I CD
PERPETUAL PEACE
"For I dipt into the future, far a* human eye could see,
Saw the Vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be}
Saw the heavens fill with commerce, argosies of magic sails,
Pilots of the purple twilight, dropping down with costly bales;
Heard the heavens fill with shouting, and there rain'd a ghastly dew
From tho nations' airy navies grappling in the central blue;
Far along the world-wide whisper of the south-wind rushing warm,
With the standards of the peoples plunging thro' the thunder-storm;
Till the war-drum throbb'd no longer, and the battle-flags were furl'd
In the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world.
There the common sense of most shall hold a fretful realm in we,
And tb kindly earth shall dumber, lapt in universal law."
TBNKYIO.N; Lcckthy Halt.
PERPETUAL PEACE
A PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAY
BY
IMMANUEL KANT
1795
TRANSLATED WITH INTRODUCTION
AND NOTES BY
M. CAMPBELL SMITH, M.A.
WITH A PREFACE BY PROFESSOR LATTA
501791
??-. ie. <i
LONDON : GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN LTD.
RUSKIN HOUSE 40 MUSEUM STREET, W.C.
NEW YORK : THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
First Edition, 1903
Second Impression, February 191$
Third February 1917
PREFACE
THIS translation of Kant's essay on Perpetual
Peacf was undertaken by Miss Mary Campbell
Smith at the suggestion of the late Professor
Ritchie of St. Andrews, who had promised to write
for it a preface, indicating the value of Kant's
work in relation to recent discussions regarding the
possibility of "making wars to cease." In view
of the general interest which these discussions have
aroused and of the vague thinking and aspiration
which have too often characterised them, it seemed
to Professor Ritchie that a translation of this wise
and sagacious essay would be both opportune and
valuable. * His untimely death has prevented the
fulfilment of his promise, and I have been asked,
in his stead, to introduce the translator's work.
This is, I think, the only complete translation
into English of Kant's essay, including all the notes
as well as the text, and the translator has added
a full historical Introduction, along with numerous
notes of her own, so as (in Professor Ritchie's words)
"to meet the needs (i) of the student of Political
* Cf. his Studies in Political and Social Ethics, pp. 169, 170,
vi Preface
Science who wishes to understand the relation of
Kant's theories to those of Grotius, Hobbes, Locke,
Rousseau etc., and (2) of the general reader who
wishes to understand the significance of Kant's
proposals in connection with the ideals of Peace
Congresses, and with the development of International
Law from the end of the Middle Ages to the Hague
Conference."
Although it is more than 100 years since Kant's
essay was written, its substantial value is practically
unimpaired. Anyone who is acquainted with the
general character of the mind of Kant will expect
to find in him sound common-sense, clear recogni-
tion of the essential facts of the case and a remark-
able power of analytically exhibiting the conditions
on which the facts necessarily depend. These
characteristics are manifest in the essay on Perpetual
Peace. Kant is not pessimist enough to believe
that a perpetual peace is an unrealisable dream or
a consummation devoutly to be feared, nor is he
optimist enough to fancy that it is an ideal which
could easily be realised if men would but turn
their hearts to one another. For Kant perpetual
peace is an ideal, not merely as a speculative
Utopian idea, with which in fancy we may play,
but as a moral principle, which ought to be, and
therefore can be, realised. Yet he makes it perfectly
clear that we cannot hope to approach the realisation
Preface vii
of it unless we honestly face political facts and get
a firm grasp of the indispensable conditions of a
lasting peace. To strive after the ideal in contempt
or in ignorance of these conditions is a labour that
must inevitably be either fruitless or destructive of
its own ends. Thus Kant demonstrates the hope-
lessness of any attempt to secure perpetual peace
between independent nations. Such nations may
make treaties; but these are binding only for so
long as it is not to the interest of either party to
denounce them. To enforce them is impossible
while the nations remain independent. "There is,"
as Professor Ritchie put it (Studies in Political and
Social Ethics, p. 169), only one way in which war
between independent '"nations can be prevented;
and that is by the nations ceasing to be indepen-
dent." But this does not necessarily mean the
establishment of a despotism, whether autocratic
or democratic. on the other hand, Kant maintains
that just as peace between individuals within a
state can only be permanently secured by the
institution of a "republican" (that is to say, a
representative) government, so the only real guarantee
-of a permanent peace between nations is the
establishment of a federation of free "republican"
states. Such a federation he regards as practically
possible. ' " For if Fortune ordains that a powerful
and enlightened people should form a republic
viii Preface
which by its very nature is inclined to perpetual
peace this would serve as a centre of federal
union for other states wishing to join, and thus
secure ^conditions of freedom among the states in
accordance with the idea of the law of nations.
Gradually, through different unions of this kiud r
the federation would extend further and further. '"
Readers who are acquainted with the general
philosophy of Kant will find many traces of its
influence in the essay on Perpetual Peace. Those
who have no knowledge of his philosophy may
find some of his forms of statement rather difficult
to understand, and it may therefore not be out of
place for me to indicate very briefly the meaning^
of some terms which he frequently uses, especially* <
in the Supplements and Appendices. Thus at the
beginning of the First Supplement, Kant draws a
distinction between the mechanical and the teleo-
logical view of things, between "nature " and " Provi-1
dence", which depends upon his main philosophical
position. According to Kant, pure reason has two-
aspects, theoretical and practical. As concerning",
knowledge, strictly so called, the a priori principles
of reason (e.g. substance and attribute, cause and'
effect etc.) are valid only within the realm of'
possible sense-experience. Such ideas, for instance,
cannot be extended to God, since He is not a
possible object of sense-experience. They are limited
Preface he
I
to the world of phenomena. This world of pheno-
mena ("nature" or the world of sense-experience)
is a purely mechanical system. But in order to
understand fully the phenomenal world, the pure
theoretical reason must postulate certain ideas (the
ideas of the soul, the world and God), the objects
of which transcend sense-experience. These ideas
are not theoretically valid, but their validity is-'
practically established by the pure practical reason/
which does not yield speculative truth, but pre-'
scribes its principles " dogmatically " in the form of
imperatives to the will. ~ The will is itself practical
reason, and thus it imposes its imperatives upon.
itself. The fundamental imperative of the practical
reason is stated by Kant in Appendix I. (p. 175):
" Act so that thou canst will that thy maxim should
be a universal law, be the end of thy action what
it will." If the end of perpetual peace is a duty,
it must be necessarily deduced from this general
law. And Kant does regard it as a duty. "We
must desire perpetual peace not only as a material
good, but also as a state of things resulting fromr
our recognition of the precepts of duty " (loc. cit.).
This is further expressed in the maxim (p. 177):
" Seek ye first the kingdom of pure practical reason
and its righteousness, and the object of your
endeavour, the blessing of perpetual peace, will be
added unto you." The distinction between the
X Preface
moral politician and the political moralist, which is
developed in Appendix I., is an application of the
general distinction between duty and expediency,
which is a prominent feature of the Kantian ethics.
Methods of .expediency, omitting all reference to
the pure practical reason, can only bring about
re-arrangements of circumstances in the mechanical
course of nature. They can never guarantee the
attainment of their end: they can never make it
more than a speculative ideal, which may or may
not be practicable. But if the end can be shown
to be a duty, we have, from Kant's point of view,
the only reasonable ground for a conviction that
it is realisable. We cannot, indeed, theoretically
know that it is realisable. "Reason is not suffi-
ciently enlightened to survey the series of predeter-
mining causes which would make it possible for
us to predict with certainty the good or bad
results of human action, as they follow from the
mechanical laws of nature; although we may hope
that things will turn out as we should desire" (p.
163). on the other hand, since the idea of perpetual,
peace is a moral ideal, an "idea of duty ", we are
-entitled to believe that it is practicable. - "Nature
guarantees the coming of perpetual peace, through
the natural course of human propensities ; not indeed
with sufficient certainty to enable us to prophesy
the future of this ideal theoretically, but yet clearly
Preface x?
enough for practical purposes " (p. 157). one might
extend this discussion indefinitely; but what has
been said may 'suffice for general guidance.
The "wise and sagacious" thought of Kant is
not expressed in a simple style, and the translation
has consequently been a very difficult piece of
work. But the translator has shown great skill in
manipulating the involutions, parentheses and
prodigious sentences of the original. In this she has
had the valuable help of Mr. David Morrison, M.A. r
who revised the whole translation with the greatest
care and to whom she owes the solution of a
number of difficulties. Her work will have its
fitting reward if it succeeds in familiarising the
English-speaking student of politics with a political
essay of enduring value, written by one of the
master thinkers of modern times.
R. LATTA.
University of Glasgow, May 1903.
CONTENTS
TAG!
PREFACE BY PROFESSOR LATTA V
TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION I
PERPETUAL PEACE IO6
FIRST SECTION CONTAINING THE PRELIMINARY
ARTICLES OF PERPETUAL PEACE BETWEEN
STATES 107
SECOND SECTION CONTAINING T1IE DEFINITIVE
ARTICLES OF PERPETUAL PEACE BETWEEN
STATES Ii;
FIRST SUPPLEMENT CONCERNING THE GUARANTEE
OF PERPETUAL PEACE 143
SECOND SUPPLEMENT A SECRET ARTICLE FOR
PERPETUAL PEACE 158
APPENDIX I. on THE DISAGREEMENT BETWEEN
MORALS AND POLITICS WITH REFERENCE TO
PERPETUAL PEACE - . . l6l
APPENDIX II. CONCERNING THE HARMONY OF
POLITICS WITH MORALS ACCORDING TO THE
TRANSCENDENTAL IDEA OF PUBLIC RIGHT . 184
INDEX 197
TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION
THIS is an age of unions. Not merely in the
economic sphere, in the working world of unworthy
ends and few ideals do we find great practical
organizations; but law, medicine, science, art,
trade, commerce, politics and political economy
we might add philanthropy standing institutions,
mighty forces in our social and intellectual life, all
have helped to swell the number of our nineteenth
century Conferences and Congresses.-^ It is an age
of Peace Movements and Peace Societies, of peace-
loving monarchs and peace-seeking diplomats. This
is not to say that we are preparing for the millen-
nium. Men are working together, there is a new-
born solidarity of interest, but rivalries between
nation and nation, the bitterne^s^ and hatreds in-
separable from competition are not less keen; pre-
judice and misunderstanding not less frequent;
subordinate conflicting interests are not fewer, are
perhaps, in view of changing political conditions
and an ever-growing international commerce, multi-
plying with every year. The talisman is, perhaps,
self-interest, but, none the less, the spirit of union is
there; it is impossible to ignore" a clearly marked
I
Perpetual Peace
tendency towards international federation, towards
political peace. This slow movement was not born
with Peace Societies ; its consummation lies perhaps
far off in the ages to come. History at best moves
slowly. But something of its past progress we shall
do well to know. No political idea seems to have
so great a future before it as this idea of a fede-
ration of the world. It is bound to realise itself
some day ; let us consider what are the chances that
this day come quickly, what that it be long delayed.
What obstacles lie in the way, and how may they
be removed? What historical grounds have we for
hoping that they may ever be removed? What,
in a. word, is the origin and history of the idea of
a perpetual peace between nations, and what would
be the advantage, what is the prospect of realis-
ing it?
The international relations of states find their
ｅxpression, we are told, in war and peace. What
has been the part played by these great coun-
teracting forces in the history of nations? What
has it been in pre-historic times, in the life of man
in what is called the "state of nature"? "It is no
easy enterprise," says Rousseau, in more than
usually careful language, " to disentangle that which
is original from that which is artificial in the actual
state of man, and to make ourselves well acquainted
with a state which no longer exists, which perhaps
Translator's Introduction
never has existed and which probably never will
exist in the future." (Preface to the Discourse on
the Causes of Inequality, 1753, publ. 1754.) This
is a difficulty which Rousseau surmounts only too
easily. A knowledge of history, a" scientific spirit
may fail him: an imagination ever ready to pour
forth detail never does. Man lived, says he, " without
industry, without speech, without habitation, without
war, without connection of any kind, without any
need of his fellows or without any desire to harm
them .... sufficing to himself." * (Discourse on the
Sciences and Arts, 1750.) Nothing, we are now
certain, is less probable. We cannot paint the life
of man at this stage of his development with any
definiteness, but the conclusion is forced upon us
that our race had no golden age, f no peaceful
beginning, that this early state was indeed, as
* For the inconsistency between the views expressed by Rousseau
on this subject in the Discourses and in the Contrat Social (Cf. I.
Chs. VI., VHL) see Ritchie's Natural Right, Ch. Ill, pp. 48, 49 ;
Caird's essay on Rousseau in his Essays on Literature and
Philosophy, Vol.1.; and Morley's Rousseau, Vol. I., Ch. V.; Vol.
II., Ch. XII.
f The theory that the golden age -was identical with the state
of nature, Professor D. G. Ritchie ascribes to Locke (see Natural
Right, Ch. H., 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." \Crutt Government, II., ill.] 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
Perpetual Peace
Hobbes held, a state of war, of incessant war
between individuals, families and, finally, tribes.
The Early Conditions of Society.
For the barbarian, war is the rule; peace the
exception. His gods, like those of Greece, are war-
like gods; his spirit, at death, flees to some Val-
halla. For him life is one long battle; his arms
go with him even to the grave. Food and the
means of existence he seeks through plunder and
violence. Here right is with might; the battle is
to the strong. Nature has given all an equal claim
to all things, but not everyone can have them.
This state of fearful insecurity is bound to come
to an end. "Government," says Locke, (On Civil
Government, Chap. VIII., 105) "is hardly to be
age, and the way is prepared for the favourite theory of the eigh-
teenth 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, HI., 147 seg.]
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" i$ an equivalent for Locke's words, "has a law of nature
to govern it."
Translator's Introduction 5
avoided amongst men that live together." * A con-
stant dread of attack and a growing consciousness
of the necessity of presenting a united front against
it result in the choice of some leader the head of
a family perhaps who acts, it may be, only as cap-
tain of the hosts, as did Joshua in Israel, or who
may discharge the simple duties of a primitive
governor or king, f Peace within is found to be
strength without The civil state is established, so
that "if there needs must be war, it may not yet
* 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."
t See Hume's account of the origin of government ( Treatise, III.,
Part H, 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 tribet. This
authority, however, instructs them in the advantages of govern-
ment, 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 autho-
rity 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:
" . . f . . . 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 bill* his own,
Perpetual Peace
be against all men, nor yet without some helps."
(Hobbes: on Liberty, Chap. I., 13.) This found-
ation of the state is the first establishment in
history of a peace institution. It changes the cha-
racter of warfare, it gives it method and system;
but it does not bring peace in its train. We have
now, indeed, no longer a wholesale war of all
against all, a constant irregular raid and plunder
of one individual by another; but we have the
systematic, deliberate war of community against
community, of nation against nation. *
War in Classical Times.
In early times, there were no friendly neigh-
bouring nations: beyond ^the boundaries of every
The tasted sweets of property begat
Desire of more;
Thus \vars 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."
* " 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., (IVcrh, 1813, vol. V.) Sect
I. vii.
Translator's Introduction
nation's territory, lay the land of a deadly foe.
This was the way of thinking, even of so highly
cultured a people as the Greeks, who believed that
a law of nature had made every outsider, every
barbarian their inferior and their enemy. * Their
treaties of peace, at the time of the Persian War,
were frankly of the kind denounced by Kant, mere
armistices concluded for the purpose of renewing
their fighting strength. The ancient world is a
world of perpetual war in which defeat meant
annihilation. In the East no right was recognised
in the enemy; and even in Greece and Rome the
fate of the unarmed was death or slavery, f The
* Similarly we find that the original meaning of the Latin
word "Aosfis" was "a stranger."
t 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 Lacedaemonians 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
8 Perpetual Peace
barbaric or non-Grecian states had, according to
Plato and Aristotle, no claim upon humanity, no
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. '/., 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 circum-
stances. Methods of warfare adopted and^approved 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 [*'.*. 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 thir time.
Translator's Introduction
rights in fact of any kind. Among the Romans
things were little better. According to Mr. T. J.
Lawrence see his Principles of International Law,
III., 21, 22 they were worse. For Rome stood
alone in the world : she was bound by ties of
kinship to no other state. She was, in other words,
free from a sense of obligation to other races.
War, according to Roman ideas, was made by the
gods, apart altogether from the quarrels of rulers
or races. To disobey the sacred command, ex-
pressed in signs and auguries would have been
to hold in disrespect the law and religion of the
land. When, in the hour of victory, the Romans
refrained from pressing , their rights against the
conquered rights recognised by all Roman jurists
it was from no spirit of leniency, but in the
pursuit of a prudent and far-sighted policy, aiming
at the growth of Roman supremacy and the esta-
blishment of a world-embracing empire, shutting
out all war as it blotted out natural boundaries,
reducing all rights to the one right of imperial
citizenship. There was no real jus belli, even here
in the cradle of international law ; the only limits
to the fury of war were of a religious character.
The treatment of a defeated enemy among the
Jews rested upon a similar religious foundation.
In the East, we find a special cruelty in the conduct
of war. The wars of the Jews and Assyrians were
io Perpetual Peace
wars of extermination. The whole of the Old
Testament, it has been said, resounds with the clash
of arms. * " An eye for an eye, a tooth for a
tooth!" was the command of Jehovah to his chosen
people. Vengeance was bound up in their very
idea of the Creator. The Jews, unlike the followers
of Mahomet, attempted, and were commanded to
attempt no violent conversion f ; they were then too
weak a nation; but they fought, and fought with
success against the heathen of neighbouring lands,
the Lord of Hosts leading them forth to battle.
The God of Israel stood to his chosen people
in a unique and peculiarly - .logical relation. He
had made a covenant with them; and, in return
for their obedience and allegiance, cared for their
interests and advanced their national prosperity.
The blood of this elect people could not be
suffered to intermix with that of idolaters. Canaan
must be cleared of the heathen, on the coming
* "The Lord is a man of war," said Moses (Exodus XV. 3).
Cf. Psalms XXIV. 8. He is "mighty in battle."
f 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.
Translator's Introduction 1 1
of the children of Israel to their promised land;
and mercy to the conquered enemy, even to
women, children or animals was held by the
Hebrew prophets to be treachery to Jehovah. (Sam.
XV.; Josh. VI. 21.)
Hence the attitude of the Jews to neighbouring
nations * was still more hostile than that of the
Greeks. The cause of this difference is bound up
with the transition from polytheism to monotheism.
The most devout worshipper of the national gods
of ancient times could endure to see other gods
than his worshipped in the next town or by a
neighbouring nation. There was no reason why
all should not exist side by side. Religious conflicts
in polytheistic countries, when they arose, were due
not to the rivalry of conflicting faiths, but to an
occasional attempt to put one god above the others
in importance. There could be no interest here in
the propagation of belief through the sword. But,
under the Jews, these relations were entirely altered.
Jehovah, their Creator, became the one invisible
God. Such an one can suffer no others near him ;
their existence is a continual insult to him. Mono-
theism is, in its very nature, a religion of intolerance.
Its spirit among the Jews was warlike : it commanded
* 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 Perpetual Peace
i i i ! ..I
the subjugation of other nations, but its instrument
was rather extermination than conversion.
The Attitude of Christianity and the Early
Church to War.
From the standpoint of the peace of nations,
we may say that the Christian faith, compared
with other prominent monotheistic religious systems,
occupies an intermediate position between two ex-
tremes the fanaticism of Islam, and to a less extent
of Judaism, and the relatively passive attitude of
the Buddhist who thought himself bound to propa-
gate his religion, but held himself justified only in
the employment of peaceful means. Christianity,
oh the other hand, contains no warlike principles :
it can in no sense be called a religion of the sword,
but circumstances gave the history of the Church,
after the first few centuries of its existence, a
character which cannot be called peace-loving.
This apparent contradiction between the spirit
of the new religion and its practical attitude to war
has led to some difference of opinion as to the
actual teaching of Christ., The New Testament
seems, at a superficial glance, to furnish support
as readily to the champions of war as to its
denouncers. The Messiah is the Prince of Peace
(/>. IX. 6, 7 ; Heb. VI.), and here lies the way of
Translator s Introduction 13
righteousness (Rom. III. 19): but Christ came not
to bring peace, but a sword (Matth. X. 34). Such
statements may be given the meaning which we
wish them to bear the quoting of Scripture is
ever an unsatisfactory form of evidence; but there
is no direct statement in the New Testament in
favour of war, no saying of Christ which, fairly
interpreted, could be understood to regard this
proof of human imperfection as less condemnable
than any other. * .When men shall be without sin,
nation shall rise up against nation no more. But
man the individual can attain peace only when
he has overcome the world, when, in the struggle
with his lower self, he has come forth victorious.
This is the spiritual sword which Christ brought
into the world strife, not with the unbeliever, but
with the lower self: meekness and the spirit of
the Word of God are the weapons with which man
must fight for the Faith.
An elect people there was no longer: Israel
had rejected its Messiah. Instead there was a
complete brotherhood of all men, the bond and
the free, as children of one God. The aim of the
Church was a world-empire, bound together by
a universal religion. In this sense, as sowing
the first seeds of a universal peace, we may speak
* Neither, however, is thr iajr which regards the soldier as *
murderer.
14 Perpetual Peace
of Christianity as a re-establishment of peace among
mankind.
The later attitude of Christians to war, however,
by no means corresponds to the earliest tenets of
the Church. Without doubt, certain sects, from
the beginning of our era and through the ages up
to the present time, held, like the Mennonites and
Quakers in our day, that the divine command,
"Love your enemies," could not be reconciled
with the profession of a soldier. The early Chris-
tians were reproached under the Roman Emperors,
before the time of Constautine, with avoiding the
citizen's duty of military service. * " To those
enemies of our faith,' V v wrote Origen (Contra
Celsum, VIII., Ch. LXXIIL, Anti-Nicene Christian
Library), " who require us to bear arms for the
commonwealth, and to slay men, we can reply :
'Do not those who are priests at certain shrines,
and those who attend on certain gods, as you
account them, keep their hands free from blood,
that they may with hands unstained and free from
human blood offer the appointed sacrifices to your
* 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 : Dt Corona (Anti-Nicene Christian
Library), p. 348,
Translator s Introduction
gods; and even when war is upon you, you never
enlist the priests in the army. If that, then, is a
laudable custom, how much more so, that while
others are engaged in battle, these too should
engage as the priests and ministers of God, keeping
their hands pure, and wrestling in prayers to God
on behalf of those who are fighting in a righteous
cause, and for the king who reigns righteously,
that whatever is opposed to those who act right-
eously may be destroyed 1' .... And we do take
our part in public affairs, when along with righteous
prayers we join self-denying exercises and medita-
tions, which teach us to despise pleasures, and not
to be led away by them. And none fight better for
the king than we do. We do not indeed fight
under him, although he require it; but we fight
on his behalf, forming a special army an army of
piety by offering our prayers to God." The Fathers
of the Church, Justin Martyr, Clement of Alexandria,
Tertullian, Ambrose and the rest gave the same
testimony against war. The pagan rites connected
with the taking of the military oath had no doubt
some influence in determining the feeling of the
pious with regard to x this life of bloodshed; but
the reasons lay deeper. " Shall it be held lawful,"
asked Tertullian, (De Corona, p. 347) "to make
an occupation of the sword, when the Lord
proclaims that he who uses the sword shall perish
1 6 Perpetual Peace
by the sword? And shall the son of peace take
part in the battle when it does not become
him even to sue at law? And shall he apply
the chain, and the prison, and the torture, and the
punishment, who is not the avenger even of his
own wrongs?"
