into the stream and so be swept away.” I answer: the inhabitants of the shores of the River Obi, the Yenisei, the Lena will supply them with it through trade, and take in exchange the animal produce in which the seas of Arctic shores are so rich—that is, if nature has first of all brought about peace among them. [141] Cf. Enc. Brit. (9th ed.), art. “Indians”, in which there is an allusion to “Fuegians, the Pescherais” of some writers. [Tr.] [142] Rousseau uses these terms in speaking of democracy. (Cont. Soc., III. Ch. 4.) “If there were a nation of Gods, they might be governed by a democracy: but so perfect a government will not agree with men.” But he writes elsewhere of republican governments (op. cit., II. Ch. 6):—“All lawful governments are republican.” And in a footnote to this passage:—“I do not by the word ‘republic’ mean an aristocracy or democracy only, but in general all governments directed by the public will which is the law. If a government is to be lawful, it must not be confused with the sovereign power, but be considered as the administrator of that power: and then monarchy itself is a republic.” This language has a close affinity with that used by Kant. (Cf. above, p. 126.) [Tr.] [143] See above, p. 69, note, esp. reference to Theory of Ethics. [Tr.] [144] Difference of religion! A strange expression, as if one were to speak of different kinds of morality. There may indeed be different historical forms of belief,—that is to say, the various means which have been used in the course of time to promote religion,—but they are mere subjects of learned investigation, and do not really lie within the sphere of religion. In the same way there are many religious works—the Zendavesta, Veda, Koran etc.—but there is only one religion, binding for all men and for all times. These books are each no more than the accidental mouthpiece of religion, and may be different according to differences in time and place. [145] Montesquieu speaks thus in praise of the English state:—“As the enjoyment of liberty, and even its support and preservation, consists in every man’s being allowed to speak his thoughts and to lay open his sentiments, a citizen in this state will say or write whatever the laws do not expressly forbid to be said or written.” (Esprit des Lois, XIX. Ch. 27.) Hobbes is opposed to all free discussion of political questions and to freedom as a source of danger to the state. [Tr.] [146] Kant is thinking here not of the sword of justice, in the moral sense, but of a sword which is symbolical of the executive power of the actual law. [Tr.] [147] Cf. Aristotle: Politics, (Welldon’s trans.) IV. Ch. XIV. “The same principles of morality are best both for individuals and States.” Among the ancients the connection between politics and morals was never questioned, although there were differences of opinion as to which science stood first in importance. Thus, while Plato put politics second to morals, Aristotle regarded politics as the chief science and ethics as a part of politics. This connection between the sciences was denied by Machiavelli, who lays down the dictum that, in the relations of sovereigns and states, the ordinary rules of morality do not apply. See The Prince, Ch. XVIII. “A Prince,” he says, “and most of all a new Prince, cannot observe all those rules of conduct in respect of which men are accounted good, being frequently obliged, in order to preserve his Princedom, to act in opposition to good faith, charity, humanity, and religion. He must therefore keep his mind ready to shift as the winds and tides of Fortune turn, and, as I have already said, he ought not to quit good courses if he can help it, but should know how to follow evil courses if he must.” Hume thought that laxer principles might be allowed to govern states than private persons, because intercourse between them was not so “necessary and advantageous” as between individuals. “There is a system of morals,” he says, “calculated for princes, much more free than that which ought to govern private persons,” (Treatise, III., Part II., Sect. IX.) [Tr.] [148] These are permissive laws of reason which allow us to leave a system of public law, when it is tainted by injustice, to remain just as it is, until everything is entirely revolutionised through an internal development, either spontaneous, or fostered and matured by peaceful influences. For any legal constitution whatsoever, even although it conforms only slightly with the spirit of law is better than none at all—that is to say, anarchy, which is the fate of a precipitate reform. Hence, as things now are, the wise politician will look upon it as his duty to make reforms on the lines marked out by the ideal of public law. He will not use revolutions, when these have been brought about by natural causes, to extenuate still greater oppression than caused them, but will regard them as the voice of nature, calling upon him to make such thorough reforms as will bring about the only lasting constitution, a lawful constitution based on the principles of freedom. [149] It is still sometimes denied that we find, in members of a civilised community, a certain depravity rooted in the nature of man;[C] and it might, indeed, be alleged with some show of truth that not an innate corruptness in human nature, but the