Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Essay
Bethune, Duc de Sully._
[34] See _International Tribunals_ (1899), p. 20 _seq._ Penn’s
_Essay towards the Present and Future Peace of Europe_ was
written about 1693, but is not included in all editions of his
works.
The ancient world actually represented a state of what was almost
perpetual war. This was the reality which confronted man, his
inevitable doom, it seemed, as it had been pronounced to the fallen
sinners of Eden. Peace was something which man had enjoyed once, but
forfeited. The myth- and poetry-loving Greeks, and, later, the poets
of Rome delighted to paint a state of eternal peace, not as something
to whose coming they could look forward in the future, but as a
golden age of purity whose records lay buried in the past, a paradise
which had been, but which was no more. Voices, more scientific, were
raised even in Greece in attempts, such as Aristotle’s, to show
that the evolution of man had been not a course of degeneration
from perfection, but of continual progress upwards from barbarism
to civilisation and culture. But the change in popular thinking on
this matter was due less to the arguments of philosophy than to a
practical experience of the causes which operate in the interests
of peace. The foundation of a universal empire under Alexander the
Great gave temporary rest to nations heretofore incessantly at war.
Here was a proof that the Divine Will had not decreed that man was
to work out his punishment under unchanging conditions of perpetual
warfare. This idea of a universal empire became the Greek ideal of a
perpetual peace. Such an empire was, in the language of the Stoics, a
world-state in which all men had rights of citizenship, in which all
other nations were absorbed.
Parallel to this ideal among the Greeks, we find the hope in Israel
of a Messiah whose coming was to bring peace, not only to the Jewish
race, but to all the nations of the earth. This idea stands out
in the sharpest contrast to the early nationalism of the Hebrew
people, who regarded every stranger as an idolater and an enemy.
The prophecies of Judaism, combined with the cosmopolitan ideas
of Greece, were the source of the idea, which is expressed in the
teaching of Christ, of a spiritual world-empire, an empire held
together solely by the tie of a common religion.
This hope of peace did not actually die during the first thousand
years of our era, nor even under the morally stagnating influences
of the Middle Ages. When feudalism and private war were abolished
in Europe, it wakened to a new life. Not merely in the mouths of
poets and religious enthusiasts was the cry raised against war, but
by scholars like Thomas More and Erasmus, jurists like Gentilis
and Grotius, men high in the state and in the eyes of Europe like
Henry IV. of France and the Duc de Sully or the Abbé de St. Pierre
whose _Projet de Paix Perpétuelle_ (1713)[35] obtained immediate
popularity and wide-spread fame. The first half of the eighteenth
century was already prepared to receive and mature a plan of this
kind.
[35] _Projet de traité pour rendre la paix perpétuelle entre les
souverains chrétiens._ The first two volumes of this work were
published in 1713 (trans. London, 1714); a third volume followed
in 1717.
_Henry IV. and St. Pierre._
The _Grand Dessein_ of Henry IV. is supposed to have been formed by
that monarch and reproduced in Sully’s _Memoirs_, written in 1634 and
discovered nearly a century later by St. Pierre. The story goes that
the Abbé found the book buried in an old garden. It has been shewn,
however, that there is little likelihood that this project actually
originated with the king, who probably corresponded fairly well to
Voltaire’s picture of him as war hero of the _Henriade_. The plan was
more likely conceived by Sully, and ascribed to the popular king for
the sake of the better hearing and greater influence it might in this
way be likely to have, and also because, thereby, it might be less
likely to create offence in political circles. St. Pierre himself may
or may not have been acquainted with the facts.
The so-called _Grand Dessein_ of Henry IV. was, shortly, as
follows.[36] It proposed to divide Europe between fifteen
Powers,[37] in such a manner that the balance of power should be
established and preserved. These were to form a Christian republic
on the basis of the freedom and equality of its members, the armed
forces of the federation being supported by fixed contribution. A
general council, consisting of representatives from the fifteen
states, was to make all laws necessary for cementing the union thus
formed and for maintaining the order once established. It would also
be the business of this senate to “deliberate on questions that might
arise, to occupy themselves with discussing different interests, to
settle quarrels amicably, to throw light upon and arrange all the
civil, political and religious affairs of Europe, whether internal or
foreign.” (_Mémoires_, vol. VI., p. 129 _seq._)
[36] The main articles of this and other peace projects are to
be found in _International Tribunals_, published by the Peace
Society.
[37] Professor Lorimer points out that Prussia, then the Duchy
of Brandenburg, is not mentioned. (_Institutes of the Law of
Nations_, II. Ch. VII., p. 219.)
This scheme of the king or his minister was expanded with great
thoroughness and clear-sightedness by the Abbé St. Pierre: none of
the many later plans for a perpetual peace has been so perfect in
details. He proposes that there should be a permanent and perpetual
union between, if possible, all Christian sovereigns—of whom he
suggests nineteen, excluding the Czar—“to preserve unbroken peace in
Europe,” and that a permanent Congress or senate should be formed
by deputies of the federated states. The union should protect weak
sovereigns, minors during a regency, and so on, and should banish
civil as well as international war—it should “render prompt and
adequate assistance to rulers and chief magistrates against seditious
persons and rebels.” All warfare henceforth is to be waged between
the troops of the federation—each nation contributing an equal
number—and the enemies of European security, whether outsiders or
rebellious members of the union. Otherwise, where it is possible,
all disputes occurring within the union are to be settled by the
arbitration of the senate, and the combined military force of the
federation is to be applied to drive the Turks out of Europe. There
is to be a rational rearrangement of boundaries, but after this no
change is to be permitted in the map of Europe. The union should bind
itself to tolerate the different forms of faith.