The doctrine of the Church developed early in
the opposite direction. It was its righting spirit
and not a love of peace that made Christianity a
state religion under Constantine. Nor was Augustine
the first of the Church Fathers to regard military
service as permissible, j To come to a later time,
this change of attitude has been ascribed partly to
the rise of Mahometan power and the wave of
fanaticism which broke over Europe. To destroy
these unbelievers with fire and sword was regarded
as a deed of piety pleasing to God. Hence the
wars of the Crusades against the infidel were holy
wars, and appear as a new element in the history
of civilisation. The nations of ancient times had
known only civil and foreign war. * They had
rebelled at home, and they had fought mainly for
material interests abroad. In the Middle Ages there
were, besides, religious wars and, with the rise of
* 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 1 war.
Translator's Introduction 17
Feudalism, private war: * among all the powers of
the Dark Ages and for centuries later, none was
more aggressive than the Catholic Church, nor
a more active and untiring defender of its rights
and claims, spiritual or temporal. It was in some
respects a more warlike institution than the states
of Greece and Rome. It struggled through centuries
with the Emperor : f it pronounced its ban against
disobedient states and disloyal cities: it pursued
with its vengeance each heretical or rebellious
prince: unmindful of its early traditions about
peace, it showed in every crisis a fiercely military
spirit.
For more than a thousand years the Church
* "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 Charhs V. t
(Works, vol. V.) Sect. I., p. 38.
t Erasmus in the "'IxdvoQocyiac " (Colloquies, Bailey's ed., Vol.
II., pp. 55, 56) puts forward the suggestion that a gentral peace
might be obtained in the Christian world, if the Emperor would
remit something of his right and the Pope some part of his.
Cf. Robertson, op. cit., Sect. III., p. 106, sey.
1 8 Perpetual Peace
counted fighting clergy * among its most active
supporters. This strange anomaly was, it must be
said, at first rather suffered in deference to public
opinion than encouraged by ecclesiastical canons
and councils, but it gave rise to great discontent
at the time of the Reformation, f The whole
question of the lawfulness of military service for
Christians was then raised again. "If there be
anything in the affairs of mortals," wrote Erasmus
at this time (Opera, lI.,._Pr0v., 951 C) "which it
* 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.) - ,
f 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. "Frian 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 per-
mitted to build a temple to God, because he was a man of blood.
M 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 amd meritorious
in themselves, were not in accordance with a holy calling. (Summa,
II. 2: Qu. 40.)
Translator s Introduction 19
becomes us deliberately to attack, which we ought
indeed to shun by every possible means, to
avert and to abolish, it is certainly war, than which
there is nothing more wicked, more mischievous or
more widely destructive in its effects, nothing
harder to be rid of, or more horrible and, in a word,
more unworthy of a man, not to say of a Chris-
tian." * The mediaeval Church indeed succeeded,
by the establishment of such institutions as the
Truce of God, in setting some limits to the fury
of the soldier: but its endeavours (and it made
several to promote peace) f were only to a trifling
extent successful. Perhaps custom and public
opinion in feudal Europe were too strong, perhaps
the Church showed a certain apathy in denouncing
the evils of a military society: no doubt the
theoretical tenets of its doctrine did less to hinder
war than its own strongly military tendency, its
Aquinas held that war excluding private war is justifiable in
a just cause. So too did Luther, (cf. his pamphlet : Ob Kriegsleule
auch in seligem Standc sein konnen .>) Calvin and Zwingli, the last
of whom died sword iu 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.
* See also the Querela Pads, 630 B., (Opera, IV.) :~" Whosoever
preaches Christ, preaches peace." Erasmus even goes th length
of saying that the most iniquitious peace is better than the most
just war (op. dt, t 636 C).
t Cf. Robertson, op. cit., Note XXI. p. 483 and Sect. I., p. 39.
2O Perpetual Peace
lust for power and the force of its example did to
encourage it.
Hence, in spite of Christianity and its early
vision of a brotherhood of men, the history of the
Middle Ages came nearer to a realization of
the idea of perpetual war than was possible in
ancient times. The tendency of the growth of
Roman supremacy was to diminish the number
of wars, along with the number of possible causes
of racial friction. It united many nations in one
great whole, and gave them, to a certain extent,
a common culture and common interests; even,
when this seemed prudent, a common right of
citizenship. The fewer the number of boundaries,
the less the likelihood of war. 4 The establishment
of great empires is of necessity a force, and a
great and permanent force working on the side
of peace. With the fall of Rome this guarantee
was removed.
The Development of the New Science of
International Law.
*
Out of the ruins of the old feudal system arose
the modern state as a free independent unity.
Private war between individuals or classes of society
was now branded as a breach of the peace: it
became the exclusive right of kings to appeal to
Translator s Introduction 21
force. War, wrote Gentilis * towards the end of
sixteenth century, is the just or unjust conflict
between states. Peace was now regarded as the
normal condition of society. As a result of these
great developments in which the name "state"
acquired new meaning, jurisprudence freed itself
from the trammelling conditions of mediaeval
Scholasticism. Men began to consider the problem
of the rightfulness or wrongfulness of war, to
question even the possibility of a war on rightful
grounds. Out of these^new ideas partly too as
one of the fruits of the Reformation, f arose
the first consciously formulated principles of the
science of international law, whose fuller, but
not yet complete, development belongs to modern
times.
From the beginning of history every age, every
* 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. ;
f This came about in two ways. The Church of Rome discouraged
the growth of national sentiment. At the Reformation the indepen-
dence 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 itead.
22 Perpetual Peace
people has something to show here, be it only a
rudimentary sense of justice in their dealings with
one another. We may instance the Amphictyonic
League in Greece which, while it had a merely
Hellenic basis and was mainly a religious survival,
shows the germ of some attempt at arbitration
between Greek states. Among the Romans we
have the jus feciale * and the jus gentium^ as
distinguished from the civil law of Rome, and
certain military regulations about the taking of
booty in war. Ambassadors were held inviolate
* Cf. Cicero : De OJficiis, I. xC'" Belli quidem aequitas sanctissime
feciali populi Romani jure perscripta est." (See th 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, wo 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 ^iqui,
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. cif. t I. xi., Bonn'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 muwS not sacrifice the spirit to the letter
(De Ojficiis, I. x). "There are also rights of war, and the faith
of an oath is often to be kept with an enemy." (pp. 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 reasop,
Translator's Introduction 23
in both countries; the formal declaration of war
was never omitted. Many Roman writers held the
necessity of a just cause for war. But nowhere do
these considerations form the subject matter of a
special science.
In the Middle Ages the development of these
ideas received little encouragement. All laws are
silent in the time of war, * and this was a period
of war, both bloody and constant. There was no
time to think of the right or wrong of anything,
Moreover, the Church emphasised the lack of rights
in unbelievers, and gave her blessing on their an-
nihilation, f The whple Christian world was filled
with the idea of a '-spiritual universal monarchy.
Not such as that in the minds of Greek and Jew
and Roman who had been able to picture interna-
tional peace only under the form of a great national
and exclusive empire. In this great Christian state
there were to be no distinctions between nations;
its sphere was bounded by the universe. But,
here, there was no room or recognition for inde-
pendent national states with equal and personal
rights. This recognition, opposed by the Roman
i^.i
* The saying is attributed to Pompey: "Shall I, when I am
preparing for war, think of the laws?"
t This implied, however, the idea of a united Christendom as
against the infidel, with which we maj 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.
24 Perpetual Peace
Church, is th real basis of international law.
The Reformation was the means by which the
personality of the peoples, the unity and indepen-
dence of the state were first openly admitted. on
this foundation, mainly at first in Protestant coun-
tries, the new science developed rapidly. Like the
civil state and the Christian religion, international
law may be called a peace institution.
GrotiuS) Puffendorf and Vattel.
In the beginning of the seventeenth century,
Grotius laid the foundations of a code of universal
law (Dt Jure Belli ft Pads, 1625) independent of
differences of religion, in the hope that its recog-
nition might simplify the intercourse between the
newly formed nations. The primary object of this
great work, written during the misery and horrors
of the Thirty Years' war, was expressly to draw
attention to these evils and suggest some methods
by which the severity of warfare might be miti-
gated. Grotius originally meant to explain only one
chapter of the law of nations : * his book was to
* 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,
Translator s Introduction
be called De Jure Belli, but there is scarcely any
subject of international law which he leaves un-
touched. He obtained, moreover, a general recog-
nition for the doctrine of the Law of Nature which
exerted so strong an influence upon succeeding
centuries; indeed, between these two sciences, as
between international law and ethics, he draws
no very sharp line of demarcation, although, on
the whole, in spite of an unscientific, scholastic use
of quotation from authorities, his treatment of the
\
"the position that the Jus Gentium and the Jus Naturae 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
unresenredly 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 evolve 1 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 tendencie*
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." (Of. cit., p. 100.)
26 Perpetual Peace
new field is clear and comprehensive. Grotius made
the attempt to set up an ethical principle of right,
in the stead of such doctrines of self-interest as
had been held by many of the ancient writers.
There was a law, he held, established in each state
purely with a view to the interests of that state,
but, besides this, there was another higher law in
the interest of the whole society of nations. Its
origin was divine; the reason of man commanded
his obedience. This was what we call international
law.*
Grotius distinctly holds, like Kant and Rousseau,
and unlike Hobbes, that the state can never be
regarded as a unity or institution separable from
the people; the terms civitas^ communitas, coetus,
populus, he uses indiscriminately. But these na-
tions, these independent units of society cannot live
together side by side just as they like ; they must
recognise one another as members of a European
society of states, f Law, he said, stands above
force even in war, "which may only be begun to
pursue the right;" and the beginning and manner
of conduct of war rests on fixed laws and can be
justified only in certain cases. War is not to be
\
* The name " International Law '' was first given to the law of
nations by Bentham. (Principles of Morals and Legislation t XIX, xxv.;
t In the Peace of WestphaMa, 1648, the balance of power in
Europe was recognised on the basis of terms such as these.
Translator's Introduction 27
done away with : Grotius accepts it as fact, * (as
Hobbes did later) as the natural method for set-
tling the disputes which were bound constantly to
arise between so many independent and sovereign
nations. A terrible scourge it must ever remain,
but as the only available form of legal procedure,
it is sanctioned by the practice of states and not
less by the law of nature and of nations. Grotius
did not advance beyond this position. Every vio-
lation of the law of nations can be settled but in
one way by war, the force of the stronger.
The necessary distinction between law and ethics
was drawn by Puffendorf, f a successor of Grotius
who gave an outwardly systematic form to the
doctrine of the great jurist, without adding to it
* 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 bands." (De Jure Belli et Pads, III. Ch. XXV., Whewell's
translation.)
See also op. ft/., II., Ch. XXIII., Sect. VIII, where Grotius
recommends t'hat Congresses of Christian Powers should be held
with a view to the peaceful settlement of international differences.
t Puffendorfs best known work, De Jure Natura et Gentium^
was published in 1672.
2$ Perpetual Peace
either ttrength or completeness. Hii views, when
they were not based upon the system of Grotius,
were strongly influenced by the speculation of
Hobbes, his chronological predecessor, to whom we
shall have later occasion to refer. In the works
of Vattel, * who was, next to Rousseau, the most
celebrated of Swiss publicists, we find the theory
of the customs and practice in war widely devel-
oped, and the necessity for humanising its methods
and limiting its destructive effects upon neutral
countries strongly emphasised. Grotius and Puffen-
dorf, while they recommend 'acts of mercy, hold
that there is legally no right which requires that
a conquered enemy shall be spared. This is a
matter of humanity alone. It is to the praise of
Vattel that he did much to popularise among the
highest and most powerful classes of society, ideas
of humanity in warfare, and of the rights and obliga-
tions of nations. He is, moreover, the first to make
a clear separation between this science and the
Law of Nature. What, he asks, is international law
as distinguished from the Law of Nature? What
are the powers of a state^and the duties of nations
to one another? What are the causes of quarrel
among nations, and what the means by which they
can be settled without any sacrifice of dignity?
* Le Droit des Gens was published in 1758 and translated into
English by Joseph Chitty in 1797, ( 2nd ed
Translator's Introduction 29
They are, in the first place, a friendly conciliatory
attitude; and secondly, such means of settlement
as mediation, arbitration and Peace Congresses.
These are the refuges of a peace-loving nation, in
cases where vital interests are not at stake. "Nature
gives us no right to use force, except where mild
and conciliatory measures are useless." (Law of
Nations, II. Ch. xviii. 331.) " Every power owes
it in this matter to the happiness of human society
to show itself ready for every means of recon-
ciliation, in cases where the interests at stake are
neither vital nor important." (ibid. 332.) At
the same time, it is never advisable that a Ration
should forgive an insult which it hai not the power
to resent.
The Dream of a Perpetual Peace.
But side by side with this development and
gradual popularisation of the new science of Inter-
national Law, ideas of a less practical, but not less
fruitful kind had been steadily making their way
and obtaining a strong hold upon the popular
mind. The Decree of Eternal Pacification of 1495
had abolished private war, one of the heavy curses
of the Middle Ages. ^Why should it not be ex-
tended to banish warfare between states as well?
Gradually one proposal after another was made
30 Perpetual Peace
to attain this end, or, at least, to smooth the way
for its future realisation. The first of these in
point of time is to be found in a somewhat bare,
vague form in Sully's Memoirs, * said to have been
published in 1634. Haifa century later the Quaker
William Penn suggested an international tribunal
of arbitration in the interests of peace, f But it
was by the French Abbe" St. Pierre that the problem
of perpetual peace was fairly introduced into
political literature: and this, in an age of cabinet
and dynastic wars, while the dreary cost of the
war of the Spanish succession was yet unpaid.
St. Pierre was the first who really clearly realised
and endeavoured to prove that the establishment
of a permanent state of peace is not only in the
interest of the weaker, but is required by the
European society of nations and by the reason of
man. From the beginning of the history of humanity,
poets and prophets had cherished the " sweet
dream " of a peaceful civilisation : it is in the form
of a practical project that this idea is new.
The ancient world actually represented a state
* Memoires ou (Economies Royales D'Estat, Domestiques , Politiques
ft Alililaires de Henri le Grand, par Maximilian de Bethune, Due
de Sully.
f See International Tribunals (1899), p. 20 seq. Penn's Essay
towards the Present and Future Peace of Ettrope was written about
1693, but is not included in all editions of bis works.
Translators Introduction 31
of what was almost perpetual war. This was the
reality which confronted man, his inevitable doom,
it seemed, as it had been pronounced to the fallen
sinners of Eden. Peace was something which man
had enjoyed once, but forfeited. The myth- and
poetry-loving Greeks, and, later, the poets of Rome
delighted to paint a state of eternal peace, not as
something to whose coming they could look forward
in the future, but as a golden age of purity whose
records lay buried in the past, a paradise which
had been, but which was no more. Voices, more
scientific, were raised even in Greece in attempts,
such as Aristotle's, to show that the evolution of
man had been not a course of degeneration from
perfection, but of continual progress upwards from
barbarism to civilisation <- and culture. But the
change in popular thinking on this matter was due
less to the arguments of philosophy than to a
practical experience of the causes which operate
in the interests of peace. The foundation of a
universal empire under Alexander the Great gave
temporary rest to nations heretofore incessantly
at war. Here was a proof that the Divine Will
had not decreed that man was to work out his
punishment under unchanging conditions of perpetual
warfare. This idea of a universal empire became
the Greek ideal of a perpetual peace. Such aa
empire was, in the language of th Stoics, a world-
32 Perpetual Peace
state in which all men had rights of citizenship, in
which all other nations were absorbed.
Parallel to this ideal among the Greeks, we find
the hope in Israel of a Messiah whose coming was
to bring peace, not only to the Jewish race, but
to all the nations of the earth. This idea stands
out in the sharpest contrast to the early nationalism
of the Hebrew people, who regarded every stranger
as an idolater and an enemy. The prophecies of
Judaism, combined with the cosmopolitan ideas of
Greece, were the source of the idea, which is
expressed in the teaching of Christ, of a spiritual
world-empire, an empire held together solely by
the tie of a common religion.
This hope of peace did not actually die during
the first thousand years of our era, nor even under
the morally stagnating influences of the Middle
Ages. When feudalism and private war were
abolished in Europe, it wakened to a new life.
Not merely in the mouths of poets and religious
enthusiasts was the cry raised against war, but
by scholars like Thomas More and Erasmus, jurists
like Gentilis and Grotius, men high in the state
and in the eyes of Europe like Henry IV. of
France and the Due de Sully or the Abb6 de St.
Pierre whose Projet de Paix Perpetuelle (1713)*
* Projet de traitipmtr rendre la paix perp etuelle entre Its souverain*
chretuns. Th first two volumes of this work were published in
1713 (trans. London, 1714); a third volume followed in 1717.
Translator s Introduction 33
obtained immediate popularity and wide-spread
fame. The first half of the eighteenth century was
already prepared to receive and mature a plan of
this kind.
Henry IV. and St. Pierre.
The Grand Dessein of Henry IV. is supposed
to have been formed by that monarch and repro-
duced in Sully 's Memoirs^ written in 1634 and
discovered nearly a century later by St. Pierre.
The story goes that the Abbe found the book
buried in an old garden. It has been shewn,
however, that there is little likelihood that this
project actually originated with the king, who
probably corresponded- fairly well to Voltaire's
picture of him as war Hero of the Henriade. The
plan was more likely conceived by Sully, and
ascribed to the popular king for the sake of the
better hearing and greater influence it might in
this way be likely to have, and also because,
thereby, it might be less likely to create offence
in political circles. St. Pierre himself may or may
not have been acquainted with the facts.
The so-called Grand Dessein of Henry IV. was,
shortly, as follows. * It proposed to divide Europe
Vf
* The main articles of this and other peace projects are to
be found in International Tribunals, published by the Peace
Society.
34 Perpetual Peace
between fifteen Powers, * in such a manner that the
balance of power should be established and pre-
served. These were to form a Christian republic
on the basis of the freedom and equality of its
members, the armed forces of the federation being
supported by fixed contribution. A general council,
consisting of representatives from the fifteen states,
was to make all- laws necessary for cementing the
union thus formed and for maintaining the order
once established. It would also be the business
of this senate to " deliberate on questions that
might arise, to occupy themselves with discussing
different interests, to settle quarrels amicably, to
throw light upon and arrange all the civil, political
and religious affairs of Europe, whether internal or
foreign." (Memoires, vol. VI., p. 129 seq.)
This scheme of the king or his minister was
expanded with great thoroughness and clear-sighted-
ness by the Abbe 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
* Professor Lorimcr points out that Prussia, then the Duchy of
Brandenburg, is not mentioned. (Institutes of tJu Law of Nations^
H Ch. VTI., p. 219.)
Translator s Introduction 35
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 assist-
ance 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 federa-
tion, some have disappeared and the governments of
others have completely changed. Indeed St. Pierre's
36 Perpetual Peace
scheme did not look far beyond the present. But
it has besides a too strongly political character. *
From this point of view, the Abba'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 king-
dom of Spain shall not go out of the House of
Bourbon 1" f 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. 9 We see that
these "reVes 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. ** " I, myself,
* The same objection was raised by Leibniz (see his Observations
on St. Pierre's Projet) to the scheme of Henry IV., who, says
Liebniz, thought more of overthrowing the house of Austria than
of establishing a society of sovereigns.
t Project t Art. VI., Eng. trans. (1714), p. 119.
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.
** 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
Translator's Introduction 37
i
form'd it," he says in the preface, " in full expect-
ation to see it one Day executed." As Hobbes,
says, " there can be nothing so absurd, but may
be found in the books of philosophers." * 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
Abbe" Voltaire's sneering epigram f and the irony
of Leibniz. Here, above all, in this unpractical^
enthusiasm his scheme differs. from that of Kant.
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.)
* Leviathan, I. Ch. V.
t See too Voltaire's allusion to St. Pierre in his Dictionary, under
"Religion." < "*
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 Epfst., 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. 1 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
38 Perpetual Peace
Rousseau's Criticism of St. Pierre.
Rousseau took St. Pierre's project * 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 Rous-
seau'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. f We know
that history has not supported Rousseau's conten-
tion. Dynastic wars are now no more. The Great
Powers have shown themselves able to impose their
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 Paijc Perpituelle de M. VAbbe dc
St. Pierre (Dutens, V., esp. p. 56) and the letter to Remond de
Moutmort (ibid. pp. 20, 21) where Leibniz considers this project
rather more seriously.
* " C'est un livre solide et sense," says Rousseau (Jugement mr
la Paix Perpituelle), "et il est tres important qu'il existe." [This
yugement is appended to Rousseau's Exirait du Prejet de Paix
Pcrpctuelle de Monsieur ^Abbc de Saint-Pierre, 1761.]
I 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.
Translator's Introduction 39
own conditions, where the welfare and security of
Europe have seemed to demand it. Such a develop-
ment 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. * The forma-
tion of unions on the model of the Swiss Confedera-
tion or the German Bund would, he thought, be
in the interest of all rulers. f 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.
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."
* "Les troupes resides, peste et depopulation del'Eurepe, ne sont
bonnes qu'a deux fins: ou pour attaquer et conquerir les voisins,
ou pour enchdiner et avjervir les citoyens." (fiouvtrntnunt de
, Ch. XII.)
4<D Perpetual Peace
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 Perpttuelle!}
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. ^yThe 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 in-
fluence 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, * a
* 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 (Tnquiry concerning the Principles ff
Translator's Introduction 4!
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
Sect. III. Part I.). ''This poetical fiction of the golden age i*,
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 Hobbe.
Plato (Republic, H III. IV.) refutes a hypothesis very like it,
and Cicero (Pro Sext. 1. 42) regards it as a fact universally
acknowledged.
Cf. also Spinoza (Tract. Pol. c. ii. 14): "Homines ex natura
hostes." And (c. T. 2) : " Homines civiles non nascuntur aed 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 revolu-
tion successfully carried , y put. (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 differ-
ence: "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
v ith the excess of their power over the power of the subjects.
This is what always takes place in the state of nature." (Epistlt
50, Works, Bonn's ed., Vol. II.)
42 Perpetual Peace
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, be-
comes 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 untrust-
worthy. 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. t
Ch. VI. 4.)
These precautions secure that relative peace
Translator's Introduction 43
within the state which is one of the conditions
nf the safety of the people. But it is, besides, the
duty of a sovereign to guarantee an adequate pro-
tection 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 neces-
sity. 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.* 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."
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, f the form of govern-
* The italics are mine. [Tr.]
t Professor Paulsen (Inimamtel 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, sey.} regarded an absolute
44 Perpetual Peace
ment which above all has been, and is, favourable
to war. He would no doubt have ridiculed th<*^
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.
monarchy as the only proper form of government, while in th
opinion of Locke, (On Civil Govcntmcnt, 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 accor-
dance with republican principles; as a citiren, he denid the right
of resistance to authority. (Cf. Perpetual Peate, pp. 126, 188, note.)
Translator s Introduction 45
Without something of this kind, any enduring peace
-.Has 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 baiis for a counsel
of perfection.
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 interna-
tional 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
46 Perpetual Peace
straight path of Christian endeavour, difficult to
find and difficult to keep. We must seek after
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." * This, says Hobbes
elsewhere, (On Liberty, Ch. I. 15) is the dictate of
right reason, the first and fundamental law of nature.
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 philo-
sopher. 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
* We find the same rule laid down as early as the time of
Dante. Cf. De Monarchia, Bk. IT 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."
Translator's Introduction 47
help them out as it may. But not so Kant. He
Jooks 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, i.)
