Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Essay
So that _perpetual peace_, the final goal of international law
as a whole, is really an impracticable idea [_eine unausführbare
Idee_]. The political principles, however, which are directed
towards this end, (that is to say, towards the establishment of
such unions of states as may serve as a continual approximation
to that ideal), are not impracticable; on the contrary, as this
approximation is required by duty and is therefore founded also
upon the rights of men and of states, these principles are,
without doubt, capable of practical realization.” [Tr.]
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 abandoned 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.[126] 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 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.
[126] A Greek Emperor who magnanimously volunteered to settle by
a duel his quarrel with a Bulgarian Prince, got the following
answer:—“A smith who has tongs will not pluck the glowing iron
from the fire with his hands.”
The depravity of human nature[127] 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
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.”[128]
[127] “Both sayings are very true: that _man to man is a kind of
God_; and that _man to man is an arrant wolf_. The first is true,
if we compare citizens amongst themselves; and the second, if we
compare cities. In the one, there is some analogy of similitude
with the Deity; to wit, justice and charity, the twin sisters
of peace. But in the other, good men must defend themselves by
taking to them for a sanctuary the two daughters of war, deceit
and violence: that is, in plain terms, a mere brutal rapacity.”
(Hobbes: Epistle Dedicatory to the _Philosophical Rudiments
concerning Government and Society_.) [Tr.]
[128] “The strongest are still never sufficiently strong to
ensure them the continual mastership, unless they find means of
transforming force into right, and obedience into duty.
From the right of the strongest, right takes an ironical
appearance, and is rarely established as a principle.” (_Contrat
Social_, I. Ch. III.) [Tr.]
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 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[129] as
a morally lawful proceeding, 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 pacis_) 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.[130] 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
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.
[129] “The natural state,” says Hobbes, (_On Dominion_, Ch. VII.
§ 18) “hath the same proportion to the civil, (I mean, liberty to
subjection), which passion hath to reason, or a beast to a man.”
Locke speaks thus of man, when he puts himself into the state of
war with another:—“having quitted reason, which God hath given
to be the rule betwixt man and man, and the common bond whereby
human kind is united into one fellowship and society; and having
renounced the way of peace which that teaches, and made use of
the force of war, to compass his unjust ends upon another, where
he has no right; and so revolting from his own kind to that of
beasts, by making force, which is theirs, to be his rule of
right, he renders himself liable to be destroyed by the injured
person, and the rest of mankind that will join with him in the
execution of justice, as any other wild beast, or noxious brute,
with whom mankind can have neither society nor security.” (_Civil
Government_, Ch. XV. § 172.) [Tr.]
[130] Cf. Rousseau: _Gouvernement de Pologne_, Ch. V. Federate
government is “the only one which unites in itself all the
advantages of great and small states.” [Tr.]
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 destroy
one another, and thus find perpetual peace in the wide grave which
covers all the abominations 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 is 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 control of law. But
even then there will be a constant danger that this propensity may
break out.[131] “Furor impius intus—fremit horridus ore cruento.”
(Virgil.)[132]
[131] On the conclusion of peace at the end of a war, it might
not be unseemly for a nation to appoint a day of humiliation,
after the festival of thanksgiving, on which to invoke the
mercy of Heaven for the terrible sin which the human race are
guilty of, in their continued unwillingness to submit (in their
relations with other states) to a law-governed constitution,
preferring rather in the pride of their independence to use the
barbarous method of war, which after all does not really settle
what is wanted, namely, the right of each state in a quarrel. The
feasts of thanksgiving during a war for a victorious battle, the
hymns which are sung—to use the Jewish expression—“to the Lord
of Hosts” are not in less strong contrast to the ethical idea
of a father of mankind; for, apart from the indifference these
customs show to the way in which nations seek to establish their
rights—sad enough as it is—these rejoicings bring in an element