CICERO AND VATTEL ON INTERNATIONAL DUTY. 255

to act in this or in that manner As men are naturally equal, and their rights and obligations the same, nations, being composed of men, are also naturally equal, and hold from nature the same obligations and the same rights. Powerfulness or weakness makes no difference in this respect. A dwarf is as much a man as a giant; a small republic is no less a sovereign state than the most powerful kingdom. It is a necessary consequence of this equality, that what is permitted to one nation is also permissible to every other; and that what is not to be permitted to one is not permissible to any other

.. One ought to reckon as sovereign powers such states even as are attached to another more powerful state by what is called an unequal alliance; in which kind of alliance, as Aristotle says, the most powerful state receives the largest share of honour, the weakest the largest amount of succour. The conditions of these unequal alliances may be varied infinitely. But whatever they are, provided that the inferior allied state reserves its sovereignty, it ought to be regarded as an independent state holding commerce with others under the authority of the right of nations.'-Le Droit des Gens, par M. de Vattel. Edition of 1758. Book i. chap. 1.

'All the duties of a nation towards itself have for their object either the conservation of the nation and its condition, or the improvement of the nation and its condition . . . . . Every nation ought therefore, on occasion, to labour for the conservation of others, that is, to guarantee them against ruinous disaster, when that can be done without too great risk to itself. Thus, when a neighbouring state is unjustly attacked by a powerful enemy who threatens to oppress it, if you can defend it without exposing yourself to too great danger, there is no doubt that you ought to do so. Do not object that it is not allowable for a sovereign to expose the lives of his soldiers for the safety of a foreigner with whom he has not contracted any defensive alliance. He may himself be some time or other in a condition to require help; and, consequently, to put into vigorous ction this spirit of mutual assistance, is in fact to labour for the security of his own nation. . . . . A nation ought not toconfin e itself to activity for the conservation of other states; it ought, moreover, to contribute to their improvement, according as it has power and there is need of its help. Now, a state is more or less perfect, according as it is more or less capacitated to obtain the end of civil society, which consists in procuring for its citizens all that they have need of for their necessary wants, the convenience and pleasant enjoyment of life, and in general for happiness; in acting so that each one may tranquilly use what is his own, and obtain justice securely; finally, in defending itself against foreign violence. Every nation ought therefore to contribute, on occasion, and according to its power, not only to procure for other nations the enjoyment of these advantages, but also to render them capable of procuring them for themselves. Therefore a civilized nation ought not to refuse, when another nation, desirous of emerging from barbarism, comes to ask masters to instruct it. But,

though a nation is obliged to contribute all it can to the improvement of others, it has no right to constrain others to receive what it thinks suitable for this end. To attempt this would be to violate natural liberty. Those ambitious Europeans who attacked the American nations, and subjected them to their greedy domination, in order, as they said, to civilize them, and instruct them in the true religion,— these usurpers, I say, acted on a pretext equally unjust and ridiculous. One is surprised to hear the learned and judicious Grotius tell us that a sovereign may justly take arms to chastise nations guilty of enormous outrages on natural law; nations, for example, that treat inhumanly their fathers and mothers, as the Logdians did, or that eat human flesh, as did the ancient Gauls. He has fallen into this error because he attributes to every independent man, and, by parity, to every sovereign, I know not what right to punish crimes which imply a flagrant violation of the law of nature, even though they have no bearing either on his rights or his safety. But we have shown that the right to punish, as far as men are concerned, is derived alone from the right of security; consequently, it does not belong to sovereigns, except against those who have injured them. Grotius did not perceive that, in spite of all the precautions laid down in subsequent paragraphs, his sentiment opened the door for all the furies of enthusiasm and fanaticism, and furnished the ambitious with pretexts innumerable. Mahomet and his successors ravaged and subdued Asia to avenge the insulted unity of God.'-Ibid. Book ii. chap. 1.