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. Bui 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
Perpetual Peace
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 ivnd
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. tit.) "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 genera-
tions, 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
Translator's Introduction 49
~iT~
the dwelling which the long series of their prede-
cessors 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 peace-
ably, 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. "With-
out those, in themselves by no means lovely, qual-
ities 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
4
jo Perpetual Peace
on in an Arcadian shepherd life, in perfect harmony,
contentment, and mutual love ; but all their talents
would forever have remained hidden and undevel-
oped. 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 1 Without
these, all the excellent natural capacities of human-
ity 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
Translator's Introduction
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 develop-
ment, 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 pre-
sented 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
52 Perpetual Peace
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 exis-
tence and self-preservation. This is the sense,
gays Professor Paulsen, in which Kant like Hobbes
regards the state as "resting on a contract/ 1 * that
. Rousseau (Confrat Social: I. vi.) regards the social contract as
tacitly implied in every actual society: its articles "art 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 '-yf Inequality) But Rousseau's
interpretation of these terms is, on the whole, literal in spite of
these single passages. He speaks throughout the Confrat Sofia/,
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. no 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 Of. Wtrkt, (Rosenkranx) IX. 1 60. The original contract
Translator s Introduction 53
is to ay, on the free will of all. * Volenti nonfit
injuria. only, adds Paulsen, we must remember that
thii contract is not a historical fact, as it seemed
to iome 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.) t
is merely an idea of reason, one of those ideas which we thick
into things iu order to explain them.
Hobbes docs 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 (7'heory of the State t IV. ix., p. 294 and
note) that tht same theory of contract on which Hobbe*' 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 government have
not fulfilled the trust reposed by the people iu them. (Cf. Kant's
Perpetual Peace, p. 188, note}.
* "If you unite many men," Writes Rousseau, (Cont. Soc. t 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 volonti genirale, the common element
of all particular wills, cannot be in conflict with an/ of them.
(Op. eit., IL iii.)
f In Eng. trans., see p. 348.
54 Perpetual Peace
In this civil union, self-sought, yet sought reluc-
tantly, 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 un-
sociableness 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 re nain like individuals in a
state of nature, each existing in uncontrolled free-
dom, a law unto himself r - 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
Translator's Introduction 55
of constant preparation for a possible future cam-
paign 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 per-
petual 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 Uni-
versal 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 pre-supposes 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
$6 Per Ritual Peace
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 ful-
filment of treaties and so on (Art. i) * : 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. i.)f 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.
* See p. 107. ^
t See p. lao.
Translators Introduction $7
First, the perfect civil constitution according to
right: then the federation of these law-abiding
Powers. This ia the path which reason marks
out. The treatise on Perpetual Peact 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.
> *
The Political and Social Conditions of Kanfs 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 constitu-
tion 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 perpe-
tual dynastic wars of the kind he most hotly con-
demned. Kant had no feeling of love to Prussia, *
and little of a citizen's patriotic pride, or even in-
* 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 Perpetual Peace
terest, 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, * 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
* Isolated passages are sometimes quoted from Kant in support
of a theory that the present treatise is at least half ironical l and
that his views on the question of perpetual peace did not essenti-
ally 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. \Yhile, 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 lias a good side as \\ell 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 condi-
tions 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. (J^heory of Ethics, Abbott's trans., 4th ed., p. 341, note.)
1 Cf. K. v. Stengel: Der Ewig* Friede, Munich, 1899; also
Vaihinger: Kantstudien, Vol. IV., p. 58,
Translator's Introduction 59
Prussia to America, in whose struggle for indepen-
dence he tpok 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 slate 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 maritim6*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. * He
* Cf. Idea for a Universal History, Prop. 8 ; Perpetual Peace,
pp. 142, 157.
60 Ptrpttual Peace
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.
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. * It was accord-
ing 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 realisa-
tion 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."
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 stag* in the series of wars which followed the
French Ryoluiion,
Translator's Introduction 6 1
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 *
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 free-
dom from the trammels of sense.
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 (1/95), a less eloquent and less purely
philosophical essay than that of 1784, but through-
out 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.
* It is tine unausfuhrbabe /ato. See tk passage quoted from
the Rtfhtsltkre, p. 129, note.
62 Perpetual Peace
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. QThe 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, * 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
* Gtschichte der tuueren Philosophic, (4th cd., 1899), Vol. V., I.
Ch. 12, p. 1 68 seq.
Translator's Introduction 63
peace. (Art. 6.) * The treaty which brings hc/Stili-
ties to an end must be concluded in an honest
desire for peace. (Art. i.)f 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: (i) indirectly, by causing
danger to others through the growth of its stand-
ing army (Art. 3) 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) ** 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.) ft Nor can states be in-
herited or conquered (Art. 2), or in any way
treated in a manner subversive of their indepen-
dence and sovereignty as individuals. For a similar
reason, armed troops cannot be hired and sold as
things.
* See p. 114.
t See p. 107.
See p. no.
** See p. in.
ft S p. ii 2.
See p. i8.
64 Perpetual Peace
These then are the negative conditions of peace. *
There are, besides, three positive conditions :
* A large part of Kant's requirements as they art expressed iu
these Preliminary Articles has already been fulfilled. The first
(Art. l) is recognised in theory at least by modern international
law. More cannot be said. A tre.ity 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 Prussin. 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 a 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 modem
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 tilings 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 th
institution of National Debts an institution which, as Kant point*
out, owes its origin to the English, th "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 t
IL 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 bene-
volence. The natural affinity and kinship ^between men is,
says he, (Lts Devoirs eU Fkomme it 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 implore*
our aid and whm wt can do it conveniently" (The italics are
Translator's Introduction 65
(a) The intercourse of nations is to be confined to
a right of hospitality. (Art. 3.) * There is nothing
new to us in this assertion of a right of way.
The right to free means of international com-
munication 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 "condi-
tions of universal hospitality." Commerce depends
upon this freedom of international intercourse,
and on commerce mainly depends our hope of
peace.
(b] The first Definitive Article f 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
* See p. 137. The main principle involved in this passage comes
from Vattel (e>p. eit., H 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.
f See p. 120.
5
66 Ptrpttual Peace
constitution should be a representative one, guar-
anteeing public justice and based on the freedom
and equality of its members and their mutual depen-
dence 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 princi-
ples of right is the essential point. * To make
* 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. (fCanf, 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 Blatter > 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
Translator 's Introduction 67
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.
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 * and
V.
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. II, 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.
* St. Pierre actually thought that his federation would prevent
civil war. See Project (1714), p. 16.
Ptrpttual Peace
the means by which it may be prevented or
abolished. Actually to achieve this would be im-
possible : it is beyond the power of either arbitration
or disarmament. But in a representative government
and the liberty of a people lie the greatest safe-
guards against internal discontent. Civil peace and
international peace must to a certain extent go
hand in hand.
We come now to the central idea of the treatise :
(c) the law of nations must be based upon a federation
of free states. (Art. 2.) * This must be regarded as
the end to which mankind is advancing. The
problem here is not out of many nations to make
one. This would be perhaps the surest way to
attain peace, but it is scarcely practicable, and, in
certain forms, it is undesirable. Kant is inclined to
approve of the separation of nations by language
and religion, by historical and social tradition and
physical boundaries: nature seems to condemn the
idea of a universal monarchy, f The only footing
* See p. 128.
f This was the ideal of Daute. Cf. De Monq.rchia t Bk. I. 54 :
"We shall not find at any tune estcept under the divine monarch
Augustus, when a perfect monarchy existed, that the world was
everywhere quiet."
Bluntschli (Theory of ike St*tc t L Ch. ii., p. 26 J*f.) gives an
admirable account of the different attempts made to realise a
universal empire in the past the Empire of Alexander the Great,
ba^4 upon a plan of uniting the races of east and west; the
Roman Empire which sought vainly to stamp its national character
Translator's Introduction 69
on which a thorough-going, indubitable system of
international law is in practice possible is that of
the society of nations : not the world-republic *
the Greeks dreamt of, but a federation of states.
Such a union in the interests of perpetual peace
between nations would be the "highest political
good." The relation of the federated states to one
another and to the whole would be fixed by cosmo-
politan law : the link of self-interest which would
bind them would again be the spirit of commerce.
This scheme of a perpetual peace had not escaped
ridicule in the eighteenth century: the name of
upon mankind; the Prankish 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.
* 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,
(\Verke, VII. 467) strongly disapproves of a unirersal 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 commonweath under one
sovereign, but of a federation regulated by legal principles determined
by a common code of international law.'. 1 (Das mag in d. Theorit
richtig stift, Wetkt, (Rosenkranz) VII., p. 225). Cf. also Thtory cf
F.tkics, (Abbott), p. 341, note,' Ptrpttual Pt<ut, pp. 155, 156.
70 Perpetual Peace
Kant protected it henceforth. The facts of history,
even more conclusively than the voices of philo-
sophers, soldiers and princes, show how great has
been the progress of this idea in recent years.
But it has not gained its present hold upon the
popular mind without great and lasting opposition.
Indeed we have here what must still be regarded
as a controversial question. There have been,
and are still, men who regard perpetual peace
as a state of things as undesirable as it is un-
attainable. For such persons, war is a necessity
of our civilisation: it is impossible that it should
ever cease to exist. All that we can do, and
there is no harm, nor any contradiction in the
attempt, is to make wars shorter, fewer and more
humane : the whole question, beyond this, is without
practical significance. Others, on the other hand,
and these perhaps more thoughtful regard war as
hostile to culture, an evil of the worst kind, although
a necessary evil. In peace, for them, lies the true
ideal of humanity, although in any perfect form this
cannot be realised in the near future. The extreme
forms of these views are to be sought in what has
been called in Germany ^." the philosophy of the
barracks " which comes forward with a glorification of
war for its own sake, and in the attitude of modern
Peace Societies which denounce all war wholesale,
without respect of causes or conditions.
Translators Introduction 71
Hegel, Schil^r and Moltke.
Hegel, the greatest of the champions of war,
would have nothing to do with Kant's federation
of nations formed in the interests of peace. The
welfare of a state, he held, is its own highest
law ; and he refused to admit that this welfare
was to be sought in an international peace. Hegel
lived in an age when all power and order seemed
to lie with the sword. Something of the charm
of Napoleonism seems to hang over him. He
does not go the length of writers like Joseph
de Maistre, who see in war the finger of God or
an arrangement for the survival of the fittest a
theory, as far as regards individuals, quite in
contradiction with the real facts, which show that
it is precisely the physically unfit whom war,
as a method of extermination, cannot reach. But,
like Schiller and Moltke, Hegel sees in war an
educative instrument, developing virtues in a
nation which could not be fully developed other-
wise, (much as pain and suffering bring patience
and resignation and other such qualities into play
in the individual), and drawing the nation together,
making each citizen conscious of his citizenship, as
no other influence can. War, he holds, leaves a
nation always stronger than it was before ; it buries
causes of inner dissension, and consolidates the
7 2 Perpetual Peace
internal power of the state. *> No other trial can,
in the same way, show what is the real strength
and weakness of a nation, what it ts, not
merely materially, but physically, intellectually
and morally.
With this last statement most people will be
inclined to agree. There is only a part of the
truth in Napoleon's dictum that " God is on the
side of the biggest battalions " ; or in the old saying
that war requires three necessaries in the first
place, money; in the second place, money; and in
the third, money. Money is a great deal : it is a
necessity; but what we call national back-bone
and character is more. So far we are with
Hegel. But he goes further. In peace, says he,
mankind would grow effeminate and degenerate in
luxury. This opinion was expressed in forcible
language in his own time by Schilier,t and in more
See the Philosophic <t. R t cktt t (K'trke, Vol. VHJ.) Part iti.
324 and appendix.
f Cf. Die Braut von Mtssina.-
"Denn der Mensch verkiimmert im Frieden,
Miissige Ruh' 1st das Grab des Muths.
Das Gesetz ist der Freund des Schwachen,
Alles will es nur eben machen,
Mochte gerne die Welt verflachen;
Aber der Krieg lasst die Kraft erscheinen,
Alles erhebt er sum Ungemeinen,
Selber dem Feigen erzeugt er den Muth."
Thii passage perhaps scarcely give* a fair repr*entatiom of
Schiller's views on the question, which, if wo jdg from Wilhtlm
Translator's Introduction 73
recent years by Count Moltke. " Perpetual peace,"
says a letter of the great general,* "is a dream
and not a beautiful dream either : war is part of
the divine order of the world. During war are
developed the noblest virtues which belong to man
courage and self-denial, fidelity to duty and the
spirit of self-sacrifice : the soldier is called upon
to risk his life. Without war the world would
sink in materialism." f "Want and misery, disease,
suffering and war," he says elsewhere, "are all
TV//, 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.
Weun der Gedriickte nirgends Recht kanfi. ftnden,
Wenn unertraglich wird die Last greift er
Hinauf getrosten Muthes in den Himmel
Und holt herunter seine ew'gen Rechte,
Die droben hangen unverausserlich
Und unzerbrechlich, wie die Sterne selbst
Der alte Urstand der Natur kehrt wieder.
Wo Mensch dem Menschen gegenuber iteht
Zum letzten Mittel, wenn kein andres mehr
Verfangen will, 1st ihm das Schwert gegeben."
* Letter to Bluntschli, dated Berlin, nth Dec., 1880 (published
in Bluntschli's Gesammelte Kleine Schriften, Vol. II., p. 271).
f 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 hart of the citiien hissing in war om his OWE
hearthstone?
74 Perpetual Peace
given elements in the Divine order of the uni-
verse." Moltke's eulogy of war, however, is some-
what modified by his additional statement that
"the greatest kindness in war lies in its being
quickly ended." (Letter to Bluntschli, nth Dec.,
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 tmooth-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 I1T., 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 shame*,
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."
Translator s Introduction 75
1880.) * The great forces which we recognise as
factors in the moral regeneration of mankind are
always slow of action as they are sure. War, if
too quickly over, could not have the great moral
influence which has been attributed to it. The
explanation may be that it is not all that it naturally
appears to a great and successful general. Hegel,
Moltke, Trendelenburg, Treitschke f and the others
not Schiller who was able to sing the blessings of
peace as eloquently as of war were apt to forget
that war is as efficient a school for forming vices as
virtues; and that, moreover, those virtues which
military life is said to cultivate courage, self-sacri-
fice and the rest can be at least as perfectly
developed in other trials. There are in human life
dangers every day bravely met and overcome which
are not less terrible than those which face the soldier,
in whom patriotism may be less a sentiment than a
duty, and whose cowardice must be dearly paid.
War under Altered Conditions.
The Peace Societies of our century, untiring
supporters of a point of view diametrically opposite
* Moltke strangely enough was, at an earlier period, of the
opinion that war, even when it is successful, is a national mis-
fortune. Cf. Kehrbach's preface to Kant's essay, Zum Ewtge*
Frieden, p. XVII.
t See his discussion on constitutional monarchy in Germany.
(Hist. u. Pol. Au/sM*f, Bd. III., p. 533 stq.)
See Du Piccokmlni: Act. I. Sc. 4.
76 Perpetual Peace
to that of Hegel, owe their existence in the first
place to new ideas on the subject of the relative
advantages and disadvantages of war, which again
were partly due to changes in the character of war
itself, partly to a new theory that the warfare of
the future should be a war of free competition for
industrial interests, or, in Herbert Spencer's language,
that the warlike type of mankind should make
room for an industrial type. This theory, amounting
in the minds of some thinkers to a fervid conviction,
and itself, in a sense, the source of what has been
contemptuously styled our British "shopkeeper's
policy" in Europe, was based on something more
solid than mere enthusiasm. The years of peace
which followed the downfall of Napoleon had brought
immense increase in material wealth to countries
like France and Britain. Something of the glamour
had fallen away from the sword of the great Emperor.
The illusive excitement of a desire for conquest had
died: the glory of war had faded with it, but the
burden still remained : its cost was still there, some-
thing to be calmly reckoned up and not soon
to be forgotten. Europe was seen to be actually
moving towards ruin. v"We shall have to get rid
of war in all civilised countries," said Louis Philippe
in 1843. "Soon no nation will be able to afford
it." War was not only becoming more costly.
New conditions had altered it in other directions.
Translator's Introduction
With the development of technical science and its
application to the perfecting of methods and in-
struments of destruction every new war was found
to be bloodier than the last; and the day seemed
to be in sight, when this very development would
make war (with instruments of extermination) im-
possible altogether. The romance and picturesque-
ness with which it was invested in the days of
hand-to-hand combat was gone. But, above all,
war was now waged for questions fewer and more
important than in the time of Kant. Napoleon's
successful appeal to the masses had suggested to
Prussia the idea of ^consciously nationalising the
army. Our modern national wars exact a sacrifice,
necessarily much more heavy, much more reluctantly
made than those of the past which were fought
with mercenary troops. Such wars have not only
greater dignity: they are more earnest, and their
issue, as in a sense the issue of conflict between
higher and lower types of civilisation, is speedier
and more decisive.
In the hundred years since Kant's death, much
that he prophesied has come to pass, although
sometimes by different paths than he anticipated.
The strides made in recent years by commerce
and the growing power of the people in every
state have had much of the influence which he
foretold. There is a greater reluctance to wage
78 Pirpttual Peace
war. * But, unfortunately, as Professor Paulsen
points out, the progress of democracy and the
nationalisation of war have not worked merely in
the direction of progress towards peace. War has
now become popular for the first time. "The
progress of democracy in states," he says, (Kant,
p. 364!) "has not only not done away with war,
but has very greatly changed the feeling of people
towards it. With the universal military service,
introduced by the Revolution, war has become the
people's affair and popular, as it could not be in
the case of dynastic wars carried on with mercenary
troops." In the people the love of peace is strong,
but so too is the love of a fight, the love of victory.
It is in the contemplation of facts and conflicting
tendencies like these that Peace Societies have
been formed. The peace party is, we may say,
an eclectic body : it embraces many different sections
of political opinion. There are those who hold, for
instance, that peace is to be established on a basis
of communism of property. There are others who
insist on the establishment throughout Europe of a
republican form of government, or again, on a
* An admirable short account of popular feeling on this matter
is to be found in Lawrence's Principles of International Law, 240.
f The first Peace Society was founded in London in 1816, and
the first International Peace Congress held in 1843.
In Eng. trans, see p. 358.
Translators Introduction 79
redistribution of European territory in which Alsace-
Lorraine is restored to France changes of which
at least the last two would be difficult to carry
out, unless through international warfare. But
these are not the fundamental general principles of
peace workers. The members of this party agree
in rejecting the principle of intervention, in demand-
ing a complete or partial disarmament of the nations
of Europe, and in requiring that all disputes between
nations and they admit the prospects of dispute
should be settled by means of arbitration. In how
far are these principles useful or practicable?
The Value of Arbitration.
There is a strong feeling in favour of arbitration
on the part of all classes of society. It is cheaper
under all circumstances than war. It is a judgment
at once more certain and more complete, excluding
as far as possible the element of chance, leaving
irritation perhaps behind it, but none of the
lasting bitterness which is the legacy of every
war. Arbitration has an important place in all
peace projects except that of Kant, whose federal
union would naturally fulfil the function of a tribu-
nal of arbitration. St. Pierre, Jeremy Bentham, *
* See "A Plan for a Universal and Perpetual Peace" in the
Principles of International Law ( Works, Vol. 11). 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.
80 Perpetual Peace
Bluntschli* the German publicist, Professor Lorimerf
and others among political writers, and among
rulers, Louis Napoleon and the Emperor Alexan-
der I. of Russia, have all made proposals more
or less ineffectual for the peaceful settlement of
international disputes. A number of cases have
already been decided by this means. But let us
examine the questions which have been at issue.
Of a hundred and thirty matters of dispute settled
by arbitration since 1815 (cf. International Tri-
bunals, published by the Peace Society, 1899) it
will be seen that all, with the exception of one or
two trifling cases of doubt as to the succession to
certain titles or principalities, can be classified
roughly under two heads disputes as to the deter-
mination of boundaries or the possession of certain
territory, and questions of claims for compensation
and indemnities due either to individuals or states,
arising from the seizure of fleets or merchant ves-
sels, the insult or injury to private persons and so
on briefly, questions of money or of territory.
* See his KUine Sckriften.
f Institutes of the Law of Nations (1884), Vol. H, Ch. XIV.
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.)
Translator's Introduction 8 1
These may fairly be said to be trifling causes, not
touching national honour or great political questions.
That they should have been settled in this way,
however, shows a great advance. Smaller causes
than these have made some of the bloodiest wars
in history. That arbitration should have been the
means of preventing even one war which would
otherwise have been waged is a strong reason why
we should fully examine its claims. "Quand Tin-
stitution d'une haute cour," writes Laveleye, (Des
causes actu files de guerre en Europe et de V arbitrage]
" n'eviterait qu'une guerre sur vingt, il vaudrait
encore la peine de 1'e'tablir." But history shows
us that there is no single instance of a supreme
conflict having been settled otherwise than by war.
Arbitration is a method admirably adapted to cer-
tain cases : to those we have named, where it has
been successfully applied, to the interpretation of
contracts, to offences against the Law of Nations-
some writers say to trivial questions of honour
in all cases where the use of armed force would
be impossible, as, for instance, in any quarrel in
which neutralised countries-* like Belgium or Luxem-
bourg should take a principal part, or in a dif-
ference between two nations, such as (to take an
extreme case) the United States and Switzerland,
* Set what Lawrence says (op ctt., 241) of neutralisation mid
the limits of its utful*ft as a remedy for war.
6
82 Perpetual Peace
which could not easily engage in actual combat.
These cases, which we cannot too carefully examine,
show that what is here essential is that it should
be possible to formulate a juridical statement of
the conflicting claims. In Germany the Bundestag
had only power to decide questions of law. Other
disputes were left to be fought out. Questions on
which the existence and vital honour of a state
depend any question which nearly concerns the
disputants cannot be reduced to any cut and dry
legal formula of right and wrong. We may pass
over the consideration that in some cases (as in
the Franco-Prussian War) the delay caused by seeking
mediation of any kind would deprive a nation of
the advantage its state of military preparation
deserved. And we may neglect the problem of
finding an impartial judge on some questions of
dispute, although its solution might be a matter of
extreme difficulty, so closely are the interests of
modern nations bound up in one another. How
could the Eastern Question, for example, be settled
by arbitration ? It is impossible that such a means
should be sufficient for every case. Arbitration in
other words may prevent war, but can never be a
substitute for war. We cannot wonder that this is
so. So numerous and conflicting are the interests
of states, so various are the grades of civilisation
to which they have attained and the directions
Translator's Introduction 83
along which they are developing, that differences
of the most vital kind are bound to occur and
these can never be settled by any peaceful means
at present known to Europe. This is above all
true where the self-preservation * or independence
of a people are concerned. Here the "good-will"
of the nations who disagree would necessarily be
wanting: there could be no question of the arbi-
tration of an outsider.
But, indeed, looking away from questions so vital
and on which there can be little difference of
opinion, we are apt to forget, when we allow
ourselves to talk extravagantly of the future of
arbitration, that every nation thinks, or at least
pretends to think, that it is in the right in every
dispute in which it appears (cf. Kant: Perpetual
Peace, p. 120.): and, as a matter of history, there
* Montesquieu: Esprit des Lois, X. Ch. 2. " The life of govern-
ments 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. XVTIL 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 13 to risk vrything."
84 Perpetual
has never been a conflict between civilised states
in which an appeal to this " right" on the part of
each has not been made. We talk glibly of the
right and wrong of this question or of that, of the
justice of this war, the iniquity of that. But what
do these terms really mean ? Do we know, in spite
of the labour which has been spent on this question
by the older publicists, which are the causes that
justify a war? Is it not true that the same war
might be just in one set of circumstances and unjust
in another ? Practically all writers on this subject,
exclusive of those who apply the biblical doctrine
of non-resistance, agree in admitting that a natioa
is justified in defending its own existence or in-
dependence, that this is even a moral duty as it is a
fundamental right of a state. Many, especially the
older writers, make the confident assertion that all
wars of defence are just. But will this serve as a
standard? Gibbon tells us somewhere, that Livy
asserts that the Romans conquered the world in
self-defence. The distinction between wars of ag-
gression and defence is one very difficult to draw.