The objections to St. Pierre’s scheme are, many of them, obvious. He
himself produces sixty-two arguments likely to be raised against his
plan, and he examines these in turn with acuteness and eloquence.
But there are other criticisms which he was less likely to be able
to forestall. Of the nineteen states he names as a basis of the
federation, some have disappeared and the governments of others
have completely changed. Indeed St. Pierre’s scheme did not look
far beyond the present. But it has besides a too strongly political
character.[38] From this point of view, the Abbé’s plan amounts
practically to a European coalition against the Ottoman Empire.
Moreover, we notice with a smile that the French statesman and
patriot is not lost in the cosmopolitan political reformer. “The
kingdom of Spain shall not go out of the House of Bourbon!”[39]
France is to enjoy more than the privileges of honour; she is to reap
distinct material and political advantages from the union. Humanity
is to be a brotherhood, but, in the federation of nations, France is
to stand first.[40] We see that these “rêves d’un homme de bien,”
as Cardinal Dubois called them, are not without their practical
element. But the great mistake of St. Pierre is this: he actually
thought that his plan could be put into execution in the near future,
that an ideal of this kind was realisable at once.[41] “I, myself,
form’d it,” he says in the preface, “in full expectation to see it
one Day executed.” As Hobbes, says, “there can be nothing so absurd,
but may be found in the books of philosophers.”[42] St. Pierre was
not content to make his influence felt on the statesmen of his time
and prepare the way for the abolition of all arbitrary forms of
government. This was the flaw which drew down upon the good Abbé
Voltaire’s sneering epigram[43] and the irony of Leibniz.[44] Here,
above all, in this unpractical enthusiasm his scheme differs from
that of Kant.
[38] The same objection was raised by Leibniz (see his
_Observations_ on St. Pierre’s _Projet_) to the scheme of Henry
IV., who, says Leibniz, thought more of overthrowing the house of
Austria than of establishing a society of sovereigns.
[39] _Project_, Art. VI., Eng. trans. (1714), p. 119.
[40] St. Pierre was not blind to this aspect of the question.
Among the critical objections which he anticipates to his plan is
this,—that it promises too great an increase of strength to the
house of France, and that therefore the author would have been
wiser to conceal his nationality.
[41] St. Pierre, in what may be called an apology for the wording
of the title of his book (above, p. 32, _note_), justifies his
confidence in these words:—“The Pilot who himself seems uncertain
of the Success of his Voyage is not likely to persuade the
Passenger to embark.... I am persuaded, that it is not impossible
to find out Means sufficient and practicable to settle an
Everlasting Peace among Christians; and even believe, that the
Means which I have thought of are of that Nature.” (Preface to
_Project_, Eng. trans., 1714.)
[42] _Leviathan_, I. Ch. V.
[43] See too Voltaire’s allusion to St. Pierre in his
_Dictionary_, under “Religion.”
[44] Leibniz regarded the project of St. Pierre with an
indifference, somewhat tinged with contempt. In a letter to
Grimarest, (_Leibnit. Opera_, Dutens’ ed., 1768, Vol. V., pp.
65, 66: in _Epist._, ed. Kortholt., Vol. III., p. 327) he
writes:—“I have seen something of M. de St. Pierre’s plan for
maintaining perpetual peace in Europe. It reminds me of an
inscription outside of a churchyard which ran, ‘_Pax Perpetua_.
For the dead, it is true, fight no more. But the living, are of
another mind, and the mightiest among them have little respect
for tribunals.’” This is followed by the ironical suggestion
that a court of arbitration should be established at Rome of
which the Pope should be made president; while at the same time
the old spiritual authority should be restored to the Church,
and excommunication be the punishment of non-compliance with the
arbitral decree. “Such plans,” he adds, “are as likely to succeed
as that of M. de St. Pierre. But as we are allowed to write
novels, why should we find fault with fiction which would bring
back the golden age?” But see also _Observations sur le Projet
d’une Paix Perpétuelle de M. l’Abbé de St. Pierre_ (Dutens, V.,
esp. p. 56) and the letter to Remond de Montmort (_ibid._ pp. 20,
21) where Leibniz considers this project rather more seriously.
_Rousseau’s Criticism of St. Pierre._
Rousseau took St. Pierre’s project[45] much more seriously than
either Leibniz or Voltaire. But sovereigns, he thought, are deaf to
the voice of justice; the absolutism of princely power would never
allow a king to submit to a tribunal of nations. Moreover war was,
according to Rousseau’s experience, a matter not between nations, but
between princes and cabinets. It was one of the ordinary pleasures of
royal existence and one not likely to be voluntarily given up.[46] We