materials with which he furnished me. Those who have read Monsieur Wolf’s treatises on the law of nature and the law of nations, will see what advantage I have made of them. Had I every-where pointed out what I have borrowed, my pages would be crowded with quotations equally useless and disagreeable to the reader. It is better to acknowledge here, once for all, the obligations I am under to that great master. Although my work be very different from his (as will appear to those who are willing to take the trouble of making the comparison), I confess that I should never have had the courage to launch into so extensive a field, if the celebrated philosopher of Hall[[e]] had not preceded my steps, and held forth a torch to guide me on my way.
Sometimes, however, I have ventured to deviate from the path which he had pointed out, and have adopted sentiments opposite to his. I will here quote a few instances. Monsieur Wolf, influenced perhaps by the example of numerous other writers, has devoted several sections* to the express purpose of treating of the nature of patrimonial kingdoms, without rejecting or rectifying that idea so degrading to human kind. I do not even admit of such a denomination, which I <xiii> think equally shocking, improper, and dangerous, both in its effects, and in the impressions it may give to sovereigns: and in this, I flatter myself I shall obtain the suffrage of every man who possesses the smallest spark of reason and sentiment,—in short, of every true citizen.
Monsieur Wolf determines (Jus Gent. §878) that it is naturally lawful to make use of poisoned weapons in war. I am shocked at such a decision, and sorry to find it in the work of so great a man. Happily for the human race, it is not difficult to prove the contrary, even from Monsieur Wolf’s own principles. What I have said on this subject may be seen in Book III. §156.
In the very outset of my work, it will be found that I differ entirely from Monsieur Wolf in the manner of establishing the foundations of that species of law of nations which we call voluntary. Monsieur Wolf deduces it from the idea of a great republic (civitatis maximae) instituted by nature herself, and of which all the nations of the world are members. According to him, the voluntary law of nations is, as it were, the civil law of that great republic. This idea does not satisfy me; nor do I think the fiction of such a republic either admissible in itself, or capable of affording sufficiently solid grounds on which to build the rules of the universal law of nations which shall necessarily claim the obedient acquiescence of sovereign states. I acknowledge no other natural society between nations than that which nature has established between mankind in general. It is essential to every civil society (civitati) that each member have resigned a part of his right to the body of the society, and that there exist in it an authority capable of commanding all the members, of giving them laws, and of compelling those who should refuse to obey. Nothing of this kind can be conceived or supposed to subsist between nations. Each sovereign state claims and actually possesses an absolute independence on <xiv> all the others. They are all, according to Monsieur Wolf himself, to be considered as so many individuals who live together in the state of nature, and who acknowledge no other laws but those of nature, or of her Great Author. Now, although nature has indeed established a general society between mankind, by creating them subject to such wants as render the assistance of their fellow-creatures indispensably necessary to enable them to live in a manner suitable to men,—yet she has not imposed on them any particular obligation to unite in civil society, properly so called: and if they all obeyed the injunctions of that good parent, their subjection to the restraints of civil society would be unnecessary. It is true, that, as there does not exist in mankind a disposition voluntarily to observe towards each other the rules of the law of nature, they have had recourse to a political association, as the only adequate remedy against the depravity of the majority,—the only means of securing the condition of the good, and repressing the wicked: and the law of nature itself approves of this establishment. But it is easy to perceive that the civic association is very far from being equally necessary between nations, as it was between individuals. We cannot therefore say that nature equally recommends it, much less that she has prescribed it. Individuals are so constituted, and are capable of doing so little by themselves, that they can scarcely subsist without the aid and the laws of civil society. But as soon as a considerable number of them have united under the same government, they become able to supply most of their wants; and the assistance of other political societies is not so necessary to them as that of individuals is to an individual. These societies have still, it is true, powerful motives for carrying on a communication and commerce with each other; and it is even their duty to do it; since no man can, without good reasons, refuse assistance to another man. But the law of nature may suffice to regulate this commerce, and this <xv> correspondence. States conduct themselves in a different manner from individuals. It is not usually the caprice or blind impetuosity of a single person that forms the resolutions and determines the measures of the public: they are carried on with more deliberation and circumspection: and, on difficult or important occasions, arrangements are made and regulations established by means of treaties. To this we may add, that independence is even necessary to each state, in order to enable her properly to discharge the duties she owes to herself and to her citizens, and to govern herself in the manner best suited to her circumstances. It is therefore sufficient (as I have already said) that nations should conform to what is required of them by the natural and general society established between all mankind.
But, says Monsieur Wolf, a rigid adherence to the law of nature cannot always prevail in that commerce and society of nations; it must undergo various modifications, which can only be deduced from this idea of a kind of great republic of nations, whose laws, dictated by sound reason and founded on necessity, shall regulate the alterations to be made in the natural and necessary law of nations, as the civil laws of a particular state determine what modifications shall take place in the natural law of individuals. I do not perceive the necessity of this consequence; and I flatter myself that I shall, in the course of this work, be able to prove, that all the modifications, all the restrictions,—in a word, all the alterations which the rigour of the natural law must be made to undergo in the affairs of nations, and from which the voluntary law of nations is formed,—to prove, I say, that all these alterations are deducible from the natural liberty of nations, from the attention due to their common safety, from the nature of their mutual correspondence, their reciprocal duties, and the distinctions of their various rights, internal and external, perfect and imperfect,—by a mode of reasoning nearly similar to that which Mon-<xvi>sieur Wolf has pursued, with respect to individuals, in his treatise on the law of nature.
In that treatise it is made to appear that the rules, which, in consequence of the natural liberty of mankind, must be admitted in questions of external right do not cancel the obligation which the internal right imposes on the conscience of each individual. It is easy to apply this doctrine to nations, and—by carefully drawing the line of distinction between the internal and the external right—between the necessary and the voluntary law of nations—to teach them not to indulge themselves in the commission of every act which they may do with impunity, unless it be approved by the immutable laws of justice, and the voice of conscience.
Since nations, in their transactions with each other, are equally bound to admit those exceptions to, and those modifications of, the rigour of the necessary law, whether they be deduced from the idea of a great republic of which all nations are supposed to be the members, or derived from the sources whence I propose to draw them,—there can be no reason why the system which thence results, should not be called the Voluntary Law of nations, in contradistinction to the necessary, internal, and consciential law. Names are of very little consequence: but it is of considerable importance carefully to distinguish these two kinds of law, in order that we may never confound what is just and good in itself, with what is only tolerated through necessity.
The necessary and the voluntary law of nations are therefore both established by nature, but each in a different manner; the former as a sacred law which nations and sovereigns are bound to respect and follow in all their actions; the latter, as a rule which the general welfare and safety oblige them to admit in their transactions with each other. The necessary law immediately proceeds from nature; and that common mother of mankind recommends the obser-<xvii>vance of the voluntary law of nations, in consideration of the state in which nations stand