The cause of a nation which waits to be actually
attacked is often lost: the critical moment in iti
defence may be past. The essence of a state's
defensive power may lie in a readiness to strike the
first blow, or its whole interests may be bound up
in the necessity of fighting the matUr out in it*
Translator's Introduction 8$
tnemy'a country, rather than at home. It is not
in the strictly military interpretation of the term
"defensive", but in its wider ethical and political
ense that we can speak of wars of defence as just.
But, indeed, we cannot judge these questions
abstractly. Where a war is necessary, it matters
very little whether it is just or not. only the
judgment of history can finally decide; and gener-
ally it seems at the time that both parties have
something of right on their side, something perhaps
too of wrong. *
* The difficulties in the way of hard and fast judgments on a
complicated problem of this kind are convincingly demonstrated
in ft recent tssay by Professor D. G. Ritchie (Studies in Political
and Social EtMct. 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 circum-
stances, 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
n old." (Of. cit., pp. 152, 155.)
86 Perpetual Peace
A consideration of difficulties like these brings
us to a realisation of the fact that the chances are
small that a nation, in the heat of a dispute, will
admit the likelihood of its being in the wrong.
To refuse to admit this is generally tantamount to
a refusal to submit the difficulty to arbitration.
And neither international law, nor the moral force
of public opinion can induce a state to act contrary
to what it believes to be its own interest. More-
over, as international law now stands, it is not a
duty to have recourse to arbitration. This was
made quite clear in the proceedings of the Peace
Conference at the Hague in 1899. * It was strongly
recommended that - arbitration should be sought
wherever it was possible, but, at the same time
definitely stated, that this course could in no case
be compulsory. In this respect things have not
advanced beyond the position of the Paris Congress
of 1856.1 The wars waged in Europe subsequent
to that date, have all been begun without previous
attempt at mediation.
But the work of the peace party regarding the
* See Fred. W. Holls: The Peace Conference at the Hague,
Macmillan, 1900.
f The feeling of the Congress expressed itself thus cautiously :
" Messieurs les plnipotentiaires n'hesitent pas a exprimer, au nom
de leur gouvernements, le voeu, que les Etats entre lesquels
s'elverait un dissentiment serieux, avail t d'en appeler aux armes,
eussent recours, en tant que les circonstances I'admeUraient, aux
bons offices d'une puissance amie."
Translator's Introduction 87
humaner methods of settlement is not to be
neglected. The popular feeling which they have
been partly the means of stimulating has no doubt
done something to influence the action of statesmen
towards extreme caution in the treatment of ques-
tions likely to arouse national passions and preju-
dices. Arbitration has undoubtedly made headway
in recent years. Britain and America, the two
nations whose names naturally suggest themselves
to us as future centres of federative union, both
countries whose industrial interests are numerous
and complicated, have most readily, as they have
most frequently, settled disputes in this practical
manner. It has shown itself to be a policy as
economical as it is business-like, -its value, in its
proper place, cannot be overrated by any Peace
Congress or by any peace pamphlet; but we have
endeavoured to make it clear that this sphere is
but a limited one. The "good-will" may not be
there when it ought perhaps to appear: it will
certainly not be there when any vital interest is at
stake. But, even if this were not'so and arbitration
were the natural sequence of every dispute, no
coercive force exists to enforce the decree of the
court. The moral restraint of public opinion is
here a poor substitute. Treaties, it is often said,
are in the same position; but treaties have been
broken, and will no doubt be broken again. We
38 Ptrpttutl Ptace
are moved to the conclusion that a thoroughly
logical peace programme cannot stop short of the
principle of federation. Federal troops are neces-
sary to carry out the decrees of a tribunal of
arbitration, if that court is not to run a risk of
being held feeble and ineffectual. Except on some
such basis, arbitration, as a substitute for war, stands
on but a weak footing.
Disarmament.
The efforts of the Peace Society are directed with
even less hope of complete success against another
evil of our time, the crushing burden of modern
armaments. We have peace at this moment, but
at a daily increasing cost. The Peace Society is
rightly concerned in pressing this point. It is not
enough to keep off actual war: there is a limit to
the price we can afford to pay even for peace.
Probably no principle has cost Europe so much
in the last century as that handed down from
Rome: "Si vis pacem, pare bellum." It is now a
hundred and fifty years since Montesquieu * protested
* Esprit des Lois, XJ3I. Chap. 17. "A new distemper ha*
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 v,hat he calls his troops, the rest of course
do the same: so that nothing is gained thereby but the public
Translator's Introduction 89
against this " new distemper " which was spreading
itself over Europe ; but never, in time of peace, has
complaint been so loud or so general as now : and
this, not only against the universal burden of
taxation which weighs upon all nations alike, but,
in continental countries, against the waste of pro-
ductive force due to compulsory military service,
a discontent which seems to strike at the very
foundations of society. Vattel relates that in early
times a treaty of peace generally stipulated that
both parties should afterwards disarm. And there
is no doubt that Kant was right in regarding
standing armies as a danger to peace, not only as
openly expressing the rivalry and distrust between
nation and nation which Hobbes regards as the
basis of international relations, but also as putting
a power into the hand of a nation which it may
some day have the temptation to abuse. A war-
loving, overbearing spirit in a people thrives none
the worse for a consciousness that its army or
navy can hold its own with any other in Europe.
Were it not the case that the essence of armed
peace is that a high state of efficiency should be
ruin. Each monarch keeps as many armies on foot as if his
people wer in danger of being exterminated: and they give th
name of Peace to this general effort of all against all."
Montesquieu is of course writing in the days of mercenary troopb;
but the cost to the nation of our modern armies, both ia time f
peace and of war, is incomparably greater.
Perpetual Peace
general, the danger to peace would be very great
indeed. No doubt it is due to this fact that France
has kept quietly to her side of the Rhine during
the last thirty years. The annexation of Alsace-
Lorraine was an immediate stimulus to the increase
of armaments; but otherwise, just because of this
greater efficiency and the slightly stronger military
position of Germany, it has been an influence on
the side of peace.
The Czar's Rescript of 1898 gave a new stimulus
to an interest in this question which the subsequent
conference at the Hague was unable fully to satisfy.
We are compelled to consider carefully how a
process of simultaneous disarmament can actually
be carried out, and what results might be antici-
pated from this step, with a view not only to the
present but the future, Can this be done in
accordance with the principles of justice ? Organi-
sations like a great navy or a highly disciplined
army have been built up, in the course of centuries,
at great cost and at much sacrifice to the nation.
They are the fruit of years of wise government
and a high record of national industry. Are such
visible tokens of the culture and character and
worth of a people to be swept away and Britain,
France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Turkey to stand on
the same level? And, even if no such ethical
considerations should arise, on what method are
Translator s Introduction 91
we to proceed? The standard as well as the
nature of armament depends in every state on
its geographical conditions and its historical
position. An ocean-bound empire like Britain
is comparatively immune from the danger of
invasion : her army can be safely despatched to
the colonies, her fleet protects her at home, her
position is one of natural defence. But Germany
and Austria find themselves in exactly opposite
circumstances, with the hard necessity imposed
upon them of guarding their frontiers on every
side. The safety of a nation like Germany is
in the hands of its army: its military strength
lies in an almost perfect mastery of the science
of attack.
The Peace Society has hitherto made no
attempt to face the difficulties inseparable from
any attempt to apply a uniform method of
treatment to peculiarities and conditions so con-
flicting and various as these. Those who have
been more conscientious have not been very
successful in solving them. Indeed, so con-
stantly is military technique changing that it
is difficult to prophesy wherein will lie, a few
years hence, the essence of a state's defensive
power or what part the modern navy will play
in this defence. No careful thinker would sug-
gest, in the face of dangers threatening from the
Ptrprtual Ptace
East, * a complete disarmament. The simplest of
many suggestions made but this on the basis of
universal conscription - seems to be that the number
of years or months of compulsory military service
should be reduced to some fixed period. But this
does not touch the difficulty of colonial empires f
like Britain which might to a certain extent disarm,
like their neighbours, in Europe, but would be
compelled to keep an army for the defence of their
colonies elsewhere. It is, in the meantime, inevit-
able that Europe should keep up a high standard
of armament this is, (and even if we had European
federation, would remain) an absolute necessity as
a protection against the yellow races, and in Europe
itself there are at present elements hostile to the
cause of peace. - Alsace-Lorraine, Polish Prussia,
Russian Poland and Finland are still, to a considerable
degree, sources of discontent and dissatisfaction. But
in Russia itself lies the great obstacle to a future
European peace or European federation : we can
scarcely picture Russia as a reliable member of
such a union. That Russia should disarm is scarcely
* Even St. Pierre was alive to this danger (Projet, Art. VIII: in
the English translation of 1714, p. 160): "The European Union
thall endeavour to obtain in Asia, a permanent society like that of
Europe, that Peace may be maintaiu'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"
f Beutham's suggestion, would b useful here ! See bore, p. 79,
noft.
Translators Introduction 93
feasible, in view of its own interest : it has always
to face the danger of rebellion in Poland and
anarchy at home. But that Europe should disarm,
before Russia has attained a higher civilisation, a
consciousness of its great future as a north eastern,
inter-oceanic empire, and a government more favour-
able to the diffusion of liberty, is still less practic-
able. * We have here to fall back upon federation
again. It is not impossible that, in the course of
time, this problem may be solved and that the
contribution to the federal troops of a European
union may be regulated upon some equitable basis
the form of which we cannot now well prophesy.
European federation would likewise meet all
difficulties where a risk might be likely to occur
of one nation intervening to protect another. As
we have said (above, p. 64, note] nations are
now-a-days slow to intervene in the interests of
humanity: they are in general constrained to do
so only by strong motives of self-interest, and when
these are not at hand they are said to refrain from
respect for another's right of independent action.
Actually a state which is actuated by less selfish
impulses is apt to lose considerably more than it
* The best thing for Europe might be that Russia (prhaps
including China) should be regarded as a serious danger by all
the civilised power* of the West. That would bring us nearer to
tht United States of Europe and America (for th United State,
America, is Russia's neighbour on the East) than anythiag else.
94 Perpetual Peace
gains, and the feeling of the people expresses
itself strongly against any quixotic or sentimental
policy. It is not impossible that the Powers may
have yet to intervene to protect Turkey against
Russia. Such a step might well be dictated purely
by a proper care for the security of Europe; but
wars of this kind seem not likely to play an im-
portant part in the near future.
We have said that the causes of difference which
may be expected to disturb the peace of Europe
are now fewer. A modern sovereign no longer spends
his leisure time in the excitement of slaying or
seeing slain. He could not, if he would. His honour
and his vanity are protected by other means : they
play no longer an important part in the affairs of
nations. The causes of war can no more be either
trifling or personal. Some crises there are, which
are ever likely to be fatal to peace. There present
themselves, in the lives of nations, ideal ends for
which everything must be sacrificed : there are rights
which must at all cost be defended. The question
of civil war we may neglect: liberty and wise
government are the only - medicine for social dis-
content, and much may be hoped from that in the
future. But now, looking beyond the state to the
great family of civilised nations, we may say that
the one certain cause of war between them or of
rebellion within a future federated union will be a
Translator s Introduction 95
menace to the sovereign rights, the independence
and existence of any member of that federation.
Other causes of quarrel offer a more hopeful pro-
spect. Some questions have been seen to be speci-
ally fitted for the legal procedure of a tribunal of
arbitration, others to be such as a federal court
would quickly settle. The preservation of the
balance of power which Frederick the Great
regarded as the talisman of peace in Europe a
judgment surely not borne out by experience is
happily one of the causes of war which are of the
past. Wars of colonisation, such as would be an
attempt on the part of Russia to conquer India,
seem scarcely likely to recur except between higher
and lower races. The cost is now-a-days too great.
Political wars, wars for national union and unity,
of which there were so many during the past
century, seem at present not to be near at hand;
and the integration of European nations what may
be called the great mission of war is, for the
moment, practically complete; for it is highly
improbable that either Alsace-Lorraine or Poland
still less Finland will be the cause of a war of
this kind.
Our hope lies in a federated Europe. Its troops
would serve to preserve law and order in the
country from which they were drawn and to protect
its eoloniei abroad ; but their higher function would
96 Perpetual Peace
be to keep peace in Europe, to protect the weaker
members of the Federation and to enforce the decision
of the majority, either, if necessary, by actual war,
or by the mere threatening demonstrations of fleets,
such as have before proved effectual.
We have carefully considered what has been
attempted by peace workers, and we have now to
take note that all the results of the last fifty years
are not to be attributed to their conscientious but
often ill-directed labour. The diminution of the
causes of war is to be traced less to the efforts of
the Peace Society, (except indirectly, in so far as
they have influenced the minds of the masses) than
to the increasing power of the people themselves.
The various classes of society are opposed to vio-
lent methods of settlement, not in the main from
a conviction as to the wrongfulness of war or from
any fanatical enthusiasm for a brotherhood of
nations, but from self-interest. War is death to
the industrial interests of a nation. It is vain to
talk, in the language of past centuries, of trade
between civilised countries being advanced and
markets opened up or enlarged by this mean*. *
* Trad 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 nationi to disappear
and thtir tariffs with them. This is beneficial to tradt, but to a
degree so trifling that it may bere bt neglected.
Translator's Introduction 97
Kings give up the dream of military glory and
accept instead the certainty of peaceful labour
and industrial progress, and all this (for we may
believe that to some monarchs it is much) from
no enthusiastic appreciation of the efforts of Peace
Societies, from no careful examination of the
New Testament nor inspired interpretation of its
teaching. It is self-interest, the prosperity of the
country patriotism, if you will that seems better
than war.
What may be expected from Federation.
Federation and federation alone can help out
the programme of the Peace Society. It cannot
be pretended that it will do everything. To state
the worst at once, it will not prevent war. Even
the federations of the states of Germany and
America, bound together by ties of blood and
language and, in the latter case, of sentiment,
were not strong enough within to keep out dissen-
sion and disunion. * Wars would not cease, but
they would become much less frequent. "Why is
there no longer war between England and Scot-
land? Why did Prussian and Hanoverian fight
side by side in 1870, though they had fought
* Cf. also the civil war of 1847 in Switzerland.
98 Perpetual Peace
against each other only four years before ? . . . If
we wish to know how war is to cease, we should
ask ourselves how it has ceased " (Professor D. G.
Ritchie, op. cit. t p. 169). Wars between different
grades of civilisation are bound to exist as long
as civilisation itself exists. The history of culture
and of progress has been more or less a history
of war. A calm acceptance of this position may
mean to certain short-sighted, enthusiastic theorists
an impossible sacrifice of the ideal ; but, the sacri-
fice once made, we stand on a better footing with
regard to at least one class of arguments against
a federation of the world. Such a union will lead,
it is said, to an equality in culture, a sameness
of interests fatal to progress ; all struggle and con-
flict will be cast out of the state itself; national
characteristics and individuality will be obliterated ;
the lamb and the wolf will lie down together:
stagnation will result, intellectual progress will be
at an end, politics will be no more, history will
stand still. This is a sweeping assertion, an alarm-
ing prophecy. But a little thought will assure
us that there is small cause for apprehension.
There can be no such standstill, no millennium in
human affairs. A gradual smoothing down of
sharply accentuated national characteristics there
might be: this is a result which a freer, more
friendly intercourse between nations would be very
Translator's Introduction 99
likely to produce. But conflicting interests, keen
rivalry in their pursuit, difference of culture and
natural aptitude, and all or much of the individu-
ality which language and literature, historical and
religious traditions, even climatic and physical con-
ditions produce are bound to survive until the
coming of some more overwhelming and far-spread-
ing revolution than this. It would not be well if
it were otherwise, if those " unconscious and invi-
sible peculiarities" in which Fichte sees the hand
of God and the guarantee of a nation's future
dignity, virtue and merit should be swept away.
(Reden an die deutsche Nation, * 1 807.) Nor is
stagnation to be feared. " Strife," said the old
philosopher, "is the father of all things." There
can be no lasting peace in the processes of nature
and existence. It has been in the constant rivalry
between classes within themselves, and in the
struggle for existence with other races that great
nations have reached the highwater mark of their
development. A perpetual peace in international
relations we may nay, surely will one day have,
but eternity will not see the end to the feverish
unrest within the state and the jealous competition
and distrust between individuals, groups and classes
of society. Here there must ever be perpetual war.
It was only of this political peace between civil-
* See IVerke, VTL, p. 467.
ioo Perpetual Peace
ised nations that Kant thought. * In this form it
is bound to come. The federation of Europe will
follow the federation of Germany and of Italy, not
only because it offers a solution of many problems
which have long taxed Europe, but because great
men and careful thinkers believe in it. f It may
not come quickly, but such men can afford to
wait. " If I were legislator," cried Jean Jacques
Rousseau, "I should not say what ought to be
done, but I would do it." This is the attitude of
the unthinking, unpractical enthusiast. The wish
is not enough : the will is not enough. The mills
of God must take their own time : no hope or
faith of ours, no struggle or labour even can
hurry them.
It is a misfortune that the Peace Society has
identified itself with so narrow and uncritical an
attitude towards war, and that the copious clo-
* 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.
t 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 * federation, industrial or political, are to
be overcome.
Translator's Introduction IO1
quence of its members is not based upon a con-
sideration of the practical difficulties of the case.
This well-meaning, hard working and enthusiastic
body would like to do what is impossible by an
impossible method. The end which it sets for itself
is an unattainable one. But this need not be so.
To make unjustifiable aggression difficult, to banish
unworthy pretexts for making war might be a
high enough ideal for any enthusiasm and offer
scope wide enough for the labours of any society.
But the Peace Society has not contented itself
with this great work. Through its over-estimation
of the value of peace, *-.its cause has been injured
and much of its influence has been weakened or
lost. Our age is one which sets a high value upon
human life; and to this change of thinking may
be traced our modern reform in the methods of
war and all that has been done for the alleviation
of suffering by the great Conventions of recent
years. For the eyes of most people war is merely
a hideous spectacle of bloodshed and deliberate
destruction of life : this is its obvious side. But it
is possible to exaggerate this confessedly great
evil. Peace has its sacrifices as well as war : the
* Professor D. (. 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 nation*
that injurei the work of the Peace Society. Cf. his note on the
principles of the Peace Congresses (op. cif,, p. 172).
102 Perpetual Peace
progress of humanity requires that the individual
should often be put aside for the sake of lasting
advantage to the whole. An opposite view can
only be reckoned individualistic, perhaps material-
istic. "The reverence for human life," says Mar-
tineau, (Studies of Christianity, pp. 352, 354) "is
carried to an immoral idolatry, when it is held more
sacred than justice and right, and when the spec-
tacle of blood becomes more horrible than the
sight of desolating tyrannies and triumphant hypo-
crisies. . . . We have, therefore, no more doubt
that a war may be right, than that a policeman
may be a security for justice, and we object to a
fortress as little as to a handcuff."
The Peace Society are not of this opinion : they
greatly doubt that a war may be right, and they
rarely fail to take their doubts to the tribunal of
Scripture. Their efforts are well meant, this piety
may be genuine enough ; but a text is rarely a
proof of anything, and in any case serves one man
in as good stead as another. We remember that
"the devil can cite Scripture for his purpose."
This unscientific method of proof or persuasion has
ever been widely popular. It is a serious examin-
ation of the question that we want, a more careful
study of its actual history and of the possibilities
of human nature ; less vague, exaggerated language
about what ought to be done, and a realisation of
Translator's Introduction 103
what has been actually achieved ; above all, a clear
perception of what may fairly be asked from the future.
It used to be said is perhaps asserted still by
the war-lovers that there was no path to civilisation
which had not been beaten by the force of arms,
no height to which the sword had not led the way.
The inspiration of war was upon the great arts of
civilisation: its hand was upon the greatest of the
sciences. These obligations extended even to com-
merce. War not only created new branches of
industry, it opened new markets and enlarged the
old. These are great claims, according to which
war might be called the moving principle of history.
If we keep our eyes fixed upon the history of the
past, they seem not only plausible: they are in a
great sense true. Progress did tread at the heels
of the great Alexander's army : the advance of
European culture stands in the closest connection
with the Crusades. But was this happy compensation
for a miserable state of affairs not due to the
peculiarly unsocial conditions of early times and
the absence of every facility for the interchange of
ideas or material advantages? It is inconceivable
that now-a-days * any aid to the development of
thought in Europe should come from war. The
* 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
IO4 Perpetual Peace
old adage, in more than a literal sense, has but
too often been proved true: "Inter arma, Musae
silent." Peace is for us the real promoter of
culture.
We have to endeavour to take an intermediate
course between uncritical praise and wholesale
condemnation, between extravagant expectation
and unjustifiable pessimism. War used to be the
rule: it is now an overwhelming and terrible ex-
ception an interruption to the peaceful prosperous
course of things, inflicting unlimited suffering and
temporary or lasting loss. Its evils are on the
surface, apparent to the most unthinking observer.
The day may yet dawn, when Europeans will have
learned to regard the force of arms as an instrument
for the civilisation of savage or half-savage races,
and war within their, continent as civil war, neces-
sary and justifiable sometimes perhaps, but still a
blot upon their civilisation and brotherhood as men.
Such a suggestion rings strangely. But the great
changes, which the roll of centuries has marked,
once came upon the world not less unexpectedly.
How far off must the idea of a civil peace have
seemed to small towns and states of Europe in the
fifteenth century! How strange, only a century
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, n. Ch. I. 16.)
Translator s Introduction 105
ago, would the idea of applying steam power or
electrical force have seemed to ourselves I Let us
not despair. War has played a great part in the
history of the world: it has been ever the great
architect of nations, the true mother of cities. It
has justified itself to-day in the union of kindred
peoples, the making of great empires. It may be
that one decisive war may yet be required to unite
Europe. May Europe survive that struggle and
go forward fearlessly to her great future ! A peaceful
future that may not be. It must never be forgotten
that war is sometimes a moral duty, that it is ever
the natural sequence of human passion and human
prejudice. An unbroken peace we cannot and do
not expect ; but it is this that we must work for. As
Kant says, we must keep it before us as an ideal,
TRANSLATION *
"PERPETUAL PEACE"!
WE need not try to decide whether this satirical in-
scription, (once found on a Dutch innkeeper's sign-
board above the picture of a churchyard) is aimed
at mankind in general, or at the rulers of states in
particular, unwearying in their love of war, or per-
haps only at the philosophers who cherish the
sweet dream of perpetual peace. The author of the
present sketch would make one stipulation, however.
The practical politician stands upon a definite foot-
ing with the theorist: with great self-complacency
he looks down upon him as a mere pedant whose
empty ideas can threaten no danger to the state
(starting as it does from principles derived from
experience), and who may always be permitted to
* The text used in this translation is that edited by Kehr-
bach. [Tr.]
f I have seen something of M. de St. Pierre's plan for maintain-
ing perpetual peace in Europe. It reminds me of an inscription
outside of a churchyard, which ran ''Pax Ferfetua. 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." (Leib-
nitz: Letter to Grirnaresf, quoted above, p. 37, note .) [Tr.]
translation lo?
knock down his eleven skittles at once without a
worldly-wise statesman needing to disturb himself.
Hence, in the event of a quarrel arising between
the two, the practical statesman must always act
consistently, and not scent danger to the state
behind opinions ventured by the theoretical politi-
cian at random and publicly expressed. With which
saving clause (clausula salvatoria] the author will
herewith consider himself duly and expressly pro-
tected against all malicious misinterpretation.
SECTION
CONTAINING THE PRELIMINARY ARTICLES OF PERPETUAL
PEACE BETWEEN STATES
I. "No treaty of peace shall be regarded as
valid, if made with the secret reservation of mate-
rial for a future war."