'It is a manifest consequence of the liberty and the independence of nations, that every one has the right to govern itself as it deems best, and that no one has the least right to intermeddle with the government of another. . . . . The sovereign of a nation is he, whosoever he be, to whom the nation has committed the empire and the care of government; it has clothed him with its rights; and it alone is directly interested in the manner in which the leader it has given to itself uses his power. It appertains not, therefore, to any foreign power to take cognizance of the administration of this sovereign, to set itself up as a judge of his conduct, or to oblige him to change it in any respect. If he crushes his subjects with taxes, if he treats them harshly, it is the nation's own affair; no one else is called upon to give redress, or to oblige him to follow maxims more equitable and wise. It is the part of prudence, indeed, to observe occasions wherein one may remonstrate with him officiously and amicably. . . But if a prince, attacking fundamental laws, affords his people legitimate ground for resisting him; if tyranny become insupportable, rouses the nation, then any foreign power has the right to assist an oppressed people that demands its help. When a people reasonably takes arms against an oppressor, it is but justice and generosity to succour brave men who defend their liberty. Whenever, therefore, things go the length of a civil war, foreign powers may assist that one of the two parties which seems to them to be founded on justice. The power that assists an odious tyrant, or the power that assists an

AUGUSTE COMTE ON NATIONALITY AND NON-INTERVENTION. 257

unjust and rebellious people, sins, doubtless, against duty. But when the bonds of political society are broken, or at least suspended between sovereign and people, they may be considered as two distinct powers . . . But this maxim ought not to be abused so as to authorize odious intrigues against the tranquillity of states.'-Ibid. Book ii. chap. 4.

"Should there be a nation which openly professed to trample upon justice, despising and violating the rights of others whenever it could find occasion, the interest of human society would authorize all other nations to unite for its repression and chastisement. We do not forget the maxim laid down before, that it appertains not to nations to set themselves up as judges one of another. In particular cases, susceptible of the least doubt, it is to be supposed that both parties may be somewhat in the right; the injustice of the offending party may arise from error and not from wholesale contempt of justice. But if, by constant maxims, by a sustained course of conduct, a nation evidently exhibits itself in this pernicious state of mind, if no right is sacred to it, then the safety of the human race demands its repression. To frame and sustain an unjust claim is merely to do injury to the party whom the cla interests; to make a mock of justice in general is to injure all nations.'-Ibid. Book ii. chap. 5.

M. Auguste Comte, on the Doctrines of Nationality and Non-Intervention. Finally, the general spirit of the revolutionary metaphysics manifests itself in an essentially analogous manner when we consider also the critical doctrine with regard to international relations. In this last aspect, the systematic negation of all true organization is certainly neither less absolute nor less evident. The necessity of order being, in this case, much more equivocal and more concealed, one may remark, accordingly, that the absence of all regulating power has been here more naively proclaimed than in regard to anything else. By the political extinction of the ancient spiritual power, the fundamental principle of the unlimited liberty of conscience could not but determine the spontaneous dissolution of that European order the maintenance of which constituted directly the most natural attribute of the papal authority. The metaphysical notions of national independence and national isolation, and, by consequence, of mutual non-intervention, which notions were at first nothing more than the abstract and formal expression of this transitory state of affairs, necessarily presented, still more evidently than in internal politics, that absolute character, without which they would then have failed of their principal object, and without which they will always essentially fail of it even now, until such time as the sufficient manifestation of the new social order shall reveal the law according to which the various nations ought to be finally re-associated. Until then, every effort at European co-ordination, being inevitably directed by the ancient system, will really tend to this monstrous result-the subordination of the politics of the most advanced peoples to the politics of the nations the least advanced, and which, as such, having conserved the ancient system in NO. XXIX.

