Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Essay

Kuno Fischer (op. cit., Vol. V., I. Ch. 11, pp. 150, 151) to whom Professor Paulsen’s reference may here perhaps allude, states that Kant’s objection to the English constitution is that it was an oligarchy, Parliament being not only a legislative body, but through its ministers also executive in the interests of the ruling party or even of private individuals in that party. It seems more likely that what most offended a keen observer of the course of the American War of Independence was the arbitrary and ill-directed power of the king. But see the passage quoted by Fischer (pp. 152, 153) from the Rechtslehre (Part II. Sect. I.) which is, he says, unmistakeably directed against the English constitution and certain temporary conditions in the political history of the country.

[73] St. Pierre actually thought that his federation would prevent civil war. See Project (1714), p. 16.

[74] See p. 128.

[75] This was the ideal of Dante. Cf. De Monarchia, Bk. I. 54:—“We shall not find at any time except under the divine monarch Augustus, when a perfect monarchy existed, that the world was everywhere quiet.”

Bluntschli (Theory of the State, I. Ch. ii., p. 26 seq.) gives an admirable account of the different attempts made to realise a universal empire in the past—the Empire of Alexander the Great, based upon a plan of uniting the races of east and west; the Roman Empire which sought vainly to stamp its national character upon mankind; the Frankish Monarchy; the Holy Roman Empire which fell to pieces through the want of a central power strong enough to overcome the tendency to separation and nationalisation; and finally the attempt of Napoleon I., whose mistake was the same as that which wrecked the Roman Empire—a neglect of the strength of foreign national sentiment.

[76] Reason requires a State of nations. This is the ideal, and Kant’s proposal of a federation of states is a practical substitute from which we may work to higher things. Kant, like Fichte, (Werke, VII. 467) strongly disapproves of a universal monarchy such as that of which Dante dreamed—a modern Roman Empire. The force of necessity, he says, will bring nations at last to become members of a cosmopolitan state, “or if such a state of universal peace proves (as has often been the case with too great states) a greater danger to freedom from another point of view, in that it introduces despotism of the most terrible kind, then this same necessity must compel the nations to enter a state which indeed has the form not of a cosmopolitan commonwealth under one sovereign, but of a federation regulated by legal principles determined by a common code of international law.” (Das mag in d. Theorie richtig sein, Werke, (Rosenkranz) VII., p. 225). Cf. also Theory of Ethics, (Abbott), p. 341, note; Perpetual Peace, pp. 155, 156.

[77] See the Philosophie d. Rechts, (Werke, Vol. VIII.) Part iii. § 324 and appendix.

[78] Cf. Die Braut von Messina:—

“Denn der Mensch verkümmert im Frieden,

Müssige Ruh’ ist das Grab des Muths.

Das Gesetz ist der Freund des Schwachen,

Alles will es nur eben machen,

Möchte gerne die Welt verflachen;

Aber der Krieg lässt die Kraft erscheinen,

Alles erhebt er zum Ungemeinen,

Selber dem Feigen erzeugt er den Muth.”

This passage perhaps scarcely gives a fair representation of Schiller’s views on the question, which, if we judge from Wilhelm Tell, must have been very moderate. War, he says, in this oft-quoted passage, is sometimes a necessity. There is a limit to the power of tyranny and, when the burden becomes unbearable, an appeal to Heaven and the sword.

Wilhelm Tell: Act. II. Sc. 2.

“Nein, eine Grenze hat Tyrannenmacht.

Wenn der Gedrückte nirgends Recht kann finden,

Wenn unerträglich wird die Last greift er

Hinauf getrosten Muthes in den Himmel

Und holt herunter seine ew’gen Rechte,

Die droben hangen unveräusserlich

Und unzerbrechlich, wie die Sterne selbst—

Der alte Urstand der Natur kehrt wieder,

Wo Mensch dem Menschen gegenüber steht—

Zum letzten Mittel, wenn kein andres mehr

Verfangen will, ist ihm das Schwert gegeben.”

[79] Letter to Bluntschli, dated Berlin, 11th Dec., 1880 (published in Bluntschli’s Gesammelte Kleine Schriften, Vol. II., p. 271).

[80] Cf. Tennyson’s Maud: Part I., vi. and xiii.

“Why do they prate of the blessings of Peace? we have made them a curse,

Pickpockets, each hand lusting for all that is not its own;

And lust of gain, in the spirit of Cain, is it better or worse

Than the heart of the citizen hissing in war on his own hearthstone?

For I trust if an enemy’s fleet came yonder round by the hill,

And the rushing battle-bolt sang from the three-decker out of the foam,

That the smooth-faced snub-nosed rogue would leap from his counter and till,

And strike, if he could, were it but with his cheating yardwand, home.”

See too Part III., ii. and iv.