For then it would be a mere truce, a mere
suspension of hostilities, not peace. A peace signi-
fies the end of all hostilities and to attach to it
the epithet " eternal " is not only a verbal pleonasm,
but matter of suspicion. The causes of a future
war existing, although perhaps not yet known to
the high contracting parties themselves, are entirely
io8 Perpetual Peace
annihilated by the conclusion of peace, howev<
acutely they may be ferreted out of documents
the public archives. There may be a mental rese
vation of old claims to be thought out at a futui
time, which are, none of them, mentioned at th
stage, because both parties are too much exhauste
to continue the war, while the evil intention remain
of using the first favourable opportunity for furthe
hostilities. Diplomacy of this kind only Jesuitic?
casuistry can justify: it is beneath the dignity of
ruler, just as acquiescence in such processes c
reasoning is beneath the dignity of his minister, i !
one judges the facts as they really are. *
If, however, according to present enlightened idea. 1
of political wisdom, the true glory of a state lie*
in the uninterrupted development of its power by
every possible means, this judgment must certainly
strike one as scholastic and pedantic.
2. "No state having an independent existence
whether it be great or small- shall be acquired by
another through inheritance, exchange, purchase or
donation." f
* on the honourable interpretation of treaties, see Vattel (op. fit.,
II. Ch. XVII, esp. 263296, 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.j
f "Even the smoothest way," says Hume, (Of the Original
Contract) "by which a nation may receive a foreign master, bj
Translation
For a state is not a property (patrimonium\ as
may be the ground on which its people are settled, j
It is a society of human beings over whom no one |
but itself has the right to rule and to dispose. |
Like the trunk of a tree, it has its own roots, and
to graft it on to another state is to do away with
its existence as a moral person, and to make of it
a thing. Hence it is in contradiction to the idea
of the original contract without which no right
over a people is thinkable. * Everyone knows to
what danger the bias in favour of these modes of
acquisition has brought Europe (in other parts of the
world it has never been known). The custom of
marriage between states, as if they were individuals,
has survived even up to the most recent times,f and is
regarded partly as a new kind of industry by which
ascendency may be acquired through family alli-
ances, without any expenditure of strength ; partly
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.]
* 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 *uch (that is, as one already possessing another realm) the state.
t 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 sf Ckarlts the Fifth, Ch. I , notcy
"Bella gerant alii, ru, felix Austria, nube!
Nam quae Mars aliis, dat tibi regna Venus." [Tr.]
no Perpetual Peace
as a device for territorial expansion. Moreover, the
hiring out of the troops of one state to another
to fight against an enemy not at war with their
native country is to be reckoned in this connection ;
for the subjects are in this way used and abused
at will as personal property.
3. -"Standing armies (miles perpetuus] shall be
abolished in course of time."
For they are always threatening other states
with war by appearing to be in constant readiness
to fight. They incite the various states to outrival
one another in the number of their soldiers, and
to this number no limit can be set. Now, since
owing to the sums devoted to this purpose, peace
at last becomes even more oppressive than a short
war, these standing armies are themselves the cause
of wars of aggression, undertaken in order to get
rid of this burden. To which we must add that
the practice of hiring men to kill or to be killed
seems to imply a use of them as mere machines
and instruments in the hand of another (namely,
the state) which cannot easily be reconciled with
the right of humanity in our own person. * The
* A Bulgarian Prince thus answered the Greek Emperor who
magnanimously offered to settle a quarrel with him, not by shed-
ding the blood of his subjects, but by a duel: "A smith who has
Translation 1 1 1
matter stands quite differently in the case of volun-
tary periodical military exercise on the part of
citizens of the state, who thereby seek to secure them-
selves and their country against attack from without.
The accumulation of treasure in a state would
in the same way be regarded by other states as a
menace of war, and might compel them to anticipate
this by striking the first blow. For of the three
forces, the power of arms, the power of alliance
and the power of money, the last might well
become the most reliable instrument of war, did
not the difficulty of ascertaining the amount stand
in the way.
4. " No national debts shall oe contracted in
connection with the external affairs of the state."
This source of help is above suspicion, where
assistance is sought outside or within the state, on
behalf of the economic administration of the country
(for instance, the improvement of the roads, the
settlement and support of new colonies, the establish-
ment of granaries to provide against seasons of
scarcity, and so on). But, as a common weapon
used by the Powers against one another, a credit
system under which debts go on indefinitely in-
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.j
1 1 2 Perpetual Peace
creasing and are yet always assured against im-
mediate claims (because all the creditors do not
put in their claim at once) is a dangerous money
power. This ingenious invention of a commercial
people in the present century is, in other words,
a treasure for the carrying on of war which
may exceed the treasures of all the other states
taken together, and can only be exhausted by
a threatening deficiency in the taxes an event,
however, which will long be kept off by the
very briskness of commerce resulting from the
reaction of this system on industry and trade. The
ease, then, with which war may be waged, coupled
with the inclination of rulers towards it an
inclination which seems to be implanted in human
nature is a great obstacle in the way of perpetual
peace. The prohibition of this system must be
laid down as a preliminary article of perpetual
peace, all the more necessarily because the final
inevitable bankruptcy of the state in question must
involve in the loss many who are innocent; and
this would be a public injury to these states.
Therefore other nations are at least justified in
uniting themselves against such an one and its
pretensions.
5. "No state shall violently interfere with the
constitution and administration of another."
Translation 113
For what can justify it in so doing? The scandal
which is here presented to the subjects of another
state? The erring state can much more serve as
a warning by exemplifying the great evils which a
nation draws down on itself through its own law-
lessness. Moreover, the bad example which one free
person gives another, (as scandalum acceptum] does
no injury to the latter. In this connection, it is
true, we cannot count the case of a state which
has become split up through internal corruption
into two parts, each of them representing by itself
an individual state which lays claim to the whole.
Here the yielding of assistance to one faction could
not be reckoned as interference on the part of a
foreign state with the constitution of another, for
here anarchy prevails. So long, however, as the
inner strife has not yet reached this stage the
interference of other powers would be a violation
of the rights of an independent nation which is
only struggling with internal disease. * It would
* 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 eqnitable
maxims But (loc. cii. 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 M two distinct powers; and, since they are both equally
8
114 Perpetual Peace
therefore itself cause a scandal, and make the
autonomy of all states insecure.
6. "No state at war with another shall coun-
tenance such modes of hostility as would make
mutual confidence impossible in a subsequent state
of peace: such are the employment of assassins
(percussores) or of poisoners (venefici], breaches of
capitulation, the instigating and making use of
treachery (perduellio] in the hostile state."
These are dishonourable stratagems. For some
kind of confidence in the disposition of the enemy
must exist even in the midst of war, as otherwise
peace could not be concluded, and the hostilities
would pass into a war of extermination (bellum
internecinum). War, however, is only our wretched
expedient of asserting a right by force, an expe-
dient adopted in the state of nature, where no
court of justice exists which could settle the matter
in dispute. In circumstances like these, neither of
the two parties can be called an unjust enemy,
because this form of speech presupposes a legal
decision : the issue of the conflict just as in the
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.]
Translation 1 1 5
case of the so-called judgments of God decides
on which side right is. Between states, however,
no punitive war (bellum punitivum] is thinkable,
because between them a relation of superior and
inferior does not exist. Whence it follows that a
war of extermination, where the process of annihil-
ation would strike both parties at once and all
right as well, would bring about perpetual peace
only in the great graveyard of the human race.
Such a war then, and therefore also the use of all
means which lead to it, must be absolutely for-
bidden. That the methods just mentioned do in-
evitably lead to this result is obvious from the fact
that these infernal arts, already vile in themselves,
on coming into use, are not long confined to the
sphere of war. Take, for example, the use of
spies (uti exploratoribus}. Here only the dishonesty
of others is made use of; but vices such as these,
when once encouraged, cannot in the nature of
things be stamped out and would be carried over
into the state of peace, where their presence would
be utterly destructive to the purpose of that state.
Although the laws stated are, objectively regarded,
(i.e. in so far as they affect the action of rulers)
purely prohibitive laws (leges prohibitivce], some of
them (leges strictce] are strictly valid without regard
to circumstances and urgently require to be enforced.
Such are Nos. I, 5, 6. Others, again, (like Nos. 2,
Ii6 Perpetual Peace
3, 4) although not indeed exceptions to the maxims
.of law, yet in respect of the practical application
of these maxims allow subjectively of a certain
latitude to suit particular circumstances. The en-
forcement of these leges latce may be legitimately
put off, so long as we do not lose sight of the
ends at which they aim. This purpose of reform
does not permit of the deferment of an act of
restitution (as, for example, the restoration to
certain states of freedom of which they have been
deprived in the manner described in article 2) to
an infinitely distant date as Augustus used to say,
to the "Greek Kalends", a day that will never
come. This would be to sanction non-restitution.
Delay is permitted only with the intention that
restitution should not be made too precipitately
and so defeat the purpose we have in view. For
the prohibition refers here only to the mode of
acquisition which is to be no longer valid, and
not to the fact of possession which, although
indeed it has not the necessary title of right, yet
at the time of so-called acquisition was held legal
by all states, in accordance with the public opinion
of the time. *
* It has been hitherto doubted, not without reason, whether there
can be laws rf permission (leges permit sivai) of pure reason as
well as commands (leges praceptivci) and prohibitions (leges pro-
hibittva). For law in general hai a basis of objective practical
necessity: permission, on the other hand, is bated upon the eou-
Translation 1 1 7
SECOND SECTION
CONTAINING THE DEFINITIVE ARTICLES OF A PERPETUAL
PEACE BETWEEN STATES
A state of peace among men who live side by
side is not the natural state (status naturalis\ which
tingency 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 (/'.*. the
permission) refers to the present state of possession. In the tran-
sition 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
(fossessio putativd) 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 classi-
fication. I do so chiefly because use is often made of this con-
cept in civil law with reference to statutes ; with this difference,
that the law of prohibition stands alone by itself, while permis-
sion 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. I, 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
ii8 Perpetual Peace
is rather to be described as a state of war : * that
is to say, although there is not perhaps always
actual open hostility, yet there is a constant threat-
ening that an outbreak may occur. Thus the
state of peace must be established, f For the mere
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 Windisch-
gratz. 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 cerium 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.
* "Fron? 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.]
f Hobbes thus describes the establishment of the state, "^com-
monwealth 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 fight to
present the person of them all, that is to say, to be their represen-
tative ; 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
ay to every man, / authorize and give up my right of governing
Translation \ 1 9
cessation of hostilities is no guarantee of continued
peaceful relations, and unless this guarantee is given '
by every individual to his neighbour which can j
only be done in a state of society regulated by I
law one man is at liberty to challenge anothei
and treat him as an enemy. *
myself t to this man, or to this assembly of nteri> on this condition^
that thou give up thy right to him, and authorize nil his actions
in like wanner." (Lev. II. Ch. XVII.) [Tr.]
* 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 indivi-
dual, 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.v^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 indivi-
duals who compose the state :
(1) A constitution formed in accordance with the right of citizen-
ship 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
>\ ith reference to the idea of perpetual peace, For, if even one of
12O Ptrpttual Peace
FIRST DEFINITIVE ARTICLE OF PERPETUAL PEACE
I. "The civil constitution of each state shall be
republican."
The only constitution which has its origin in the
idea of the original contract, upon which the lawful
legislation of every nation must be based, is the
republican. * It is a constitution, in the first place,
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.
* Lawful, that is to say, external freedom cannot be defined, as
it so ofteu is, as the right \J3ef ugniss] "to do whatever one likes,
so long as this does not wrong anyone else." l 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 docs 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,
1 Hobbes' definition of freedom is interesting. See Lev. II. Ch.
XXI.: "A FREEMAN, is he t that in those things, -which by hit
strength and wit he is able to do, is not hindered to dt what he
has a will to?' [Tr.j
Translation 121
founded in accordance with the principle of the
freedom of the members of society as human
beings: secondly, in accordance with the principle
of the dependence of all, as subjects, on a common
legislation: and, thirdly, in accordance with the
law of the equality of the members as citizens.
It is then, looking at the question of right, the
only constitution whose fundamental principles lie
at the basis of every form of civil constitution.
And the only question for us now is, whether it is
also the one constitution which can lead to per-
petual peace.
Now the republican constitution apart from the
soundness of its origin, since it arose from the
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
stnae. For, as far as my freedom goes, I am bound by no
obligation even with regard to Divine Laws which are appre-
hended 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 doet in his, the duty of obedience alone should fall to my
share, the right to command to him. That this principle of
122 Perpetual Peace
pure source of the concept of right, has also the
prospect of attaining the desired result, namely,
perpetual peace. And the reason is this. If, as
must be so under this constitution, the consent of
the subjects is required to determine whether there
shall be war or not, nothing is more natural than
that they should weigh the matter well, before
undertaking such a bad business. For in decreeing
war, they would of necessity be resolving to bring
down the miseries of war upon their country. This
implies: they must fight themselves; they must
hand over the costs of the war out of their own
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 com-
manding position without any question of desert; r.nd to that,
the universal will of the people expressed in an original contract
which is the fundamental principle of all right would never
consent.JFor 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.
Translation 123
property; they must do their poor best to make
good the devastation which it leaves behind; and
finally, as a crowning ill, they have to accept a
burden of debt which will embitter even peace
itself, and which they can never pay off on account
of the new wars which are always impending.
on the other hand, in a government where the
subject is not a citizen holding a vote, (*. e. in a
constitution which is not republican), the plunging
into war is the least serious thing in the world.
For the ruler is not a citizen, but the owner of
the state, and does not lose a whit by the war,
while he goes on enjoying the delights of his table
or sport, or of his pleasure palaces and gala days.
He can therefore decide on war for the most
trifling reasons, as if it were a kind of pleasure
party. * Any justification of it that is necessary for
the sake of decency he can leave without concern
to the diplomatic corps who are always only too
ready with their services.
* Cf. Cowper: Tht 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
"Wage war, with any or with no pretence
Of provocation giv'n or wrong sustaiu'd^
114 Ptrpttual Peace
The following remarks must be made in order
that we may not fall into the common error of
confusing the republican with the democratic con-
stitution. The forms of the state (civitas] * may
be classified according to either of two principles
of division : the difference of the persons who hold
the supreme authority in the state, and the manner
in which the people are governed by their ruler
whoever he may be. The first is properly called
the form of sovereignty (forma imperii], and there
can be only three constitutions differing in this
respect: where, namely, the supreme authority
belongs to only one, to several individuals work-
ing together, or to the whole people constituting
the civil society. Thus we have autocracy or the
sovereignty of a monarch, aristocracy or the
sovereignty of the nobility, and democracy or the
And force the beggarly last doit, by means
That his own humour dictates, from tha 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.]
* Cf. Hobbes: on Dominion, Ch. VII. I. "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.]
Translation 125
sovereignty of the people. The second principle of
division is the form of government (forma regi-
mims), and refers to the way in which the state
makes use of its supreme power : for the manner
of government is based on the constitution, itself
the act of that universal will which transforms a
multitude into a nation. In this respect the form
'"i
of government is either republican or despotic.
Republicanism is the political principle of severing
the executive power of the government from the
legislature. Despotism is that principle in pur-
suance of which the state arbitrarily puts into
effect laws which it has itself made : consequently
it is the administration of the public will, but
this is identical with the private will of the ruler.
Of these three forms of a state, democracy, in
the proper sense of the word, is of necessity des-
potism, because it establishes an executive power,
since all decree regarding and, if need be,
against any individual who dissents from them.
Therefore the ''whole people", so-called, who carry
their measure are really not all, but only a majo-
rity: so that here the universal will is in contra-
diction with itself and with the principle of freedom.
Every form of government in fact which is not
representative is really no true constitution at all,
because a law-giver may no more be, in one and
the same perion, the administrator of his own
126 Perpetual Peace
will, than the universal major premise of a
syllogism may be, at the same time, the sub-
sumption under itself of the particulars contained in
the minor premise. And, although the other two
constitutions, autocracy and aristocracy, are always
defective in so far as they leave the way open for
such a form of government, yet there is at least
always a possibility in these cases, that they may
take the form of a government in accordance with
the spirit of a representative system. Thus Frederick
the Great used at least to say that he was " merely
the highest servant of the state. * The democratic
constitution, on the other hand, makes this impos-
sible, because under such a government every one
wishes to be master. We may therefore say that
the smaller the staff of the executive that is to
say, the number of rulers and the more real, on the
other hand, their representation of the people, so
much the more is the government of the state in
* 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 intel-
ligence 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.
Translation 1 27
accordance with a possible republicanism ; and it
may hope by gradual reforms to raise itself to
that standard. For this reason, it is more difficult
under an aristocracy than under a monarchy
while under a democracy it is impossible except
by a violent revolution to attain to this, the
one perfectly lawful constitution. The kind of
government, * however, is of infinitely more im-
portance to the people than the kind of consti-
tution, although the greater or less aptitude of a
people for this ideal greatly depends upon such
external form. The form of government, however,
if it is to be in accordance with the idea of right,
must embody the representative system in which
alone a republican form of administration is pos-
* 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 govern-
ment 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 kiud 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 emperer was sufficiently great to exclude them.
128 Perpetual Peace
sible and without which it is despotic and violent,
be the constitution what it may. None of the
ancient so-called republics were aware of this, and
they necessarily slipped into absolute despotism
which, of all despotisms, is most endurable under
the sovereignty of one individual.
SECOND DEFINITIVE ARTICLE OF PERPETUAL PEACE
II. "The law of nations shall be founded oa a
federation of free states."
Nations, as states, may be judged like individuals
who, living in the natural state of society that is
to say, uncontrolled by external law injure one
another through their very proximity. *.~ Every state,
for the sake of its own security, may and ought
to demand that its neighbour should submit itself
to conditions, similar to those of the civil society
where the right of every individual is guaranteed.
* "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 parti-
cular 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 represented 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, witk their frontiers arm4,
and cannons planted against their neighbours round about."
(Hobbes: Leviathan, II. Ch. XXI.) [Tr.J
Translation \ 29
This would give rise to a federation of nations which,
however, would not have to be a State of nations. *
That would involve a contradiction. For the term
"state" implies the relation of one who rules to
those who obey that is to say, of lawgiver to the
subject people : and many nations in one state would
constitute only one nation, which contradicts our
hypothesis, since here we have to consider the right
of one nation against another, in so far as they
are so many separate states and are not to be
fused into one.
* 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 ftremftorily valid and constitute
a true state of peace only in a universal union of ttates, 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 ferpetual peace, the final goal of international
law as a whole, is really an impracticable idea \eine unaus/uhr~
bare 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 realisation." [Tr.]
9
Perpetual Peace
The attachment of savages to their lawless liberty,
the fact that they would rather be at hopeless
variance with one another than submit themselves
to a legal authority constituted by themselves, that
they therefore prefer their senseless freedom to a
reason-governed liberty, is regarded by us with
profound contempt as barbarism and uncivilisation
and the brutal degradation of humanity. So one
would think that civilised races, each formed into
a state by itself, must come out of such an aban-
doned condition as soon as they possibly can.
on the contrary, however, every state thinks rather
that its majesty (the "majesty" of a people is an
absurd ｅxpression) lies just in the very fact that
it is subject to no external legal authority ; and the
glory of the ruler consists in this, that, without his
requiring to expose himself to danger, thousands
stand at his command ready to let themselves be
sacrificed for a matter of no concern to them. *
The difference between the savages of Europe
and those of America lies chiefly in this, that,
while many tribes of the latter have been entirely
devoured by their enemies, Europeans know a
better way of using the vanquished than by eating
* 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 toQgs will not pluck the glowing
iron from the fire with his hands."
Translation 131
them; and they prefer to increase through them
the number of their subjects, and so the number
of instruments at their command for still more
widely spread war.
The depravity of human nature * shows itself
without disguise in the unrestrained relations of
nations to each other, while in the law-governed
civil state much of this is hidden by the check
of government. This being so, it is astonishing
that the word "right" has not yet been entirely
banished from the politics of war as pedantic,
and that no state has yet ventured to publicly
advocate this point of view/ For Hugo Grotius,
Puffendorf, Vattel and others Job's comforters, all
of them are always quoted in good faith to justify
an attack, although their codes, whether couched
in philosophical or diplomatic terms, have not nor
can have the slightest legal force, because states,
as such, are under no common external authority;
and there is no instance of a state having ever
* "Both sayings are very true: that man to man is a kind of
God; and that man to man u 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.]
132 Perpetual Peace
been moved by argument to desist from its
purpose, even when this was backed up by the
testimony of such great men. This homage which
every state renders in words at least to the
idea of right, proves that, although it may be
slumbering, there is, notwithstanding, to be found
in man a still higher natural moral capacity by
the aid of which he will in time gain the mastery
over the evil principle in his nature, the existence
of which he is unable to deny. And he hopes
the same of others; for otherwise the word
"right" would never be uttered by states who
wish to wage war, unless to deride it like the
Gallic Prince who declared: " The privilege which
nature gives the strong is that the weak must
obey them." *
The method by which states prosecute their
rights can never be by process of law as it is
where there is an external tribunal but only by war. '
Through this means, however, and its favourable
issue, victory, the question of right is never decided.
A treaty of peace makes, it may be, an end to
the war of the moment, but not to the conditions
* "The strongest are still never sufficiently strong to ensure
them the continual mastership, unless they find means of trans-
forming force into right, and obedience into duty.
From the right of the strongest, right takes an ironical appear-
ance, and is rarely established as a principle." (Contrat Soda/, I,
Ch. III.) [Tr.j
i j $
of war which at any time may afford a new pretext
for opening hostilities; and this we cannot exactly
condemn as unjust, because under these conditions
everyone is his own judge. Notwithstanding, not
quite the same rule applies to states according to
the law of nations as holds good of individuals in
a lawless condition according to the law of nature,
namely, "that they ought to advance out of this
condition." This is so, because, as states, they have
already within themselves a legal constitution, and
have therefore advanced beyond the stage at which
others, in accordance with their ideas of right, can
force them to come under a wider legal constitution.
Meanwhile, however, reason, from her throne of
the supreme law-giving moral power, absolutely
condemns war * as a morally lawful proceeding,
* "The natural state," says Hobbes, (On Dominion, Ch. VH 18)
"hath the same proportion to the ciril, (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: "haying quitted reason, which God hath
given to be the rule betwixt man aod man, and the common bond
whereby human kind is united ioto 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 hig
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 beat, or noxious
brute, with whom mankind can have neither society nor stcurity."
(Civil Grvtrnrnmt, Ch. XV. 172.) [Tr.]
134 Perpttual Peace
and makes a state of peace, on the other hand,
an immediate duty. Without a compact between
the nations, however, this state of peace cannot
be established or assured. Hence there must be
an alliance of a particular kind which we may
call a covenant of peace (foedus pacificum\ which
would differ from a treaty of peace (pactum pads]
in this respect, that the latter merely puts an
end to one war, while the former would seek
to put an end to war for ever. This alliance does
not aim at the gain of any power whatsoever
of the state, but merely at the preservation and
security of the freedom of the state for itself and
of other allied states at the same time. * The latter
do not, however, require, for this reason, to submit
themselves like individuals in the state of nature
to public laws and coercion. The practicability or
objective reality of this idea of federation which
is to extend gradually over all states and so lead
to perpetual peace can be shewn. For, if Fortune
ordains that a powerful and enlightened people
should form a republic, which by its very nature
is inclined to perpetual peace this would serve as
a centre of federal union for other states wishing
to join, and thus secure conditions of freedom
* Cf. Rousseau: Gouverntment de Polognt, Ch. V. Federate
government is "the only one which unites in itself all the advantage*
of great and small states/' [Tr.]
Translation 13 J
among the states in accordance with the idea of
the law of nations. Gradually, through different
unions of this kind, the federation would extend
further and further.
