HOMICIDE IN GENERAL (continued)
CHRISTIANITY introduced into Europe a higher regard for human life
than was felt anywhere in pagan society. The early Christians
condemned homicide of any kind as a heinous sin. And in this, as in
all other questions of moral concern, the distinction of nationality
or race was utterly ignored by them.
The sanctity which they attached to the life of every human being led
to a total condemnation of warfare, sharply contrasting with the
prevailing sentiment in the Roman Empire. In accordance with the
general spirit of their religion, as also with special passages in the
Bible,[1] they considered war unlawful under all circumstances. Justin
Martyr quotes the prophecy of Isaiah, that "nation shall not lift up
sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more,"[2] and
proceeds to say that the instruction in the word of God which was
given by the twelve Apostles "had so good effect that we, who
heretofore were continually devouring each other, will not now so much
as lift up our hand against our enemies."[3] Lactantius asserts that
"to engage in war cannot be lawful for the righteous man, whose
warfare is that of righteousness itself."[4] Tertullian asks, "Can it
be lawful to {346} handle the sword, when the Lord Himself has
declared that he who uses the sword shall perish by it?"[5] And in
another passage he states that "the Lord by his disarming of Peter
disarmed every soldier from that time forward."[6] Origen calls the
Christians the children of peace, who, for the sake of Jesus, never
take up the sword against any nation; who fight for their monarch by
praying for him, but who take no part in his wars, even though he urge
them.[7] It is true that, even in early times, Christian soldiers were
not unknown; Tertullian alludes to Christians who were engaged in
military pursuits together with their heathen countrymen.[8] But the
number of Christians enrolled in the army seems not to have been very
considerable before the era of Constantine,[9] and, though they were
not cut off from the Church, their profession was looked upon as
hardly compatible with their religion. St. Basil says that soldiers,
after their term of military service has expired, are to be excluded
from the sacrament of the communion for three whole years.[10] And
according to one of the canons of the Council of Nice, those
Christians who, having abandoned the profession of arms, afterwards
returned to it, "as dogs to their vomit," were for some years to
occupy in the Church the place of penitents.[11]
[Footnote 1: _St. Matthew_, v. 9, 39, 44. _Romans_, xii. 17.
_Ephesians_, vi. 12.]
[Footnote 2: _Isaiah_, ii. 4.]
[Footnote 3: Justin Martyr, _Apologia I. pro Christianis_, 39 (Migne,
_Patrologiæ cursus_, Ser. Graeca, vi. 387 _sq._).]
[Footnote 4: Lactantius, _Divinæ institutiones_, vi. ('De vero cultu')
20 (Migne, _op. cit._ vi. 708).]
[Footnote 5: Tertullian, _De corona_, 11 (Migne, _op. cit._ ii. 92).]
[Footnote 6: Tertullian, _De idolatria_, 19 (Migne, _op. cit._ i. 691).]
[Footnote 7: Origen, _Contra Celsum_, v. 33; viii. 73 (Migne, _op.
cit._ Ser. Graeca, xi. 1231 _sq._, 1627 _sq._).]
[Footnote 8: Tertullian, _Apologeticus_, 42 (Migne, _op. cit._ i. 491).]
[Footnote 9: Le Blant, _Inscriptions chrétiennes de la Gaule_,
i. 84 _sqq._]
[Footnote 10: St. Basil, _Epistola CLXXXVIII._, _ad Amphilochium_,
can. 13 (Migne, _op. cit._ Ser. Graeca, xxxii. 681 _sq._).]
[Footnote 11: _Concilium Nicænum_, A.D. 325, can. 12 (Labbe-Mansi,
_Sacrorum Conciliorum collectio_, ii. 674).]