barbarism of men, the defect of a not yet sufficiently developed culture, is the cause of the evident antipathy to law which their attitude indicates. In the external relations of states, however, human wickedness shows itself incontestably, without any attempt at concealment. Within the state, it is covered over by the compelling authority of civil laws. For, working against the tendency every citizen has to commit acts of violence against his neighbour, there is the much stronger force of the government which not only gives an appearance of morality to the whole state (causae non causae), but, by checking the outbreak of lawless propensities, actually aids the moral qualities of men considerably, in their development of a direct respect for the law. For every individual thinks that he himself would hold the idea of right sacred and follow faithfully what it prescribes, if only he could expect that everyone else would do the same. This guarantee is in part given to him by the government; and a great advance is made by this step which is not deliberately moral, towards the ideal of fidelity to the concept of duty for its own sake without thought of return. As, however, every man’s good opinion of himself presupposes an evil disposition in everyone else, we have an expression of their mutual judgment of one another, namely, that when it comes to hard facts, none of them are worth much; but whence this judgment comes remains unexplained, as we cannot lay the blame on the nature of man, since he is a being in the possession of freedom. The respect for the idea of right, of which it is absolutely impossible for man to divest himself, sanctions in the most solemn manner the theory of our power to conform to its dictates. And hence every man sees himself obliged to act in accordance with what the idea of right prescribes, whether his neighbours fulfil their obligation or not. [C] This depravity of human nature is denied by Rousseau, who held that the mind of man was naturally inclined to virtue, and that good civil and social institutions are all that is required. (Discourse on the Sciences and Arts, 1750.) Kant here takes sides with Hobbes against Rousseau. See Kant’s Theory of Ethics, Abbott’s trans. (4th ed., 1889), p. 339 seq.—esp. p. 341 and note. Cf. also Hooker’s Ecclesiastical Polity, I. § 10:—“Laws politic, ordained for external order and regiment amongst men, are never framed as they should be, unless presuming the will of man to be inwardly obstinate, rebellious, and averse from all obedience to the sacred laws of his nature; in a word, unless presuming man to be, in regard of his depraved mind, little better than a wild beast, they do accordingly provide, notwithstanding, so to frame his outward actions, that they be no hindrance unto the common good, for which societies are instituted.” [Tr.] [150] With regard to the meaning of the moral law and its significance in the Kantian system of ethics, see Abbott’s translation of the Theory of Ethics (1889), pp. 38, 45, 54, 55, 119, 282. [Tr.] [151] See Abbott’s trans., pp. 33, 34. [Tr.] [152] Matthew Arnold defines politics somewhere as the art of “making reason and the will of God prevail”—an art, one would say, difficult enough. [Tr.] [153] “When a king has dethroned himself,” says Locke, (On Civil Government, Ch. XIX. § 239) “and put himself in a state of war with his people, what shall hinder them from prosecuting him who is no king, as they would any other man, who has put himself into a state of war with them?” ... “The legislative being only a fiduciary power to act for certain ends, there remains still in the people a supreme power to remove or alter the legislative.” (Op. cit., Ch. XIII. § 149.) And again, (op. cit., Ch. XI. § 134.) we find the words, “... over whom [i.e. society] no body can have a power to make laws, but by their own consent, and by authority received from them.” Cf. also Ch. XIX. § 228 seq. Hobbes represents the opposite point of view. “How many kings,” he wrote, (Preface to the Philosophical Rudiments concerning Government and Society) “and those good men too, hath this one error, that a tyrant king might lawfully be put to death, been the slaughter of! How many throats hath this false position cut, that a prince for some causes may by some certain men be deposed! And what bloodshed hath not this erroneous doctrine caused, that kings are not superiors to, but administrators for the multitude!” This “erroneous doctrine” Kant received from Locke through Rousseau. He advocated, or at least practised as a citizen, a doctrine of passive obedience to the state. A free press, he held, offered the only lawful outlet for protest against tyranny. But, in theory, he was an enemy to absolute monarchy. [Tr.] [154] We can find the voucher for maxims such as these in Herr Hofrichter Garve’s essay, On the Connection of Morals with Politics, 1788. This worthy scholar confesses at the very beginning that he is unable to give a satisfactory answer to this question. But his sanction of such maxims, even when coupled with the admission that he cannot altogether clear away the arguments raised against them, seems to be a greater concession in favour of those who shew considerable inclination to abuse them, than it might perhaps be wise to admit. Transcriber's note
|
|