It is quite comprehensible that a people should
say : " There shall be no war among us, for we shall
form ourselves into a state, that is to say, constitute
for ourselves a supreme legislative, administrative
and judicial power which will settle our disputes
peaceably." But if this state says: "There shall
be no war between me and other states, although
I recognise no supreme law-giving power which
will secure me. my rights and whose rights I will
guarantee;" then it is not at all clear upon what
grounds I could base my confidence in my right,
unless it were the substitute for that compact on
which civil society is based namely, free federation
which reason must necessarily connect with the
idea of the law of nations, if indeed any meaning
is to be left in that concept at all.
There is no intelligible meaning in the idea of the
law of nations as giving a right to make war; for
that must be a right to decide what is just, not in
accordance with universal, external laws limiting
the freedom of each individual, but by means of
one-sided maxims applied by force. We must
then understand by this that men of such ways
of thinking are quite justly served, when they
136 Perpetual Peace
destroy one another, and thui find perpetual peace
in the wide grave which covers all the abomina-
tions of acts of violence as well as the authors of
such deeds. For states, in their relation to one
another, there can be, according to reason, no other
way of advancing from that lawless condition which
unceasing war implies, than by giving up their
savage lawless freedom, just as individual men have
done, and yielding to the coercion of public laws.
Thus they can form a State of nations (civitas
gentium], one, too ; which will be ever increasing
and would finally embrace all the peoples of the
earth. States, however, in accordance with their
understanding of the law of nations, by no means
desire this, and therefore reject in hypothesi what
ii correct in thesi. Hence, instead of the positive
idea of a world-republic, if all is not to be lost,
only the negative substitute for it, a federation
averting war, maintaining its ground and ever
extending over the world may stop the current of
this tendency to war and shrinking from the con-
trol of law. But even then there will be a con-
stant danger that this propensity may break out. *
* 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 relation* with
other states) to a law-governed constitution, preferring rather
Translation 1 3 7
"Furor impiui intui fremit horddui oro crucnto."
(Virgil.) *
THIRD DEFINITIVE ARTICLE OF PERPETUAL PEACE
III. "The rights of men, as citizens of the world,
shall be limited to the conditions of universal
hospitality."
We are speaking here, as in the previous articles,
not of philanthropy, but of right ; and in this sphere
hospitality signifies the claim of a stranger entering
foreign territory to be treated by its owner without
hostility. The latter may send him away again, if
this can be done without causing his death; but,
so long as he conducts himself peaceably, he must
not be treated as an enemy. It is not a right to
be treated as a guest to which the stranger can lay
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
txultation that a great number of Urea, or at least the happiness
of many, has been destroyed.
* Cf. Aeneidos, I. 294 $tq.
"Furor impius iatu*,
Saeva sedens super arma, et centum vinetua ai'nis
Post tergum nodis, fremet horridus ore cnieuto." [Tr.]
138 Perpetual Ptaee
claim a special friendly compact on his behalf
would be required to make him for a given time
an actual inmate but he has a right of visitation.
This right * to present themselves to society belongs
to all mankind in virtue of our common right of
possession on the surface of the earth on which, as
it is a globe, we cannot be infinitely scattered, and
must in the end reconcile ourselves to existence
side by side: at the same time, originally no one
individual had more right than another to live in
any one particular spot. Uninhabitable portions of
the surface, ocean and desert, split up the human
community, but in such a way that ships and camels
"the ship of the desert" make it possible for
men to come into touch with one another across
these unappropriated regions and to take advantage
of our common claim to the face of the earth with
a view to a possible intercommunication. The in-
hospitality of the inhabitants of certain sea coasts
as, for example, the coast of Barbary in plunder-
ing ships in neighbouring seas or making slaves of
shipwrecked mariners ; or the behaviour of the
Arab Bedouins in the deserts, who think that
* Cf. Vattel (pp. 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 aboTe,
P, 65, note. [Tr.]
Translation 139
proximity to nomadic tribes constitutes a right to
rob, is thus contrary to the law of nature. This
right to hospitality, however that is to say, the
privilege of strangers arriving on foreign soil does
not amount to more than what is implied in a
permission to make an attempt at intercourse with
the original inhabitants. In this way far distant
territories may enter into peaceful relations with
one another. These relations may at last come
under the public control of law, and thus the hu-
man race may be brought nearer the realisation
of a cosmopolitan constitution.
Let us look now, for the sake of comparison, at
the inhospitable behaviour of the civilised nations,
especially the commercial states of our continent.
The injustice which they exhibit on visiting foreign
lands and races this being equivalent in their
eyes to conquest is such as to fill us with
horror. America, the negro countries, the Spice
Islands, the Cape etc. were, on being discovered,
looked upon as countries which belonged to no-
body; for the native inhabitants were reckoned as
nothing. In Hindustan, under the pretext of in-
tending to establish merely commercial depots, the
Europeans introduced foreign troops ; and, as a
result, the different states of Hindustan were stirred
up to far-spreading wars. Oppression of the natives
followed, famine, insurrection, perfidy and all
140 Pfrpetual Piace
the rest of the litany of evilt which can afflict
mankind.
China * and Japan (Nipon) which had made an
attempt at receiving guests of this kind, have now
* ID order to call this great empire by the uame which it girts
itself namely, China, not Sina or a word of similar sound we have
only to look at Gcorgii: Alphab. Tibet., pp. 651 654, particularly
nott b., below. According to the observation of Professor Fischer
of St. Petersburg, there is really no particular name which it always
goes by: tfce most usual is the word Kin, is. gold, which the inha-
bitants of Tibet call Scr. Hence the emperor is called the king
of gold, /./. the king of the most splendid country in the world.
This word Kin may probably be Ckin in the empire itself, but
b pronounced Kin by the Italian missionaries on account of
ihe gutturals. Thus we see that the country of the Seres, BO 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. Thi
lead* to many reflections as to the antiquity of this wonderful
state, M compared with Hindustan, at the time of it* 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 neigh-
bouring people* leads to nothing.
Perhaps we can explain the ancient intercourse of Europe with
Tibet fact at no time widely kcown by looking at what
Hesychius has preserred on the matter. I refer to the shout, Kot/z-
Of4*-a% (Konx Ompax), the cry of the Hierophants in the Eleusiniaa
mysteries (cf. Travels of Anacharsit tke Younger, Part V., p. 447,
setf.). For, according to Georgii Alfk. Tibet., the word Coneioa
which bears a striking resemblance to Konx means God. Pak-ci
(fb. p. 520) which might easily be pronounced by the Greeks like
fax means promulgator legis, the divine principle permeating
nature (called also, on p. 177, Cencresi). Om, however, which La
Croie translates by benedictus, i.e. blessed, can when applied to
th Deity mean nothing but beatified (p. 507). Now P. Franc.
Hormtiua, when be asked th Lhamas of Tibet, as he often did,
what tfecy mndaratood by God (Cencria) always got tfce aaswer :
Translation 141
taken a prudent step. only to a single European
people, the Dutch, has China given the right of
access to her shores (but not of entrance into the
country), while Japan has granted both these con-
cessions; but at the same time they exclude the
Dutch who enter, as if they were prisoners, from
social intercourse with the inhabitants. The worst,
or from the standpoint of ethical judgment the
best, of all this is that no satisfaction is derived
from all this violence, that all these trading com-
panies stand on the verge of ruin, that the Sugar
Islands, that seat of the most horrible and delib-
"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 JKonx 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. Horalius 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
x^y '<fytwa according to Liddell and Scott, a corruption of jwy|
iliofus T$fd 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.,
Postcript) uses Konx Ompax as a pseudonym. [Tr.])
142 Perpetual Peace
erate slavery, yield no real profit, but only have
their use indirectly and for no very praiseworthy
object namely, that of furnishing men to be
trained as sailors for the men-of-war and thereby
contributing to the carrying on of war in Europe.
And this has been done by nations who make a
great ado about their piety, and who, while they
are quite ready to commit injustice, would like, in
their orthodoxy, to be considered among the elect.
The intercourse, more or less close, which has
been everywhere steadily increasing between the
nations of the earth, has now extended so enor-
mously that a violation of right in one part of the
world is felt all over it. Hence the idea of a cos-
mopolitan right is no fantastical, high-flown notion
of right, but a complement of the unwritten code
of law constitutional as well as international
law necessary for the public rights of mankind
in general and thus for the realisation of perpetual
peace. For only by endeavouring to fulfil the
conditions laid down by this cosmopolitan law can
we flatter ourselves that we are gradually approach-
ing that ideal.
FIRST SUPPLEMENT
CONCERNING THE GUARANTEE OF PERPETUAL PEACE
THIS guarantee is given by no less a power
than the great artist nature (natura dcsdala rerum)
in whose mechanical course is clearly exhibited a
predetermined design to make harmony spring
from human discord, even against the will of man.
Now this design, although called Fate when looked
upon as the compelling force of a cause, the
laws of whose operation are unknown to us, is,
when considered as the purpose manifested in the
course of nature, called Providence, * as the deep-
* 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 predeter-
mination 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
(prcvidentia conditrix ; semel jussit, semper parent. Augustine). As
it maintains the course of nature, however, according to universal
laws of adaptation to preconceived ends, [/.*. 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 coXild not foresee,
but suspect only from the result. Finally, regarding particular events
144 Perpetual Peace
lying wisdom of a Higher Cause, directing itself
towards the ultimate practical end of the human
race and predetermining the course of things with
a view to its realisation. This Providence we do
as (Hvine purposes, we speak no longer of providence, but of dispensa-
tion (directio txtraordinaria). 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. Tor, from one single occurrence, to jump at
the conclusion that there u a particular principle of efficient causes
and that this event is an end and not merely the natural \natur-
meehanische\ 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 materialiier, 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 it* purposes are fulfilled. So that we have ordinary
providence (eg. 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-mcchanical 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 pro-
vidential 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,
145
not, it i true, perceive in the cunning contrivances
[Kunstanstaltfn] of nature ; nor can we even
conclude from the fact of their existence that
it is there; but, as in every relation between
the form of things and their final cause, we
can, and must, supply the thought of a Higher
Wisdom, in order that we may be able to form
an idea of the possible existence of these products
after the analogy of human works of art [Kunsthand-
wlf-contradictory to couple the like and the unlike together (fty-
phes jungtre equh} and to let HIM who is Himself the entire cause
of tht changes im the universt 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
ttat the physician has restored the sick with the help of God that
is to say that Ht has been present as a support. For tausa soli-
taria nen j*t*>*t. God created the physician as well as his means
ef 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 goo 1 action as a mere event in time by this (oncurmt ; for that
would be to pretend a theoretical knowledge of the supersensible
aad hence be absurd,
10
I4J6
* The representation to ourselves of the
relation and agreement of these formations of nature
to the moral purpose for which they were made anc
which reason directly prescribes to us, is an Idea
it is true, which is in theory superfluous; but in
practice it is dogmatic, and its objective reality K
well established, f Thus we see, for example, with
regard to the ideal \Pfiichtb egriff\ of perpetual
peace, that it is our duty to make use of the
mechanism of nature for the realisation of that end.
Moreover, in a case like this where we are interested
merely in the theory and not in the religious question,
the use of the word " nature " is more appropriate
than that of "providence", in view of the limitation*
of human reason, which, in considering the relation
of effects to their causes, must keep within the
limits of possible experience. And the term
"nature" is also less presumptuous than the other.
To speak of a Providence knowable by us would be
boldly to put on the wings of Icarus in order to
draw near to the mystery of its unfathomable
purpose.
Before we determine the surety given by nature
more exactly, we must first look at what ultimately
makes this guarantee of peace necessary the
* 14 AT/, which we cannot diuerar troai the id** of a
skill capable of producing tho. (Tr.j
t Sec preface, p. ix. above.
First Supplement
circumstances in which nature has carefully placed
the actors in her great theatre. In the next place,
we shall proceed to consider the manner in which
she gives this surety.
The provisions she has made are as follow : (i)
she has taken care that men can live in all parts
of the world ; (2) she has scattered them by means
of war in all directions, even into the most inhos-
pitable regions, so that these too might be popu-
lated ; (3) by this very means she has forced them
to enter into relations more or less controlled by
law. It is surely wonderful that, on the cold wastes
round the Arctic Ocean, there is always to be
found moss for the reindeer to scrape out from
under the snow, the reindeer itself either serving
as food or to draw the sledge of the Ostiak or
Samoyedes. And salt deserts which would other-
wise be left unutilised have the camel, which seems
as if created for travelling in such lands. This
evidence of design in things, however, is still more
clear when we come to know that, besides the
fur-clad animals of the shores of the Arctic Ocean,
there are seals, walruses and whales whose flesh
furnishes food and whose oil fire for the dwellers
in these regions. - But the providential care of
nature excites our wonder above all, when we hear
of the driftwood which is carried whence no one
knows to these treeless shores: for without the
148 Pfrpttual Ptatt
aid of this material the natives could neither con-
struct their craft, nor weapons, nor huts for shelter.
Here too they have so much to do, making war
against wild animals, that they live at peace with
one another. But what drove them originally into
these regions was probably nothing but war.
Of animals, used by us as instruments of war,
the horse was the first which man learned to tame
ind domesticate during the period of the peopling
of the earth; the elephant belongs to the later
period of the luxury of states already established.
In the same way, the art of cultivating certain
grasses called cereals no longer known to us in
their original form and also the multiplication and
improvement, by transplanting and grafting, of the
original kinds of fruit in Europe, probably only
two species, the crab-apple and wild pear could
only originate under the conditions accompanying
established states where the rights of property are
assured. That is to say it would be after man,
hitherto existing in lawless liberty, had advanced
beyond the occupations of a hunter, * a fisherman
* 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. 46)
First Supplement 149
or a shepherd to the life of a tiller of the soil,
when salt and iron were discovered, to become,
perhaps, the first articles of commerce between
different peoples, and were sought far and near.
In this way the peoples would be at first brought
into peaceful relation with one another, and so come
to an understanding and the enjoyment of friendly
intercourse, even with their most distant neighbours.
Now while nature provided that men could live
on all parts of the earth, she also at the same time
despotically willed that they should live everywhere
on it, although against their own inclination and
even although this imperative did not presuppose
an idea of duty which would compel obedience to
nature with the force of a moral law. But, to
attain this end, she has chosen war. So we see
certain peoples, widely separated, whose common
[4. "But flesh with the life thereof, which U the blood
thereof, shall ye not eat.
5. And surely your blood of your lives will I require;
at the hand of every beast will I require it, and at the hand
of man; at the hand of every man's brother will I require
the life of man.
6. Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood
be shed : for in the image of God made he man."]
is frequently quoted, and was afterwards in another connection it
is true made by the baptised Jews a condition to which Chris-
tians, 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 th other.
150 Perpetual Peace
descent is made evident by affinity in their langu-
ages. Thus, for instance, we find the Samoyedes
on the Arctic Ocean, and again a people speaking
a similar language on the Altai Mts., 200 miles
[Mfileri\ * off, between whom has pressed in a mount-
ed tribe, war-like in character and of Mongolian
origin, which has driven one branch of the race
far from the other, into the most inhospitable
regions where their own inclination would certainly
not have carried them, f In the same way, through
the intrusion of the Gothic and Sarmatian tribes,
the Finns in the most northerly regions of Europe,
whom we call Laplanders, have been separated by
as great a distance from the Hungarians, with whose
language their own is allied. And what but war
can have brought the Esquimos to the north of
America, a race quite distinct from those of that
country and probably European adventurers of
* About 1000 English miles.
f The question might be put:" If it is nature's will that thes
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 berter the wood which grows on
the banks of their rivers, aiid 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 seat of Arctic shore* are so rich that is, if nature KM first
of all brought about peace among them.
First Supplement 151
prehistoric times? And war too, nature's method
of populating the earth, must have driven the
Pescherais * in South America as far as Patagonia.
War itself, however, is in need of no special )
stimulating cause, but seems engrafted in human 7
nature, and is even regarded as something noble \
in itself to which man is inspired by the love of
glory apart from motives of self-interest. Hence,
among the savages of America as well as those of
Europe in the age of chivalry, martial courage is
looked upon as of great value in itself, not merely
when a war is going on, as is reasonable enough,
but in order that there should be war: and thus
war is often entered upon merely to exhibit this
quality. So that an intrinsic dignity is held to
attach to war in itself, and even philosophers
eulogise it as an ennobling, refining influence on
humanity, unmindful of the Greek proverb, " War
is evil, in so far as it makes more bad people
than it takes away."
So much, then, of what nature does for her own
ends with regard to the human race as members
of the animal world. - Now comes the question
which touches the essential points in this design of
a perpetual peace: "What does nature do in this
respect with reference to the end which man's own
* Cf. EMC. Brit, (gth !.), art. ' ; Indians", in which there is an
t " Futgiww, At Ptsckti-mis" tf some \rrihws. [Tr.]
151 Perpetual Peace
reason sets before him as a duty ? and consequently
what does she do to further the realisation of hit
moral purpose ? How does she guarantee that what
man, by the laws of freedom, ought to do and yet
fails to do, he will do, without any infringement
of his freedom by the compulsion of nature and
that, moreover, this shall be done in accordance
with the three forms of public right constitutional
or political law, international law and cosmopolitan
law?" When I say of nature that she wills that
this or that should take place, I do not mean that
she imposes upon us the duty to do it for only the
free, unrestrained, practical reason can do that but
that she does it herself, whether we will or not.
"Fata voltntem ducunt," nolentem trahunt"
i . Even if a people were not compelled through
internal discord to submit to the restraint of public
laws, war would bring this about, working from
without. For, according to the contrivance of na-
ture which we have mentioned, every people finds
another tribe in its neighbourhood, pressing upon
it in such a manner that it is compelled to form
itself internally into a state to be able to defend
itself as a power should. Now the republican
constitution is the only one which is perfectly
adapted to the rights of man, but it is also the
most difficult to establish and still more to main-
tain. So generally is this retognised that people
First Supplement 153
often say the members of a republican state would
require to be angels, * because men, with their self-
seeking propensities, are not fit for a constitution
of so sublime a form But now nature comes to
the aid of the universal, reason-derived will which,
much as we honour it, is in practice powerless.
And this she does, by means of these very self-
seeking propensities, so that it only depends -
and so much lies within the power of man on a
good organisation of the state for their forces to
be so pitted against one another, that the one may
check the destructive activity of the other or neu-
tralise its effect. And hence, from the standpoint of
reason, the result will be the same as if both forces
did not exist, and each individual is compelled to
be, if not a morally good man, yet at least a good
citizen. The problem of the formation of the state,
hard as it may sound, is not insoluble, even for a
* Rousseau uses these terms in speaking of democracy. (Cont.
Sea., 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. ft/.,
II. Ch. 6.): "AH 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 b lawful, it must not be coufused with the sovereign power,
but be considered as the administrator of that power: and then
Monarchy itself is a republic," This language ha* a eiosd affinity
\vitfc &*t wed by Kam*. (Cf. above, p. i$.) [Tr.]
154 Perpetual Peace
race of devils, granted that they have intelligence.
It may be put thus : " Given a multitude of rational
beings who, in a body, require general laws for their
own preservation, but each of whom, as an individual,
is secretly inclined to exempt himself from this
restraint : how are we to order their affairs and how
establish for them a constitution such that, although
their private dispositions may be really antagonistic,
they may yet so act as a check upon one another,
that, in their public relations, the effect is the same
as if they had no such evil sentiments." Such a
problem must be capable of solution. For it deals,
not with the moral reformation of mankind, but
only with the mechanism of nature ; and the problem
is to learn how this mechanism of nature can be
applied to men, in order so to regulate the antago-
nism of conflicting interests in a people that they
may even compel one another to submit to compul-
sory laws and thus necessarily bring about the state
of peace in which laws have force. We can see,
in states actually existing, although very imperfectly
organised, that, in externals, they already approx-
imate very nearly to what the Idea of right prescribes,
although the principle of morality is certainly not
the cause. A good political constitution, however,
is not to be expected as a result of progress in
morality; but rather, conversely, the good moral
condition of a nation is to be looked for, M one of
First Supplement 155
the first fruits of such a constitution. Hence the
mechanism of nature, working through the self-
seeking propensities of man (which of course coun-
teract one another in their external effects), may be
used by reason as a means of making way for the
realisation of her own purpose, the empire of right,
and, as far as is in the power of the state, to pro-
mote and secure in this way internal as well as
external peace. We may say, then, that it is the
irresistible will of nature that right shall at last
get the supremacy. What one here fails to do will
be accomplished in the long run, although perhaps
with much inconvenience to us. As Bouterwek says,
11 If you bend the reed too much it breaks : he who
would do too much does nothing."
2. The idea of international law presupposes
the separate existence of a number of neighbouring
and independent states ; and, although such a con-
dition of things is in itself already a state of war,
(if a federative union of these nations does not
prevent the outbreak of hostilities) yet, according
to the Idea of reason, this is better than that all
the states should be merged into one under a
power which has gained the ascendency over its
neighbours and gradually become a universal mo-
narchy. * For the wider the sphere of their jurisdic-
* $ above, p. 69, nte t p. reference to Thetry 0f Etkus.
156 Perpetual Peace
tion, the more laws lose in force; and soulless
despotism, when it has choked the seeds of good,
at last sinks into anarchy. Nevertheless it is the
desire of every state, or of its ruler, to attain to
a permanent condition of peace in this very way;
that is to say, by subjecting the whole world as
far as possible to its sway. But nature wills it
otherwise. She employs two means to separate
nations, and prevent them from intermixing : namely,
the differences of language and of religion. * These
differences bring with them a tendency to mutual
hatred, and furnish pretexts for waging war. But,
none the less, with the growth of culture and the
gradual advance of men to greater unanimity of
principle, they lead to concord in a state of peace
which, unlike the despotism we have spoken of, (the
churchyard of freedom) does not arise from the
weakening of all forces, but is brought into being
and secured through the equilibrium of these forces
in their most active rivalry.
* Difference of religion! A strange ｅxpression, M 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 invest-
igation, and do not really lie within the sphere of religion. In
the same way there are many religious works the Zendavesta,
Vida ) 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 rtligion, and may be different according
to diffrenc in tim and place.
Suppltmmt 157
3. As nature wisely separates nations which the
will of each state, sanctioned even by the principles
of international law, would gladly unite under its
own sway by stratagem or force ; in the same way,
on the other hand, she unites nations whom the
principle of a cosmopolitan right would not have
secured against violence and war. And this union
she brings about through an appeal to their mutual
interests. The commercial spirit cannot co-exist with
war, and sooner or later it takes possession of every
nation. For, of all the forces which lie at the com-
mand of a state, the power of money is probably the
most reliable. Hence states find themselves compelled
not, it is true, exactly from motives of morality
to further the noble end of peace and to avert war,
by means of mediation, wherever it threatens to break
out, just as if they had made a permanent league
for this purpose. For great alliances with a view to
war can, from the nature of things, only very
rarely occur, and still more seldom succeed.
In this way nature guarantees the coming of
perpetual peace, through the natural course of
human propensities: not indeed with sufficient cer-
tainty to enable us to prophesy the future of this
ideal theoretically, but yet clearly enough for prac-
tical purposes. And thus this guarantee of nature
makes it a duty that we should labour for this
end, an end which is no mere chimera.
SECOND SUPPLEMENT
A S1CRET ARTICLE FOR PERPETUAL PEACB
A SECRET article in negotiations concerning public
right is, when looked at objectively or with regard
to the meaning of the term, a contradiction. When
we view it, however, from the subjective standpoint,
with regard to the character and condition of the
person who dictates it, we see that it might quite
well involve some private consideration, so that he
would regard it as hazardous to his dignity to
acknowledge such an article as originating from him.
The only article of this kind is contained in the
following proposition: "The ^opinions of philo-
sophers, with regard to the conditions of the pos-
sibility of a public peace, shall be taken into con-
sideration by states armed for war."
It seems, however, to be derogatory to the dignity
of the legislative authority of a state to which we
must of course attribute all wisdom to ask advice
from subjects (among whom stand philosophers)
about the rules of its behaviour to other states.