A divine law which prohibited all resistance to enemies could
certainly not be accepted by the State, especially at a time when the
Empire was seriously threatened by foreign invaders. Christianity
could therefore never become a State-religion unless it gave up its
attitude towards war. And it gave it up. Already in 314 a Council
condemned soldiers who, from religious motives, {347} deserted their
colours.[12] The Fathers of the fourth and fifth centuries did not
altogether disapprove of war. Chrysostom and Ambrose, though seeing
the difficulty of reconciling it with the theory of Christian life
which they found in the New Testament, perceived that the use of the
sword was necessary to preserve the State.[13] St. Augustine went much
farther. He tried to prove that the practice of war was quite
compatible with the teachings of Christ. The soldiers mentioned in the
New Testament, who were seeking for a knowledge of salvation, were not
directed by our Lord to throw aside their arms and renounce their
profession, but were advised by him to be content with their
wages.[14] St. Peter baptised Cornelius, the centurion, in the name of
Christ, without exhorting him to give up the military life,[15] and
St. Paul himself took care to have a strong guard of soldiers for his
defence.[16] And was not the history of David, the "man after God's
own heart," an evidence of those being wrong who say that "no one who
wages war can please God"?[17] When Christ declared that "all they
that take the sword shall perish with the sword,"[18] He referred to
such persons only as arm themselves to shed the blood of others
without either command or permission of any superior or lawful
authority.[19] A great deal depends on the causes for which men
undertake war, and on the authority they have for doing so. Those wars
are just which are waged with a view to obtaining redress for wrongs,
or to chastising the undue arrogance of another State. The monarch has
the power of making war when he thinks it advisable, and, even if he
be a sacrilegious {348} king, a Christian may fight under him,
provided that what is enjoined upon the soldier personally is not
contrary to the precept of God.[20] In short, though peace is our
final good, though in the City of God there is peace in eternity,[21]
war may sometimes be a necessity in this sinful world.
[Footnote 12: _Concilium Arelatense I._ A.D. 314, can. 3 (Labbe-Mansi,
_op. cit._ ii. 471). _Cf._ Le Blant, _op. cit._ i. p. lxxxii.]
[Footnote 13: Gibb, 'Christian Church and War,' in _British Quarterly
Review_, lxxiii. 83.]
[Footnote 14: St. Augustine, _Epist. CXXXVIII._, _ad Marcellinum_, 15
(Migne, _op. cit._ xxxiii. 531 _sq._).]
[Footnote 15: St. Augustine, _Epist. CLXXXIX._, _ad Bonifacium_, 4
(Migne, _op. cit._ xxxiii. 855).]
[Footnote 16: St. Augustine, _Epistola XLVII._, _ad Publicolam_, 5
(Migne, _op. cit._ xxxiii. 187).]
[Footnote 17: St. Augustine, _Epist. CLXXXIX._, _ad Bonifacium_, 4
(Migne, _op. cit._ xxxiii. 855).]
[Footnote 18: _St. Matthew_, xxvi. 52.]
[Footnote 19: St. Augustine, _Contra Faustum Manichæum_, xxii. 70
(Migne, _op. cit._ xlii, 444).]
[Footnote 20: St. Augustine, _Contra Faustum Manichæum_, xxii. 75
(Migne, _op. cit._ xlii. 448).]
[Footnote 21: St. Augustine, _De civitate Dei_, xix. 11.]
By the writings of St. Augustine the theoretical attitude of the
Church towards war was definitely settled, and later theologians only
reproduced or further elaborated his views. Yet it was not with a
perfectly safe conscience that Christianity thus sanctioned the
practice of war. There was a feeling that a soldier scarcely could
make a good Christian. In the middle of the fifth century, Leo the
Pope declared it to be contrary to the rules of the Church that
persons after the action of penance--that is, persons then considered
to be pre-eminently bound to obey the law of Christ--should revert to
the profession of arms.[22] Various Councils forbade the clergy to
engage in warfare,[23] and certain canons excluded from ordination all
who had served in an army after baptism.[24] Penance was prescribed
for those who had shed blood on the battle-field.[25] Thus {349} the
ecclesiastical canons made in William the Conqueror's reign by the
Norman prelates, and confirmed by the Pope, directed that he who was
aware that he had killed a man in a battle should do penance for one
year, and that he who had killed several should do a year's penance
for each.[26] Occasionally the Church seemed to wake up to the evils
of war in a more effective way; there are several notorious instances
of wars being forbidden by popes. But in such cases the prohibition
was only too often due to the fact that some particular war was
disadvantageous to the interests of the Church. And whilst doing
comparatively little to discourage wars which did not interfere with
her own interests, the Church did all the more to excite war against
those who were objects of her hatred.
[Footnote 22: Leo Magnus, _Epistola XC._, _ad Rusticum_, inquis. 12
(Migne, _op. cit._ liv. 1206 _sq._).]
[Footnote 23: One of the Apostolic Canons requires that any bishop,
priest, or deacon who devotes himself to military service shall be
degraded from his ecclesiastical rank (_Canones ecclesiastici qui
dicuntur Apostolorum_, 83 [74] [Bunsen, _Analecta Ante-Nicæna_, ii.