S

the state of least decomposition, will find themselves thus naturally placed at the head of any such association. One cannot, therefore, too highly appreciate the admirable energy with which the French nation has at last, by so many heroic sacrifices, conquered the indispensable right of changing at pleasure its internal policy, without subjecting itself to the least dependence on powers without. This systematic isolation constitutes evidently a preliminary condition of the eventual political regeneration, since, on any other hypothesis, the various nations, despite their unequal progress, must have been simultaneously reorganized a thing which would be certainly chimerical, notwithstanding that the crisis is at bottom homogeneous everywhere. But it remains no less incontestable, under this as under preceding heads, that the revolutionary metaphysics, by consecrating for ever this absolute spirit of exclusive nationality, tends directly to impede at the present time the development of the social reorganization, deprived as this is of one of its principal features. In this sense, such a conception, could it prevail indefinitely, would result in causing modern politics to retrograde beyond the politics of the middle age, and this at the very epoch when, in virtue of a similarity every day more intimate and complete, the different civilized nations are necessarily called on to form finally an association at once more extensive and more regular than that which was formerly superficially achieved by the catholic and feudal system. Thus, in this respect, as well as in others, the metaphysical theory of politics, after serving its indispensable office in preparing the definitive evolution of modern society, will constitute moreover, by its blind and unmeasured application, a direct obstacle to the real accomplishment of this great movement, by representing it as indefinitely restricted to a purely transitory phase, already sufficiently gone through.'-Comte. Système de Philosophie Positive. Vol. iv. pp. 66-68.

The Society of the Friends of Italy on the Doctrine of Non-Intervention. The principle of non-intervention in the affairs of other nations is a product of the negative and purely critical spirit of the last century. It was originally a useful and righteous protest against the lust of conquest and the appetite for war which had till then characterized the activity of Europe. As such, it was a step in advance, a real step in the intellectual progress of the human race. We still see many in whose minds the principle has worked itself out to just and liberal conclusions; but, upon the whole, a huge confusion has fallen upon the intelligence of the nations, and by the principle of non-intervention it has come to be understood that the European arrangement of 1815 shall not be altered except by the diplomatists who made it. So atrocious a perversion is this of the original meaning of the principle, and to such flagrant enormities has it led on the continent, that thinking men there have begun to hate the very phrase non-intervention, and to wish that it were, for a time at least, dismissed from the language of mankind. In the first place, it has to be observed of this principle of non-inter

HOW URGED BY THE FRIENDS OF ITALY AND KOSSUTH. 259

ference, that the very terms in which it is put forth necessarily presuppose something, take something for granted. When it is said that the true principle of the mutual relations of nations is the principle of non-intervention, a state of things is pre-supposed in which all the due conditions of nationality have been attended to. It is between certain things called nations that the principle of non-intervention is to hold the principle is not to take effect except on the supposition that the parties concerned are distinct nations. Again, surely, when the rule of non-interference is set up as the rule of political relationship between states, it is implied that this rule shall be absolute. In other words, the same theory which proclaims non-interference as the first law of international politics, must include, as a secondary law, the right of interference to make good all prior infractions of the law of non-interference. . . . . After all, it begins to be felt that, even understood in its fairest sense, the doctrine of non-intervention between states and nations is poor and incomplete. It begins to be felt, that not only is every nation entitled to a free and independent life, but also that there are bonds of international duty binding all the nations of the earth together. It begins to be felt, that if on any spot of the world, even within the limits of an independent nation, some glaring wrong should be done, casting a blight it might be over a populous area of many square miles, and sending up a cause of offence towards heaven, then other nations are not absolved from all concern in the matter, simply because there may intervene between them and the scene of the wrong, seas, tracts of continent, and traditional diplomatic courtesies. It begins to be felt, that, in some way or another, nations should exert an influence on the general affairs of the world, proportionate, nay, ostensibly proportionate, not merely to their numbers, but also to their intrinsic merits and their capacity for acting nobly; and further, that this necessity becomes greater, and the likelihood of meeting it more determined, as the increase of our means for locomotion and for intercommunication between lands is reducing our earth to a more manageable compass, and making its inhabitants more conscious of their being but one family.'-Tract on Non-intervention. Kossuth on Non-intervention.-'It is not long ago that a great Association-the Peace Society-had a meeting here in London. Humanity greets the existence of that society with hope. We will have peace, but a lasting and true peace, not oppression, slavery. Now this association has proclaimed the principle of non-intervention. Could there be found a single man in the world to give such an interpretation to this principle of non-interference, that, whatever the Czar of Russia, or his satellite Hapsburg, should do with mankind and humanity, England would not care for it? This is not non-interference; this is a letter of marque given to the Czar to become the master of the world. The principle of non-interference, proclaimed even by the Feace Association, has this meaning :-Every nation is free to dispose of its domestic concerns according as it is willing; and England should not interfere, and no foreign power should dare to interfere, with