At the same time, it is very advisable that this
should be done. Hence the state will silently invite
suggestion for this purpose, while at the same
time keeping the fact secret. This amounts to
1 19
faying that the state will allow philotophen to
discuss freely and publicly the universal principles
governing the conduct of war and establishment
of peace ; for they will do this of their own accord,
if no prohibition is laid upon them. * The arrange-
ment between states, on this point, does not require
that a special agreement should be made, merely
for this purpose; for it is already involved in
the obligation imposed by the universal reason of
man which gives the moral law. We would not
be understood to say that the state must give
a preference to the principles of the philosopher,
rather than to the opinions of the jurist, the repre-
sentative of state authority ; but only that he should
be heard. The latter, who has chosen for a symbol
the scales of right and the sword of justice, f generally
uses that sword not merely to keep off all outside
influences from the scales; for, when one pan of
the balance will not go down, he throws his sword
into it ; and then V<z victis I The jurist, not being
' 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 Loit, XIX. Ch. ay.) Hobbes is opposed to all free
discussion of political questions and to freedom as a source of danger
to the state. [Tr.]
f Kant U thinking here not of the sword of justice, in die
moral sense, but of a sword which i* symbolical of ifce executive
powc of the actMl law. [Tr.]
160 Ptrpttutl Ptact
ti
a moral philosopher, is under the greatest temptation
to do this, because it is his business only to apply
existing laws and not to investigate whether these
are not themselves in need of improvement; and
this actually lower function of his profession he
looks upon as the nobler, because it is linked to
power (as is the case also in both the other faculties,
theology and medicine). Philosophy occupies a very
low position compared with this combined power. So
that it is said, for example, that she is the handmaid
of theology; and the same has been said of her
position with regard to law and medicine. It is not
quite clear, however, " whether she bears the torch
before these gracious ladies, or carries the train."
That kings should philosophise, or philosophers
become kings, is not to be expected. But neither
is it to be desired; for the possession of power is
inevitably fatal to the free exercise of reason. But it
is absolutely indispensable, for their enlightenment
as to the full significance of their vocations, that
both kings and sovereign nations, which rule them-
selves in accordance with laws of equality, should not
allow the class of philosophers to disappear, nor forbid
the ｅxpression of their opinions, but should allow them
to speak openly. And since this class of men, by
their very nature, are incapable of instigating rebellion
or forming unions for purposes of political agitation,
they should not be suspected of propagandism.
APPENDIX I
on THE DISAGREEMENT BETWEEN MORALS AND
POLITICS WITH REFERENCE TO PERPETUAL PEACE
IN an objective sense, morals is a practical
science, as the sum of laws exacting unconditional
obedience, in accordance with which we ought to
act. Now, once we have admitted the authority
of this idea of duty, it is evidently inconsistent
that we should think of saying that we cannot act
thus. For, in this case, the idea of duty falls to
the ground of itself; " ultra posse nemo obligatur"
Hence there can be no quarrel between politics,
as the practical science of right, and morals, which
is also a science of right, but theoretical. That
is, theory cannot come into conflict with practice.
For, in that case, we would need to understand
under the term "ethics" or "morals" a universal
doctrine of expediency, or, in other words, a theory
of precepts which may guide us in choosing the
best means for attaining ends calculated for our
advantage. This is to deny that a science of
morals exists.
ii
1 62 Perpetual Peace
Politics says, "Be wise as serpents"; morals adds
the limiting condition, " and guileless as doves."
If these precepts cannot stand together in one
command, then there is a real quarrel between
politics and morals. * But if they can be com-
pletely brought into accord, then the idea of any
antagonism between them is absurd, and the question
of how best to make a compromise between the
two points of view ceases to be even raised.
Although the saying, "Honesty is the best policy,"
* Cf. Aristotle: Politics, (Welldon'i 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 Tht Ftince, 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 i* a system of morals," he says, "calculated for princes,
much more free than that which ought to govern private persons,"
(Treatise, HI., Part IL, Sect. IX.) JTr.J
Appendix I 163
expresses a theory which, alas, is often contradicted
in practice, yet the likewise theoretical maxim,
"Honesty is better than any policy," is exalted
high above every possible objection, is indeed the
necessary condition of all politics.
The Terminus of morals does not yield to Jupiter,
the Terminus of force ; for the latter remains beneath
the sway of Fate. In other words, reason is not
sufficiently enlightened to survey the series of pre-
determining causes which would make it possible
for us to predict with certainty the good or bad
results of human action, as they follow from the
mechanical laws of nature; although we may hope
that things will turn out as we should desire. But
what we have to do, in order to remain in the
path of duty guided by the rules of wisdom,
reason makes everywhere perfectly clear, and does
this for the purpose of furthering her ultimate ends.
The practical man, however, for whom morals is
mere theory, even while admitting that what ought
to be can be, bases his dreary verdict against our
well-meant hopes really on this: he pretends that
he can foresee from his observation of human
nature, that men will never be willing to do what
is required in order to bring about the wished-for
results leading to perpetual peace. It is true that
the will of all individual men to live under a legal
constitution according to the principles of liberty
164 Perpetual Peace
that is to say, the distributive unity of the wills
of all is not sufficient to attain this end. We
must have the collective unity of their united
will: all as a body must determine these new
conditions. The solution of this difficult problem
is required in order that civil society should be a
whole. To all this diversity of individual wills there
must come a uniting cause, in order to produce a
common will which no distributive will is able to
\ give. Hence, in the practical realisation of that
] idea, no other beginning of a law-governed society
\ can be counted upon than one that is brought
about by force: upon this force, too, public law
^afterwards rests. This state of things certainly
prepares us to meet considerable deviation in actual
experience from the theoretical idea of perpetual
peace, since we cannot take into account the moral
character and disposition of a law-giver in this
connection, or expect that, after he has united a
wild multitude into one people, he will leave it to
them to bring about a legal constitution by their
common will.
It amounts to this. Any ruler who has once
got the power in his hands will not let the people
dictate laws for him. A state which enjoys an
independence of the control of external law will
not submit to the judgment of the tribunals of
other states, when it has to consider how to obtain
Appendix T 165
its rights against them. And even a continent,
when it feels its superiority to another, whether this
be in its way or not, will not fail to take advantage
of an opportunity offered of strengthening its power
by the spoliation or even conquest of this territory.
Hence all theoretical schemes, connected with con-
stitutional, international or cosmopolitan law, crum-
ble away into empty impracticable ideals. While,
on the other hand, a practical science, based on
the empirical principles of human nature, which
does not disdain to model its maxims on an ob-
servation of actual life, can alone hope to find a
sure foundation on which to build up a system of
national policy.
Now certainly, if there is neither freedom nor a
moral law founded upon it, and every actual or
possible event happens in the mere mechanical
course of nature, then politics, as the art of making
use of this physical necessity in things for the
government of men, is the whole of practical wisdom
and the idea of right is an empty concept. If, on
the other hand, we find that this idea of right
is necessarily to be conjoined with politics and even
to be raised to the position of a limiting condition of
that science, then the possibility of reconciling them
must be admitted. I can thus imagine a moral
politician, that is to say, one who understands the
principles of statesmanship to be such as do not
1 66 Perpetual Ptace
conflict with morali; but I cannot conceive of a
political moralist who fashions for himself such a
system of ethics as may serve the interest of
statesmen.
The moral politician will always act upon the
following principle : " If certain defects which could
not have been avoided are found in the political
constitution or foreign relations of a state, it is a
duty for all, especially for the rulers of the state,
to apply their whole energy to correcting them as
soon as possible, and to bringing the constitution
and political relations on these points into conformity
with the Law of Nature, as it is held up as a model
before us in the idea of reason; and this they
should do even at a sacrifice of their own interest."
Now it is contrary to all politics which is, in this
particular, in agreement with morals to dissever
any of the links binding citizens together in the
state or nations in cosmopolitan union, before a
better constitution is there to take the place of
what has been thus destroyed. And hence it would
be absurd indeed to demand that every imperfec-
tion in political matters must be violently altered
on the spot. But, at the same time, it may be re-
quired of a ruler at least that he should earnestly
keep the maxim in mind which points to the ne-
cessity of such a change ; so that he may go on
constantly approaching the end to be realised,
Apptndix I i6f
namely, the best possible constitution according to
the laws of right. Even although it is still under
despotic rule, in accordance with its constitution as
then existing, a state may govern itself on republican
lines, until the people gradually become capable of
being influenced by the mere idea of the authority
of law, just as if it had physical power. And they
become accordingly capable of self-legislation, their
faculty for which is founded on original right. But
if, through the violence of revolution, the product
of a bad government, a constitution more in accord
with the spirit of law were attained even by un-
lawful means, it should no longer be held justifiable
to bring the people back to the old constitution,
although, while the revolution was going on, every
one who took part in it by use of force or stratagem,
may have been justly punished as a rebel. As
regards the external relations of nations, a state
cannot be asked to give up its constitution, even
although that be a despotism (which is, at the same
time, the strongest constitution where foreign enemies
are concerned), so long as it runs the risk of being
immediately swallowed up by other states. Hence,
when such a proposal is made, the state whose
constitution is in question must at least be allowed to
defer acting upon it until a more convenient time. *
* These are per missive laws of reason which allow us to leave
a system of public law, when it i tainted by injustice, to remain
t68 FtretuAl Ptace
It is always possible that moralists who rule
despotically, and are at a loss in practical matters,
will come into collision with the rules of political
wisdom in many ways, by adopting measures with-
out sufficient deliberation which show themselves
afterwards to have been overestimated. When they
thus offend against nature, experience must gradu-
ally lead them into a better track. But, instead of
this being the case, politicians who are fond of
moralising do all they can to make moral improve-
ment impossible and to perpetuate violations of law,
by extenuating political principles which are an-
tagonistic to the idea of right, on the pretext that
human nature is not capable of good, in the sense
of the ideal which reason prescribes.
These politicians, instead of adopting an open,
straightforward way of doing things (as they boast),
mix themselves up in intrigue. They get at the
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 consti-
tution, a lawful constitution based on the principles of freedom.
Appendix / 169
authorities in power and say what will please them ;
their sole bent is to sacrifice the nation, or even,
if they can, the whole world, with the one end in
view that their own private interest may be for-
warded. This is the manner of regular jurists (1
mean the journeyman lawyer not the legislator),
when they aspire to politics. For, as it is not their
business to reason too nicely over legislation, but
only to enforce the laws of the country, every legal
constitution in its existing form and, when this is
changed by the proper authorities, the one which
takes its place, will always seem to them the best
possible. And the consequence is that everything
is purely mechanical. But this adroitness in suiting
themselves to any circumstances may lead them to
the delusion that they are also capable of giving
an opinion about the principles of political con-
stitutions in general, in so far as they conform to
ideas of right, and are therefore not empirical, but
a priori. And they may therefore brag about their
knowledge of men, which indeed one expects to
find, since they have to deal with so many with-
out really knowing the nature of man and what
can be made of it, to gain which knowledge a
higher standpoint of anthropological observation
than theirs is required. - Filled with ideas of this
kind, if they trespass outside their own sphere on
the boundaries of political and international law,
170 Perpetual Peace
looked upon as ideals which reason holds before
us, they can do so only in the spirit of chicanery.
For they will follow their usual method of making
everything conform mechanically to compulsory
laws despotically made and enforced, even here,
where the ideas of reason recognise the val-
idity of a legal compulsory force, only when it
is in accordance with the principles of freedom
through which a permanently valid constitution
becomes first of all possible. The would-be prac-
tical man, leaving out of account this idea of reason,
thinks that he can solve this problem empirically
by looking to the way in which those constitutions
which have best survived the test of time were
established, even although the spirit of these may
have been generally contrary to the idea of right.
The principles which he makes use of here, although
indeed he does not make them public, amount
pretty much to the following sophistical maxims,
i. Fac et excusa. Seize the most favourable
opportunity for arbitrary usurpation either of the
authority of the state over its own people or over
a neighbouring people; the justification of the act
and extenuation of the use of force will come much
more easily and gracefully, when the deed is done,
than if one has to think out convincing reasons for
taking this step and first hear through all the ob-
jections which can be made against it. This is
Apptndix I If I
ipccially true ift the first case mentioned, whera
the supreme power in the state also controls the
legislature which we must obey without any reason-
ing about it. Besides, this show of audacity in a
statesman even lends him a certain semblance of
inward conviction of the justice of his action ; and
once he has got so far the god of success (bonus
eventus) is his best advocate.
2. Si fecisti, nega. As for any crime you have
committed, such as has, for instance, brought your
people to despair and thence to insurrection, deny
that it has happened owing to any fault of yours.
Say rather that it is all caused by the insubordi-
nation of your subjects, or, in the case of your
having usurped a neighbouring state, that human
nature is to blame; for, if a man is not ready to
use force and steal a march upon his neighbour,
he may certainly count on the latter forestalling
him and taking him prisoner.
3. Divide et impera. That is to say, if there
are certain privileged persons, holding authority
among the people, who have merely chosen you
for their sovereign as primus inter pares, bring
about a quarrel among them, and make mischief
between them and the people. Now back up the
people with a dazzling promise of greater freedom ;
everything will now depend unconditionally on
your will. Or again, if there is a difficulty with
Perpetual Ptace
foreign states, then to stir up dissension among
them is a pretty sure means of subjecting first one
and then the other to your sway, under the pretext
of aiding the weaker.
It is true that nowadays no body is taken in by
these political maxims, for they are all familiar to
everyone. Moreover, there is no need of being
ashamed of them, as if their injustice were too
patent. For the great Powers never feel shame
before the judgment of the common herd, but only
before one another; so that as far as this matter
goes, it is not the revelation of these guiding
principles of policy that can make rulers ashamed,
but only the unsuccessful use of. them. For as to
the morality of these maxims, politicians are all
agreed. Hence there is always left political prestige
on which they can safely count; and this means
the glory of increasing their power by any means
that offer. *
In all these twistings and turnings of an immo-
ral doctrine of expediency which aims at substi-
tuting a state of peace for the warlike conditions
in which men are placed by nature, so much at
least is clear; that men cannot get away from
t * It is still sometimes denied that we find, in members of a
civilised community, a certain depravity rooted in the nature of
Appendix I 173
the idea of right in their private any more than
in their public relations; and that they do not
dare (this is indeed most strikingly seen in the
concept of an international law) to base politics
man; l 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 s 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
1 This depravity of human nature is denied by Rousseau, who
held that the inind of man was naturally inclined to virtue, and
that good civil and social institutions are all that is required.
(Discourse OH 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), >. 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 uo hindrance unto the common
good, for which societies are instituted." [Tr.J
174 Perpetual Peace
merely on the manipulations of expediency and there-
fore to refuse all obedience to the idea of a public
right. on the contrary, they pay all fitting honour
to the idea of right in itself, even although they
should, at the same time, devise a hundred
subterfuges and excuses to avoid it in practice,
and should regard force, backed up by cunning,
as having the authority which comes from being the
source and unifying principle of all right. It will be
well to put an end to this sophistry, if not to the
injustice it extenuates, and to bring the false advo-
cates of the mighty of the earth to confess that it is
not right but might in whose interest they speak, and
that it is the worship of might from which they take
their cue, as if in this matter they had a right to
command. In order to do this, we must first ex-
pose the delusion by which they deceive them-
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 thi judgment comes remains unexplained, as we cannot
lay the blame on the nature of man, since he is a being ia the
possession of freedom. The respect for the idea of right, of
which it is absolutely impossible for man to divest himself, sanc-
tions 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 neighbour! fulfil their obligation or not.
Appendix I 175
selves and others ; then discover the ultimate prin-
ciple from which their plans for a perpetual peace
proceed; and thence show that all the evil which
stands in the way of the realisation of that ideal
springs from the fact that the political moralist begins
where the moral politician rightly ends and that,
by subordinating principles to an end or putting
the cart before the horse, he defeats his intention
of bringing politics into harmony with morals.
In order to make practical philosophy consistent
with itself, we must first decide the following
question: In dealing with the problems of practical
reason must we begin from its material principle
the end as the object of free choice or from its formal
principle which is based merely on freedom in its
external relation? from which comes the following
law: "Act so that thou canst will that thy maxim
should be a universal law, be the end of thy action
what it will."*
Without doubt, the latter determining principle
of action must stand first; for, as a principle of
right, it carries unconditional necessity with it,
whereas the former is obligatory only if we assume
the empirical conditions of the end set before us,
that is to say, that it is an end capable of being
* With regard to the meaning of the moral law and its signifi-
cance in the Kantian system of ethics, see Abbott's translation of
the Theory of Ethics (1889), pp. 38, 45, 54, 55, 119, 282. [Tr,]
176 Perpetual Peace
practically realised. And if this end as, for example,
the end of perpetual peace should be also a duty,
this same duty must necessarily have been deduced
from the formal principle governing the maxims
which guide external action. Now the first prin-
ciple is the principle of the political moralist; the
problems of constitutional, international and cos-
mopolitan law are mere technical problems (problema
technicum). The second or formal principle, on the
other hand, as the principle of the moral politician
who regards it as a moral problem (problema morale),
differs widely from the other principle in its methods
of bringing about perpetual peace, which we
desire not only as a material good, but also as a
state of things resulting from our recognition of
the precepts of duty. *
To solve the first problem that, namely, of
political expediency much knowledge of nature is
required, that her mechanical laws may be employed
for the end in view. And yet the result of all
knowledge of this kind is uncertain, as far as per-
petual peace is concerned. This we find to be so,
whichever of the three departments of public law
we take. It is uncertain whether a people could
be better kept in obedience and at the same time
prosperity by severity or by baits held out to their
* See Abbott's trans., pp. 33, 34. [Tr.j
Apptndix I
vanity; whether they would be better governed
under the sovereignty of a single individual or by
the authority of several acting together; whether
the combined authority might be better secured
merely, say, by an official nobility or by the power
of the people within the state ; and, finally, whether
such conditions could be long maintained. There
are examples to the contrary in history in the case
of all forms of government, with the exception of
the only true republican constitution, the idea of
which can occur only to a moral politician. Still
more uncertain is a law of nations, ostensibly
established upon statutes devised by ministers ; for
this amounts in fact to mere empty words, and
rests on treaties which, in the very act of ratification,
contain "a secret reservation of the right to violate
them. on the other hand, the solution of the
second problem the problem of political wisdom
forces itself, we may say, upon us; it is quite
obvious to every one, and puts all crooked dealings
to shame; it leads, too, straight to the desired
end, while at the same time, discretion warns us
not to drag in the conditions of perpetual peace
by force, but to take time and approach this ideal
gradually as favourable circumstances permit.
This may be expressed in the following maxim :
" Seek ye first the kingdom of pure practical reason
and its righteousness, and the object of your en-
12
178 Ptrpttual Ptact
deavour, the blessing of perpetual peace, will be
added unto you." For the science of morals
generally has this peculiarity, and it has it also with
regard to the moral principles of public law, and
therefore with regard to a science of politics know-
able a priori, that the less it makes a man's conduct
depend on the end he has set before him, his
purposed material or moral gain, so much the
more, nevertheless, does it conform in general to
this end. The reason for this is that it is just the
universal will, given a priori, which exists in a
people or in the relation of different peoples to
one another, that alone determines what is lawful
among men. This union of individual wills, however,
if we proceed consistently in practice, in observance
the mechanical laws of nature, may be at the
saiii<: time the cause of bringing about the result
intended and practically realizing the idea of right.
Hence it is, for example, a principle of moral
politics that a people should unite into a state
according to the only valid concepts of right, the
ideas of freedom and equality; and this principle is
not based on expediency, but upon duty. Political
moralists, however, do not deserve a hearing, much
and sophistically as they may reason about the
existence, in a multitude of men forming a society,
of certain natural tendencies which would weaken
those principles and defeat their intention. They
Appendix f 179
may endeavour to prove their assertion by giving
instances of badly organised constitutions, chosen
both from ancient and modern times, (as, for
example, democracies without a representative
system); but such arguments are to be treated
with contempt, all the more, because a pernicious
theory of this kind may perhaps even bring about
the evil which it prophesies. For, in accordance
with such reasoning, man is thrown into a class
with all other living machines which only require
the consciousness that they are not free creatures
to make them in their own judgment the most
miserable of all beings.
Fiat justitia, pereat mundus. This saying has
become proverbial, and although it savours a little
of boastfulness, is also true. We may translate it
thus : " Let justice rule on earth, although all the
rogues in the world should go to the bottom." It
is a good, honest principle of right cutting off all
the crooked ways made by knavery or violence.
It must not, however, be misunderstood as allowing
anyone to exercise his own rights with the utmost
seventy, a course in contradiction to our moral duty ;
but we must take it to signify an obligation, bind-
ing upon rulers, to refrain from refusing to yield
anyone his rights or from curtailing them, out of
personal feeling or sympathy for other:.. For this
end, in particular, we require, firstly, that a state
i8o Perpetual Peact
should have an internal political constitution, es-
tablished according to the pure principles of right;
secondly, that a union should be formed between
this state and neighbouring or distant nations for
a legal settlement of their differences, after the
analogy of the universal state. This proposition
means nothing more than this : Political maxims
must not start from the idea of a prosperity and
happiness which are to be expected from obser-
vance of such precepts in every state; that is, not
from the end which each nation makes the object
of its will as the highest empirical principle of
political wisdom; but they must set out from the
pure concept of the duty of right, from the "ought"
whose principle is given a priori through pure
reason. This is the law, whatever the material
consequences may be. The world will certainly not
perish by any means, because the number of
wicked people in it is becoming fewer. The mo-
rally bad has one peculiarity, inseparable from its
nature ; in its purposes, especially in relation to
other evil influences, it is in contradiction with
itself, and counteracts its own natural effect, and
thus makes room for the moral principle of good,
although advance in this direction may be slow.
Hence objectively, in theory, there is no quarrel
between morals and politics. But subjectively, in
the self-seeking tendencies of men (which we cannot
Appendix I 181
actually call their morality, as we would a course
of action based on maxims of reason,) this dis-
agreement in principle exists and may always sur-
vive; for it serves as a whetstone to virtue. Ac-
cording to the principle, Tu ne cede malis, sed
contra audentior ito, the true courage of virtue
in the present case lies not so much in facing the
evils and self-sacrifices which must be met here
as in firmly confronting the evil principle in our
own nature and conquering its wiles. For this is a
principle far more dangerous, false, treacherous
and sophistical which puts forward the weakness
in human nature as a justification for every trans-
gression.
In fact the political moralist may say that a
ruler and people, or nation and nation do ont
another no wrong, when thy enter on a war with
violence or cunning, although they do wrong,
generally speaking, in refusing to respect the idea
of right which alone could establish peace for all
time. For, as both are equally wrongly disposed
to one another, each transgressing the duty he
owes to his neighbour, they are both quite rightly
served, when they are thus destroyed in war. This
mutual destruction stops short at the point of exter-
mination, so that there are always enough of the
race left to keep this game going on through all
the ages, and a far-off posterity may take warning
1 82 Perpetual Peact
by them. The Providence that orders the course
of the world is hereby justified. For the moral
principle in mankind never becomes extinguished,
and human reason, fitted for the practical reali-
sation of ideas of right according to that principle,
grows continually in fitness for that purpose with
the ever advancing march of culture; while at the
same time, it must be said, the guilt of trans-
gression increases as well. But it seems that, by
no theodicy or vindication of the justice of God,
can we justify Creation in putting such a race of
corrupt creatures into the world at all, if, that is,
we assume that the human race neither will nor
can ever be in a happier condition than it is now.