31]). The Councils of Toulouse, in 633 (ch. 45, in Labbe-Mansi, _op.
cit._ x. 630), and of Meaux, in 845 (can. 37, _ibid._ xiv. 827),
condemned to a similar punishment those of the clergy who ventured to
take up arms. Gratian says (_Decretum_, ii. 23. 8. 4) that the Church
refuses to pray for the soul of a priest who died on the battle-field.
Notwithstanding the canons of Councils and the decrees of popes,
ecclesiastics frequently participated in battles (Nicolaus I.
_Epistolæ et Decreta_, 83 [Migne, _op. cit._ cxix. 922]. Robertson,
_History of the Reign of Charles V._ i. 330, 385. Ward, _Foundation
and History of the Law of Nations_, i. 365 _sq._ Buckle, _History of
Civilisation in England_, i. 204; ii. 464. Bethune-Baker, _Influence
of Christianity on War_, p. 52. Dümmler, _Geschichte des
Ostfränkischen Reichs_, ii. 637).]
[Footnote 24: Grotius, _De jure belli et pacis_, i. 2. 10. 10.
Bingham, _Antiquities of the Christian Church_, iv. 4. 1 (_Works_,
ii. 55).]
[Footnote 25: _P[oe]nitentiale Bigotianum_, iv. i. 4 (Wasserschleben,
_Bussordnungen der abendländischen Kirche_, p. 453). _P[oe]nit.
Vigilanum_, 27 (_ibid._ p. 529). _P[oe]nit. Pseudo-Theodori_, xxi. 15
(_ibid._ p. 587 _sq._). _Cf._ _Mort de Garin le Loherain_, p. 213:
"Ainz se repent et se claime cheti; Ses pechiés plore au soir et au
matin, De ce qu'il a tans homes mors et pris."]
[Footnote 26: Wilkins, _Concilia Magnæ Britanniæ et Hiberniæ_, i. 366.]
It has been suggested that the transition from the peaceful tenets of
the primitive Church to the essentially military Christianity of the
crusades, was chiefly due to the terrors and the example of Islam.
"The spirit of Muhammedanism," says Mr. Lecky, "slowly passed into
Christianity, and transformed it into its image." Until then, "war was
rather condoned than consecrated, and, whatever might be the case with
a few isolated prelates, the Church did nothing to increase or
encourage it."[27] But this view is hardly consistent with facts.
Christianity had entered on the war-path already before it came into
contact with Muhammedanism. Wars against Arian peoples had been
represented as holy wars, for which the combatants would be rewarded
by Heaven.[28] The war which Chlodwig made upon the Visigoths was not
only undertaken with the approval of the clergy, but it was, as Mr.
Greenwood remarks, "properly their war, and Chlodwig undertook it in
the capacity of a religious champion in all things but the
disinterestedness which ought to distinguish that character." Remigius
of Reims assisted him by his countenance and advice, and the {350}
Catholic priesthood set every engine of their craft in motion to
second and encourage him.[29] In the Church itself there were germs
out of which a military spirit would naturally develop itself. The
famous dictum, "Nulla salus extra ecclesiam," was promulgated as early
as the days of Cyprian. The general view of mediæval orthodoxy was,
that those beyond the pale of the Church, heathen and heretics alike,
were unalterably doomed to hell, whereas those who would acknowledge
her authority, confess their sins, receive the sacrament of baptism,
partake of the eucharist and obey the priest, would be infallibly
saved. If war was allowed by God, could there be a more proper object
for it than the salvation of souls otherwise lost? And for those who
refuse to accept the gift of grace offered to them, could there be a
juster punishment than death? Moreover, had not the Israelites fought
great battles "for the laws and the sanctuary"?[30] Had not the Lord
Himself commissioned them to attack, subdue, and destroy his enemies?
Had He not commanded them to root out the natives of Canaan, who,
because of their abominations, had fallen under God's judgment, and to
kill man and beast in the Israelitish cities which had given
themselves to idolatry, and to burn all the spoil, with the city
itself, as a whole offering to Yahveh?[31] There was no need, then,
for the Christians to go to the Muhammedans in order to learn the art
of religious war. The Old Testament, the revelation of God, gave
better lessons in it than the Koran, and was constantly cited in
justification of any cruelty committed in the name of religion.[32]
[Footnote 27: Lecky, _History of European Morals_, ii. 251 _sq._]
[Footnote 28: Gibb, _loc. cit._ p. 86.]
[Footnote 29: Greenwood, _First Book of the History of the Germans_,
p. 518.]
