[125] 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 peremptorily valid and constitute a true state of peace only in a universal union of states, 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 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.]

[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.”

[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.]

[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.]

[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 of exultation that a great number of lives, or at least the happiness of many, has been destroyed.

[132] Cf. Aeneidos, I. 294 seq.

[133] Cf. Vattel (op. 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 above, p. 65, note. [Tr.]

[134] In order to call this great empire by the name which it gives itself—namely, China, not Sina or a word of similar sound—we have only to look at Georgii: Alphab. Tibet., pp. 651-654, particularly note b., below. According to the observation of Professor Fischer of St. Petersburg, there is really no particular name which it always goes by: the most usual is the word Kin, i.e. gold, which the inhabitants of Tibet call Ser. Hence the emperor is called the king of gold, i.e. the king of the most splendid country in the world. This word Kin may probably be Chin in the empire itself, but be pronounced Kin by the Italian missionaries on account of the gutturals. Thus we see that the country of the Seres, so 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. This leads to many reflections as to the antiquity of this wonderful state, as compared with Hindustan, at the time of its 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 neighbouring peoples leads to nothing.

Perhaps we can explain the ancient intercourse of Europe with Tibet—a fact at no time widely known—by looking at what Hesychius has preserved on the matter. I refer to the shout, Κουξ Ομπαξ (Konx Ompax), the cry of the Hierophants in the Eleusinian mysteries (cf. Travels of Anacharsis the Younger, Part V., p. 447, seq.). For, according to Georgii Alph. Tibet., the word Concioa which bears a striking resemblance to Konx means God. Pak-cio (ib. p. 520) which might easily be pronounced by the Greeks like pax means promulgator legis, the divine principle permeating nature (called also, on p. 177, Cencresi). Om, however, which La Croze translates by benedictus, i.e. blessed, can when applied to the Deity mean nothing but beatified (p. 507). Now P. Franc. Horatius, when he asked the Lhamas of Tibet, as he often did, what they understood by God (Concioa) always got the answer:—“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 Konx 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. Horatius 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 κόγξ ὄμπαξ—according to Liddell and Scott, a corruption of κόγξ, ὁμοίως πάξ. 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., Postscript) uses Konx Ompax as a pseudonym. [Tr.])

[135] 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 predetermination 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 (providentia conditrix; semel jussit, semper parent. Augustine). As it maintains the course of nature, however, according to universal laws of adaptation to preconceived ends, [i.e. 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 could not foresee, but suspect only from the result. Finally, regarding particular events as divine purposes, we speak no longer of providence, but of dispensation (directio extraordinaria). 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. For, from one single occurrence, to jump at the conclusion that there is a particular principle of efficient causes and that this event is an end and not merely the natural [naturmechanische] 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 materialiter, 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 its purposes are fulfilled. So that we have ordinary providence (e.g. 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-mechanical 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 providential 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, self-contradictory to couple the like and the unlike together (gryphes jungere equis) and to let Him who is Himself the entire cause of the changes in the universe 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 that the physician has restored the sick with the help of God—that is to say that He has been present as a support. For causa solitaria non juvat. God created the physician as well as his means of 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 good action as a mere event in time by this concursus; for that would be to pretend a theoretical knowledge of the supersensible and hence be absurd.

[136] Id est, which we cannot dissever from the idea of a creative skill capable of producing them. [Tr.]

[137] See preface, p. ix. above.

[138] 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. 4-6)

[4. “But flesh with the life thereof, which is 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 Christians, 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 the other.

[139] About 1000 English miles.

[140] The question might be put:—“If it is nature’s will that these 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 better the wood which grows on the banks of their rivers, and 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 seas of Arctic shores are so rich—that is, if nature has first of all brought about peace among them.

[141] Cf. Enc. Brit. (9th ed.), art. “Indians”, in which there is an allusion to “Fuegians, the Pescherais” of some writers. [Tr.]

[142] Rousseau uses these terms in speaking of democracy. (Cont. Soc., 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. cit., II. Ch. 6):—“All 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 be lawful, it must not be confused with the sovereign power, but be considered as the administrator of that power: and then monarchy itself is a republic.” This language has a close affinity with that used by Kant. (Cf. above, p. 126.) [Tr.]

[143] See above, p. 69, note, esp. reference to Theory of Ethics. [Tr.]

[144] Difference of religion! A strange expression, as 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 investigation, and do not really lie within the sphere of religion. In the same way there are many religious works—the Zendavesta, Veda, 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 religion, and may be different according to differences in time and place.

[145] 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 Lois, XIX. Ch. 27.) Hobbes is opposed to all free discussion of political questions and to freedom as a source of danger to the state. [Tr.]

[146] Kant is thinking here not of the sword of justice, in the moral sense, but of a sword which is symbolical of the executive power of the actual law. [Tr.]

[147] Cf. Aristotle: Politics, (Welldon’s 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 The Prince, 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 is a system of morals,” he says, “calculated for princes, much more free than that which ought to govern private persons,” (Treatise, III., Part II., Sect. IX.) [Tr.]

[148] These are permissive laws of reason which allow us to leave a system of public law, when it is tainted by injustice, to remain 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 constitution, a lawful constitution based on the principles of freedom.

[149] It is still sometimes denied that we find, in members of a civilised community, a certain depravity rooted in the nature of man;[C] 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 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 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 this judgment comes remains unexplained, as we cannot lay the blame on the nature of man, since he is a being in the possession of freedom. The respect for the idea of right, of which it is absolutely impossible for man to divest himself, sanctions 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 neighbours fulfil their obligation or not.

[C] This depravity of human nature is denied by Rousseau, who held that the mind of man was naturally inclined to virtue, and that good civil and social institutions are all that is required. (Discourse on 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), p. 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 no hindrance unto the common good, for which societies are instituted.” [Tr.]

[150] With regard to the meaning of the moral law and its significance in the Kantian system of ethics, see Abbott’s translation of the Theory of Ethics (1889), pp. 38, 45, 54, 55, 119, 282. [Tr.]

[151] See Abbott’s trans., pp. 33, 34. [Tr.]

[152] Matthew Arnold defines politics somewhere as the art of “making reason and the will of God prevail”—an art, one would say, difficult enough. [Tr.]

[153] “When a king has dethroned himself,” says Locke, (On Civil Government, Ch. XIX. § 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 or alter the legislative.” (Op. cit., Ch. XIII. § 149.) And again, (op. cit., Ch. XI. § 134.) we find the words, “... over whom [i.e. society] no body can have 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 was an enemy to absolute monarchy. [Tr.]

[154] 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.