This standpoint, however, is too high a one for us
to judge from, or to theorise, with the limited
concepts we have at our command, about the
wisdom of that supreme Power which is unknow-
able by us. We are inevitably driven to such
despairing conclusions as these, if we do not admit
that the pure principles of right have objective
reality that is to say, are capable of being prac-
tically realised and consequently that action must
be taken on the part of the people of a state and,
further, by states in relation to one another, whatever
arguments empirical politics may bring forward
against this course. Politics in the real sense cannot
take a step forward without first paying homage
. Appendix I 183
to the principles of morals. And, although politics,
per se, is a difficult art, * in its union with moral*
no art is required; for in the case of a conflict
arising between the two sciences, the moralist can
cut asunder the knot which politics is unable to
untie. Right must be held sacred by man, however
great the cost and sacrifice to the ruling power.
Here is no half-and-half course. We cannot devise
a happy medium between right and expediency, a
right pragmatically conditioned. But all politics must
bend the knee to the principle of right, and may,
in that way, hope to reach, although slowly per-
haps, a level whence it may shine upon men for
all time.
* Matthew Arnold defines politics somewhere as the art of
"making reason and the will of God prtyil" an art, ont would
say, difficult DOugh. [Tr.]
APPENOIX II
CONCERNING THE HARMONY OF POLITIC* WITH
MORALS ACCORDING TO THB TRANSCENDENTAL
IDEA OF PUBLIC RIGHT.
IF I look at public right from the point of view
of most professors of law, and abstract from its
matter or its empirical elements, varying according
to the circumstances given in our experience of
individuals in a state or of states among themselves,
then there remains the form of publicity. The
possibility of this publicity, every legal title implies.
For without it there could be no justice, which can
only be thought as before the eyes of men; and,
without justice, there would be no right, for, from
justice only, right can come.
This characteristic of publicity must belong to
every legal title. Hence, as, in any particular case
that occurs, there is no difficulty in deciding whether
this essential attribute is present or not, (whether,
that is, it is reconcilable with the principles of the
agent or not), it furnishes an easily applied criterion
Appendix II 185
which is to be found a priori in the reason, so that
in the particular case we can at once recognise the
falsity or illegality of a proposed claim (praetensio
juris), as it were by an experiment of pure reason.
Having thus, as it were, abstracted from all the
empirical elements contained in the concept of a
political and international law, such as, for instance,
the evil tendency in human nature which makes
compulsion necessary, we may give the following
proposition as the transcendental formula of public
right: "All actions relating to the rights of other
men are wrong, if the 'maxims from which they
follow are inconsistent with publicity."
This principle must be regarded not merely as
ethical, as belonging to the doctrine of virtue, but
also as juridical, referring to the rights of men.
For there is something wrong in a maxim of con-
duct which I cannot divulge without at once defeating
my purpose, a maxim which must therefore be
kept secret, if it is to succeed, and which I could
not publicly ackowledge without infallibly stirring
up the opposition of everyone. This necessary
and universal resistance with which everyone meets
me, a resistance therefore evident a priori, can be
due to no other cause than the injustice with which
such a maxim threatens everyone. Further, this
testing principle is merely negative; that is, it
ssrve* only as a means by which we may know
1 86 Perpetual Peace
when an action is unjust to others. Like axioms,
it has a certainty incapable of demonstration ; it is
besides easy of application as appears from the
following examples of public right.
I. Constitutional Law. Let us take in the first
place the public law of the state (jus civitatis],
particularly in its application to matters within the
state. Here a question arises which many think
difficult to answer, but which the transcendental
principle of publicity solves quite readily : " Is
revolution a legitimate means for a people to adopt,
for the purpose of throwing off the oppressive yoke
of a so-called tyrant (non titulo, sed ixercitio talis)1"
The rights of a nation are violated in a government
of this kind, and no wrong is done to the tyrant
in dethroning him. Of this there is no doubt.
None the less, it is in the highest degree wrong of
the subjects to prosecute their rights in this way ;
and they would be just as little justified in com-
plaining, if they happened to be defeated in their
attempt and had to endure the severest punishment
in consequence.
A great many reasons for and against both sides
of this question may be given, if we seek to settle
it by a dogmatic deduction of the principles of
right. But the transcendental principle of the publicity
of public right can spare itself this diffuse argu-
mentation. For, according to that principle, the
Appendix II 187
people would ask themselves, before the civil con-
tract was made, whether they could venture to
publish maxims, proposing insurrection when a
favourable opportunity should present itself. It is
quite clear that if, when a constitution is established,
it were made a condition that force may be exercised
against the sovereign under certain circumstances,
the people would be obliged to claim a lawful
authority higher than his. But in that case, the
so-called sovereign would be no longer sovereign :
or, if both powers, that of the sovereign and that
of the people, were made a condition of the con-
stitution of the state, then its establishment (which
was the aim of the people) would be impossible.
The wrongfulness of revolution is quite obvious
from the fact that openly to acknowledge maxims
which justify this step would make attainment of
the end at which they aim impossible. We are
obliged to keep them secret. But this secrecy
would not be necessary on the part of the head
of the state. He may say quite plainly that the
ringleaders of every rebellion will be punished by
death, even although they may hold that it was
he who first transgressed the fundamental law. For,
if a ruler is conscious of possessing irresistible
sovereign power (and this must be assumed in
every civil constitution, because a sovereign who
has not power to protect any individual membtr
1 88 Perpetual Peace
of the nation against his neighbour has also not
the right to exercise authority over him), then he
need have no fear that making known the maxims
which guide him will cause the defeat of his plans.
And it is quite consistent with this view to hold
that, if the people are successful in their insurrec-
tion, the sovereign must return to the rank of a
subject, and refrain from inciting rebellion with a
view to regaining his lost sovereignty. At the same
time he need have no fear of being called to
account for his former administration.*
* " When a king has dethroned himself," says Lock*, (On Civil
Covet ftmfnt, Ch. XTX. 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 er alter the legislate" (Op.
fit,. Ch. XIII. 149.) And again, (op. fit., Ch. XI. 134.) we
find the words, " . . . , over whom [i.e. society] no body can hare
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
wa% an enemy to aboiute monarchy. [Tr.]
Appendix II 189
2. International Law. There can be no ques-
tion of an international law, except on the assump-
tion of some kind of a law-governed state of things,
the external condition under which any right can
belong to man. For the very idea of interna-
tional law, as public right, implies the publication of
a universal will determining the rights and property
of each individual nation; and this status juridicus
must spring out of a contract of some sort which
may not, like the contract to which the state owes
its origin, be founded upon compulsory laws, but
may be, at the most, the agreement of a permanent
free association such as the federation of the differ-
ent states, to which we have alluded above. For,
without the control of law to some extent, to serve
as an active bond of union among different merely
natural or moral individuals, that is to say, in a
state of nature, there can only be private law.
And here we find a disagreement between morals,
regarded as the science of right, and politics. The
criterion, obtained by observing the effect of pub-
licity on maxims, is just as easily applied, but
only when we understand that this agreement binds
the contracting states solely^-with the object that
peace may be preserved among them, and between
them and other states; in no sense with a view
to the acquisition of new territory or power. The
following instances of antinomy occur between
190 Ptrpetual Peact
politics and morals, which are given here with the
solution in each case.
a. "When either of these states has promised
something to another, (as, for instance, assistance,
or a relinquishment of certain territory, or subsidies
and such like), the question may arise whether, in
a case where the safety of the state thus bound
depends on its evading the fulfilment of this pro-
mise, it can do so by maintaining a right to be
regarded as a double person : firstly, as sovereign
and accountable to no one in the state of which that
sovereign power is head ; and, secondly, merely as the
highest official in the service of that state, who is
obliged to answer to the state for every action. And
the result of this is that the state is acquitted in its
second capacity of any obligation to which it has
committed itself in the first." But, if a nation or
its sovereign proclaimed these maxims, the natural
consequence would be that every other would flee
from it, or unite with other states to oppose such
pretensions. And this is a proof that politics, with
all its cunning, defeats its own ends, if the test of
making principles of action public, which we have
indicated, be applied. Hence the maxim we have
quoted must be wrong.
b. "If a state which has increased its power
to a formidable extent (potentia tremenda) excites
anxiety in its neighbours, is it right to assume
Appendix II 191
that, since it has the means, it will also have the
will to oppress others; and does that give less
powerful states a right to unite and attack the
greater nation without any definite cause of offence?"
A state which would here answer openly in the
affirmative would only bring the evil about more
surely and speedily. For the greater power would
forestall those smaller nations, and their union
would be but a weak reed of defence against a
state which knew how to apply the maxim,
divide el impera. This maxim of political ex-
pediency then, when openly acknowledged, neces-
sarily defeats the end at which it aims, and is
therefore wrong.
c. " If a smaller state by its geographical posi-
tion breaks up the territory of a greater, so as to
prevent a unity necessary to the preservation of
that state, is the latter not justified in subjugating
its less powerful neighbour and uniting the territory
in question with its own?" We can easily see that
the greater state dare not publish such a maxim
beforehand; for either all smaller states would
without loss of time unite against it, or other powers
would contend for this booty. ' Hence the im-
practicability of such a maxim becomes evident under
the light of publicity. And this is a sign that it
is wrong, and that in a very great degree; for,
although the victim of an act of injustice may be
192 Ptrpttual Peace
of small account, that does not prevent the injustice
done from being very great.
3. Cosmopolitan Law. We may pass over this
department of right in silence, for, owing to its
analogy with international law, its maxims arc
easily specified and estimated.
In this principle of the incompatibility of the
maxims of international law with their publicity,
we have a good indication of the non-agreement
between politics and morals, regarded as a science
of right. - Now we require to know under what
conditions these maxims do agree with the law of
nations. For we cannot conclude that the converse
holds, and that all maxims which can bear publicity
are therefore just. For anyone who has a decided
supremacy has no need to make any secret about
his maxims. The condition of a law of nations
being possible at all is that, in the first place,
there should be a law-governed state of things.
If this is not so, there can be no public right, and
all right which we can think of outside the law-
governed state, that is to say, in the state of
nature, is mere private right. Now we have seen
Appendix II 193
above that something of the nature of a federation
between nations, for the sole purpose of doing
away with war, is the only rightful condition of
things reconcilable with their individual freedom.
Hence the agreement of politics and morals is only
possible in a federative union, a union which is
necessarily given a priori, according to the prin-
ciples of right. And the lawful basis of all politics
can only be the establishment of this union in its
widest possible extent. Apart from this end, all
political sophistry is folly and veiled injustice. Now
this sham politics has a casuistry, not to be ex-
celled in the best Jesuit school. It has its mental
reservation (reservatio mentalis] : as in the drawing
up of a public treaty in such terms as we can, if
we will, interpret when occasion serves to our
advantage ; for example, the distinction between
the status quo in fact (de fait) and in right (de droit).
Secondly, it has its probabilism; when it pretends
to discover evil intentions in another, or makes
the probability of their possible future ascendency
a lawful reason for bringing about the destruction
of other peaceful states. Finally, it has its philo-
sophical sin (pe,-catum phihsophicuin, peccatillutn,
baggatelle] which is that of holding it a trifle easily
pardoned that a smaller state should be swallowed
up, if this be to the gain of a nation much more
powerful; for such an increase in power is
'3
IQ4 Perpetual Peace
supposed to tend to the greater prosperity of the
whole world. *
Duplicity gives politics the advantage of using
one branch or the other of morals, just as suits
its own ends. The love of our fellowmen is a
duty: so too is respect for their rights. But the
former is only conditional : the latter, on the other
hand, an unconditional, absolutely imperative duty ;
and anyone who would give himself up to the
sweet consciousness of well-doing must be first per-
fectly assured that he has not transgressed its
commands. Politics has no difficulty in agreeing
with morals in the first sense of the term, as ethics,
to secure that men should give to superiors their
rights. But when it comes to morals, in its second
aspect, as the science of right before which politics
must bow the knee, the politician finds it prudent
to have nothing to do with compacts and rather
to deny all reality to morals in this sense, and
reduce all duty to mere benevolence. Philosophy
could easily frustrate the artifices of a politics like
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.
Appendix II 19$
this, which shuns the light of criticism, by publishing
its maxims, if only statesmen would have the courage to
grant philosophers the right to ventilate their opinions.
With this end in view, I propose another prin-
ciple of public right, which is at once transcendental
and affirmative. Its formula would be as follows:
"All maxims which require publicity, in order
that they may not fail to attain their end, are in
agreement both with right and politics."
For, if these maxims can only attain the end at
which they aim by being published, they must be
in harmony with the universal end of mankind,
which is happiness ; and to be in sympathy with
this (to make the people contented with their lot)
is the real business of politics. Now, if this end
should be attainable only by publicity, or in other
words, through the removal of all distrust of the
maxims of politics, these must be in harmony with
the right of the people ; for a union of the ends
of all is only possible in a harmony with this right.
I must postpone the further development and
discussion of this principle till another opportunity.
That it is a transcendental formula is quite evident
from the fact that all the empirical conditions of
a doctrine of happiness, or the matter of law, are
absent, and that it has regard only to the form
of universal conformity to law.
196 Perpetual Peace
If it is our duty to realise a state of public
right, if at the same time there are good grounds
for hope that this ideal may be realised, although
only by an approximation advancing ad infinitum,
then perpetual peace, following hitherto falsely
so-called conclusions of peace, which have been in
reality mere cessations of hostilities, is no mere
empty idea. But rather we have here a problem
which gradually works out its own solution and,
as the periods in which a given advance takes
place towards the realisation of the ideal of per-
petual peace will, we hope, become with the passing
of time shorter and shorter, we must approach ever
nearer to this goal.
INDEX
Absolutism; of Hobbes, 43, 441 of Schopenhauer, 43; according
to Kant, 43, 44, 125128; to Locke, 44.
Alexander I. of Russia; So.
Alexander the Great; 31, 103.
Alsace-Lorraine; annexation of, 90; 92, 95.
Ambrose, Saint; 15.
Amphictyonic League; 16, 22.
Aquinas, Thomas; on righting clergy, 18; on war, 18, 19.
Arbitration; as a substitute for war, 79, 81, 87 ; difficulties settled
by, 80 ; where it is useless, 82, 83, 86.
Aristotle; on war, 7, 8; and rights of an enemy, id.-, 31; on the
relation between politics and ethics, 162.
Assyrians; war among the, 9.
Augustine, Saint; 16.
B
Balance of power; 26, 95.
Bentham, Jeremy ; 26, 79, 92.
Bluntschli, J. K. ; 41, 73, 74, So.
c
Caird, Edward; 3, 51.
Calvin, John; 19.
Carnegie, Andrew; 100.
China; a danger to Europe, 92, 93 ; 140, 141,
198 Index
Cicero ; on the conduct of war, 22; 41.
Clement of Alexandria; 15.
Clergy, fighting; Origen on, 14, 15 ; Wycliffe, 18; Erasmus, if.
Aquinas, ib.
Cobclen, Richard ; 64.
Corvinus, Matthias; 109.
Cowper, William; 5, 38, 123.
Crusades, wars of the; 16, 103.
Dante, Alighieri; on mediation, 46; en universal monarchy, 68, 69.
Disarmament; 8893; Czar's proposal of, 90; practicability f,
90-93-
Dubois, Cardinal ; 36.
Empire; of Rome, 9, 2O, 68; world-, spiritual, 23, 32, 69; of
Alexander the Great, 31, 68; Prankish, 69; Holy Roman 69,
of Napoleon I., 69.
Erasmus, Desiderius; and European pace, 17; on war, 18, 19; on
fighting clergy, 18; 32.
F
Farrar, J. A. ; 18.
Federation; Kant's idea f, 60, 68, 69, 128137; 88, 92, 93, 95,
97; probable results of, 98, 99; 100, 134.
Fichte, J. G. ; 69, 99.
Finland; 92, 95.
Fischer, Kuno ; 62, 67.
Fleury, Cardinal; 55.
Frederick the Great; 66, ia6.
Index 199
Gentilis, Albericus; 21, 32.
Golden Age; 3, 41.
Government; origin of, according to Plato, 5; according to Hnme,
5, 52; to Cowper, 5, 6; to Hobbes, 40 42, 118, 119; to Kant,
5154, 152 154; to Rousseau, 52; to Locke, 53; representative,
65 68, 120, 121, 124128.
Greeks ; their attitude to other nations, 7 ; to an enemy, ib. \ their
Sacred Wars, 16; the Amphictyonic League, 16.
Grotius, Hugo; his DC Jure Belli et Pacts, 24 27; and the fus
Gentium, 24, 25; and the Law of Nature, 25; on peace, 27 1
32, 40, 131.
Hague Conference (1899); 86, 90.
Hegel, G. W. F. ; 57; on war, 71, 72, 75.
Henry IV. of France ; 30, 32, 33, 36.
Hobbes, Thomas; his theory of the state of nature and origin of
government, 4, 4042, 51, 118, 119, 133; 6, 26, 27, 28, 37;
his influence on Kaat, 40, 46; his views on revolution, 41, 188;
of the relations between states, 43 46, 128, 131; on the
conduct of war, 45; 89, 120, 124, 159.
Holls, Fred. W. ; 86.
Hooker, Richard; 52; on the depravity of man, 173.
Hume, David ; on the origin of government, 5, 52 ; on the state
of nature, 40, 41; on the original contract, 52; 108, 109, 162.
International Law; the development of, 20 24; its connection
with the Reformation, 21, 24; in Greece and Rome, 22, 23.
Intervention j 64, 93, 94, 112, 113.
Jews; war among the, 9 II; their dream of peace, 32.
Justin; 15.
2OO Index
Kant, Immanuel ; 26, 37 ; his indebtedness to earlier political
writers, 40, 46; his theory of human development, 47 49; and
how this is possible, 49 51, 54; on the foundation of the state,
51 54, 152 154; the relations between states and individuals,
54, 55, 117 120, 128, 173, 174; the necessity for reform within
the state, 55, 56, 168; the political and social conditions of his
time, 5759; his attitude to war, 58, 133, 135, 136, 137, 149
151 ; on the growing power of commerce, 59, 65, 142, 157; his
idea of federation, 60, 68, 69, 128 137, 192; and ideal of
perpetual peace, 61, 129, 196; the conditions of its realization,
62 69; on representative and other constitutions, 65 68, 120
128, 152, 153, 167; his opinion of the English constitution, 66 ;
his disapproval of universal monarchy, 68, 69, 155, 156; 79,
83, 89, 100, 105; on the right of way, 137 142; on nature's
guarantee of a perpetual peace, 143157; on the relation
between politics and morals, 161 196; on revolution, 167, 168,
186188.
Laveleye, mile dc ; 81.
Lawrence, T. J. ; 9, 78, 81.
Leibniz, Gottfried \V. ; 36; his criticism of St. Pierre, 37, 38; 58, 106.
Locke, John ; and the golden age, 3, 4 ; on the original contract,
53; on revolution, 53, 188; 67, 133.
Lorimcr, James ; 34, 80.
Louis Philippe; 76.
Luther, Martin; on war, 19.
Machiavelli, Nicolo; 162.
Maine, Henry; on Grotius and the Jus Gentium, 24, 25.
Maistrc, Joseph dc ; 71.
Martineau, James; IO2.
Mtanonites; and war, 14.
Index 201
Military service; of Christians, 14, 16, 18, 19; compulsory 89;
voluntary, in.
Mill, John Stuart; 80.
Moltke, Graf von ; 71, 73 75.
Monarchy, universal; the ideal of Dante, 68, 69; disapproved by
Kant, 68, 69, 155, 156; aud Fichte, 69.
Montesquieu, Baron de; on self-preservation, 83; on armed peace,
88; 159.
More, Thomas ; 32.
Morley, John; 3.
Napoleon Bonaparte; Empire of, 69; 71, 72. 76. 77.
Napoleon, Louis ; 80.
National Debt; 63, 64, ill, 112.
Origen; on military service, 14, 15.
Original Contract; 40-, as understood by Rousseau, 52; by Hobbes,
52, 53; by Hooker, $2; by Hume, ib. , by Kant, il>.- by T.ocke, 53.
Paris Congress (1856); 86.
Faulsen, Friedrich ; 43, 52, 53, 66, 78.
Peace, perpetual; the dream of, 29 33: projects of, by Penn, 30;
by Henry IV., 30, 33, 34 : by St. Pierre, 30, 32, 34 37 ; Rousseau's
attitude to, 38 40; 106; for Kant an ideal, 61, 129; the articles
of, 6269; 107142, 158160; the guarantee of, 143157.
Peace Societies; 70, 75, 78, 79, 80, 86, 87; and disarmament, 88 ;
96, 97, loo, loi, 102.
Penn, William ; 30.
Plato ; on the origin of the state, 5 ; on war, 8; 41 j on the relation
between ethics and politics, 162,
Poland; 92, 93, 95.
202 Index
Politics; and morals, according to Kant, 161 196; to Plato, 162
to Aristotle, ib. \ to Hume, ib.\ sophistical maxims of, 170 172.
Pope, Alexander; 4, 127.
Puffendorf, Samuel; 27; on intervention, 64; 131.
Quakers ; and war, 14.
Reformation; and military service, 18; and international law, 11,24
Religion. Roman, and war, 9-, Jewish, 9 n ; Mohammedan, io ;
Buddhist, and conversion, 12 ; Christian, and war, 12 20.
Revolution, right of; according to Hobbes, 41, 53; and Spinoza,
41; according to Locke, 53; to Rousseau, ib.\ to Kant, 167,
1 86 1 88.
Right of \vay ; Vatu-1 on. 65, 138; Kant on, 65, 137142.
Ritchie, U. G. ; on Rousseau, 3; on Locke and the golden age,
it.-, 52, 85, 98.
Robertson, William; 6, 17.. 18, 19.
Romans; and war, 7, 8, 9, 22, 23; and international law, 22, 23.
Rousseau, J. J. ; and the state of nature, 2, 3, 52; 26, 28; his
criticism of St. Pierre, 38 40; his views on militarism, 39; on
the original contract, 52; on revolution, 53, 188; 61, 67, 100,
132, 134; on democratic and republican governments, 153; ou
the depravity of man, 173.
Russia; Alexander I. of, 8o ; the Czar of, 90; the backward
civilization of, 92, 93; 94, 95.
s
Schiller, Friedrich von; on war and peace, 71, 72, 73, 75.
Schopenhauer, Arthur; 43.
Spencer, Herbert; 76.
Spinoza, Benedict; on the state of nature, 41; and revolution, #.
Standing armies ; 63, 64, 89, no
Index 203
State of nature ; according to Rousseau, t, 3 ; and the golden ae,
3; Hobbea' theory of, 4, 40, 41, n8; according to Hume a
philosophical fiction, 41; according to Kant, 117 -120.
States; transference of, 63, 108, 109; marriage between, 109.
St. Pierre, Castel de ; 30, 32, 33 ; his Projtt, 3437 ; and Leibnic,
37, 38; and Rousseau, 3840; 6l, 67, 79, 92, 106.
Sully. Duke of; 30, 32, 33.
Tennyson, Lord ; 73, 74,
Tertullian; 14, 15.
Treaties of peace; in Greece, 7; 6j> 64, 107, loS.
Treitschke, H. von ; 75.
Trendelenburg, F. A.; 7$,
Vattel, Emerich; hi* Droit da Gent, 28, 99; on intervention, $4,
113, 114; on the right of way, 65; of self-prettfTfttion, 83 ; ty,
103; on treaties, 108; 131.
Voltaire, Francois de ; 33, 37, 38.
War; religious. 16; private, 17, 2O, 29; dynastic, 38, 57, UJ;
Kant's attitude to, 58, 133, 135, 136, 137, 149 151; its influence
on progress, 70, 96, 103; views of Hegel on, 71, 72, 75; of
Schiller, 71, 72, 73, 7$; of Moltke, 71, 73, 74, 7$; under altered
conditions, 76, 77, 78; when just, 84, 85-, future probable cause*
f. 94. 95; honorable conduct of, 114, 115,
Wycliffe, John; and fighting clergy, 18.
Zwingli, Huldreich, 19.
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