Perpetual Peace. Immanuel Kant
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.
Rousseau’s Criticism of St. Pierre.
Rousseau took St. Pierre’s project[45] much more seriously than either Leibniz or Voltaire. But sovereigns, he thought, are deaf to the voice of justice; the absolutism of princely power would never allow a king to submit to a tribunal of nations. Moreover war was, according to Rousseau’s experience, a matter not between nations, but between princes and cabinets. It was one of the ordinary pleasures of royal existence and one not likely to be voluntarily given up.[46] We know that history has not supported Rousseau’s contention. Dynastic wars are now no more. The Great Powers have shown themselves able to impose their own conditions, where the welfare and security of Europe have seemed to demand it. Such a development seemed impossible enough in the eighteenth century. In the military organisation of the nations of Europe and in the necessity of making their internal development subordinate to the care for their external security, Rousseau saw the cause of all the defects in their administration.[47] The formation of unions on the model of the Swiss Confederation or the German Bund would, he thought, be in the interest of all rulers. But great obstacles seemed to him to lie in the way of the realisation of such a project as that of St. Pierre. “Without doubt,” says Rousseau in conclusion, “the proposal of a perpetual peace is at present an absurd one. … It can only be put into effect by methods which are violent in themselves and dangerous to humanity. One cannot conceive of the possibility of a federative union being established, except by a revolution. And, that granted, who among us would venture to say whether this European federation is to be desired or to be feared? It would work, perhaps, more harm in a moment than it would prevent in the course of centuries.” (Jugement sur la Paix Perpétuelle.)
The Position of Hobbes.
The most profound and searching analysis of this problem comes from Immanuel Kant, whose indebtedness in the sphere of politics to Hobbes, Locke, Montesquieu and Rousseau it is difficult to overestimate. Kant’s doctrine of the sovereignty of the people comes to him from Locke through Rousseau. His explanation of the origin of society is practically that of Hobbes. The direct influence on politics of this philosopher, apart from his share in moulding the Kantian theory of the state, is one we cannot afford to neglect. His was a great influence on the new science just thrown on the world by Grotius, and his the first clear and systematic statement we have of the nature of society and the establishment of the state. The natural state of man, says Hobbes, is a state of war,[48] a bellum omnium contra omnes, where all struggle for honour and for preferment and the prizes to which every individual is by natural right equally entitled, but which can of necessity fall only to the few, the foremost in the race. Men hate and fear the society of their kind, but through this desire to excel are forced to seek it: only where there are many can there be a first. This state of things, this apparent sociability which is brought about by and coupled with the least sociable of instincts, becomes unendurable. “It is necessary to peace,” writes Hobbes (On Dominion, Ch. VI. 3) “that a man be so far forth protected against the violence of others, that he may live securely; that is, that he may have no just cause to fear others, so long as he doth them no injury. Indeed, to make men altogether safe from mutual harms, so as they cannot be hurt or injuriously killed, is impossible; and, therefore, comes not within deliberation.” But to protect them so far as is possible the state is formed. Hobbes has no great faith in human contracts or promises. Man’s nature is malicious and untrustworthy. A coercive power is necessary to guarantee this long-desired security within the community. “We must therefore,” he adds, “provide for our security, not by compacts, but by punishments; and there is then sufficient provision made, when there are so great punishments appointed for every injury, as apparently it prove a greater evil to have done it, than not to have done it. For all men, by a necessity of nature, choose that which to them appears to be the less evil.” (Op. cit., Ch. VI. 4.)
These precautions secure that relative peace within the state which is one of the conditions of the safety of the people. But it is, besides, the duty of a sovereign to guarantee an adequate protection to his subjects against foreign enemies. A state of defence as complete and perfect as possible is not only a national duty, but an absolute necessity. The following statement of the relation of the state to other states shows how closely Hobbes has been followed by Kant. “There are two things necessary,” says Hobbes, (On Dominion, Ch. XIII. 7) “for the people’s defence; to be warned and to be forearmed. For the state of commonwealths considered in themselves, is natural, that is to say, hostile.[49] Neither, if they cease from fighting, is it therefore to be called peace; but rather a breathing time, in which one enemy observing the motion and countenance of the other, values his security not according to pacts, but the forces and counsels of his adversary.”
Hobbes is a practical philosopher: no man was less a dreamer, a follower after ideals than he. He is, moreover, a pessimist, and his doctrine of the state is a political absolutism,[50] the form of government which above all has been, and is, favourable to war. He would no doubt have ridiculed the idea of a perpetual peace between nations, had such a project as that of St. Pierre—a practical project, counting upon a realisation in the near future—been brought before him. He might not even have accepted it in the very much modified form which Kant adopts, that of an ideal—an unattainable ideal—towards which humanity could not do better than work. He expected the worst possible from man the individual. Homo homini lupus. The strictest absolutism, amounting almost to despotism, was required to keep the vicious propensities of the human animal in check. States he looked upon as units of the same kind, members also of a society. They had, and openly exhibited, the same faults as individual men. They too might be driven with a strong enough coercive force behind them, but not without it; and such a coercive force as this did not exist in a society of nations. Federation and federal troops are terms which represent ideas of comparatively recent origin. Without something of this kind, any enduring peace was not to be counted upon. International relations were and must remain at least potentially warlike in character. Under no circumstances could ideal conditions be possible either between the members of a state or between the states themselves. Human nature could form no satisfactory basis for a counsel of perfection.
Hence Hobbes never thought of questioning the necessity of war. It was in his eyes the natural condition of European society; but certain rules were necessary both for its conduct and, where this was compatible with a nation’s dignity and prosperity, for its prevention. He held that international law was only a part of the Law of Nature, and that this Law of Nature laid certain obligations upon nations and their kings. Mediation must be employed between disputants as much as possible, the person of the mediators of peace being held inviolate; an umpire ought to be chosen to decide a controversy, to whose judgment the parties in dispute agree to submit themselves; such an arbiter must be impartial. These are all what Hobbes calls precepts of the Law of Nature. And he appeals to the Scriptures in confirmation of his assertion that peace is the way of righteousness and that the laws of nature of which these are a few are also laws of the heavenly kingdom. But peace is like the straight path of Christian endeavour, difficult to find and difficult to keep. We must seek after it where it may be found; but, having done this and sought in vain, we have no alternative but to fall back upon war. Reason requires “that every man ought to endeavour peace,” (Lev. I. Ch. XIV.) “as far as he has hope of obtaining it; and when he cannot obtain it, that he may seek, and use, all helps, and advantages of war.”[51] This, says Hobbes elsewhere, (On Liberty, Ch. I. 15) is the dictate of right reason, the first and fundamental law of nature.
Kant’s Idea of a Perpetual Peace.
With regard to the problems of international law, Kant is of course a hundred and fifty years ahead of Hobbes. But he starts from the same point: his theory of the beginning of society is practically identical with that of the older philosopher. Men are by nature imperfect creatures, unsociable and untrustworthy, cursed by a love of glory, of possession, and of power, passions which make happiness something for ever unattainable by them. Hobbes is content to leave them here with their imperfections, and let a strong government help them out as