[Footnote 30: _1 Maccabees_, xiii. 3. Thomas Aquinas (_Summa
theologica_, ii-ii. 188. 3) quotes this passage in support of the
doctrine, that fighting may be directed to the preservation of divine
worship.]
[Footnote 31: _Deuteronomy_, xiii. 15 _sq._]
[Footnote 32: _Cf._ Constant, _De la religion_, ii. 229 _sq._]
It was thus in perfect consistency with the general teachings of the
Church that she regarded an exploit achieved against the infidels as a
merit which might obliterate the guilt of the most atrocious crimes.
Such a {351} deed was the instrument of pardon to Henry II. for the
murder of Becket,[33] and was supposed to be the means of cure to St.
Louis in a dangerous illness. Fighting against infidels took rank with
fastings, penitential discipline, visits to shrines, and almsgivings,
as meriting the divine mercy.[34] He who fell in the battle could be
confident that his soul was admitted directly into the joys of
Paradise.[35] And this held good not only of wars against Muhammedans.
The massacres of Jews and heretics seemed no less meritorious than the
slaughter of the more remote enemies of the Gospel. Nay, even a slight
shade of difference from the liturgy of Rome became at last a
legitimate cause of war.
[Footnote 33: Lyttelton, _History of the Life of King Henry the
Second_, iii. 96.]
[Footnote 34: _Cf._ Milman, _History of Latin Christianity_, iv. 209.]
[Footnote 35: _Cf._ Laurent, _Études sur l'histoire de l'humanité_,
vii. 257.]
It is true that these views were not shared by all. At the Council of
Lyons, in 1274, the opinion was pronounced, and of course eagerly
attacked, that it was contrary to the examples of Christ and the
Apostles to uphold religion with the sword and to shed the blood of
unbelievers.[36] In the following century, Bonet maintained that,
according to Scriptures, a Saracen or any other disbeliever could not
be compelled by force to accept the Christian faith.[37] Franciscus a
Victoria declared that "diversity of religion is not a cause of just
war";[38] and a similar opinion was expressed by Soto,[39] Covarruvias
a Leyva,[40] and Suarez.[41] According to Balthazar Ayala, the most
illustrious Spanish lawyer of the sixteenth century, it does not
belong to the Church to punish infidels who {352} have never received
the Christian faith, whereas those who, having once received it,
afterwards endeavour to prevent the propagation of the Gospel, may,
like other heretics, be justly persecuted with the sword.[42] But the
majority of jurisconsults, as well as of canonists, were in favour of
the orthodox view that unbelief is a legitimate reason for going to
war.[43] And this principle was, professedly, acted upon to an extent
which made the history of Christianity for many centuries a perpetual
crusade, and transformed the Christian Church into a military power
even more formidable than Rome under Cæsar and Augustus. Very often
religious zeal was a mere pretext for wars which in reality were
caused by avarice or desire for power. The aim of the Church was to be
the master of the earth rather than the servant of heaven. She
preached crusades not only against infidels and heretics, but against
any disobedient prince who opposed her boundless pretensions. And she
encouraged war when rich spoils were to be expected from the victor,
as a thankoffering to God for the victory He had granted, or as an
atonement for the excesses which had been committed.
[Footnote 36: Bethune-Baker, _op. cit._ p. 73.]
[Footnote 37: Bonet, _L'arbre des batailles_, iv. 2, p. 86: "Selon la
sainte Escripture nous ne pouvons et si ne devons contredire ne
efforcer ung mescreant à recepvoir ne le saint bapteme ne la sainte
foy ainsi les devons laisser en leur franche volonté que Dieu leur a
donnée."]
[Footnote 38: Franciscus a Victoria, _Relectiones Theologicæ_, vi. 10,
p. 231: "Caussa iusti belli non est diuersitas religionis." Yet
infidels may be constrained to allow the Gospel to be preached
(_ibid._ v. 3. 12, p. 214 _sq._).]
[Footnote 39: Soto, _De justititia et jure_, v. 3. 5, fol. 154.]
[Footnote 40: Covariuvias a Leyva, _Regulæ_, _Pecatum_, ii. 10. 2
(_Opera omnia_, i. 496): "Infidelitas non priuat infideles dominio,
quod habent iure humano, vel habuerunt ante legem Euangelicam in
prouinciis et regnis, quae obtinent."]
[Footnote 41: Suarez, cited by Nys, _Droit de la guerre et les
précurseurs de Grotius_, p. 98.]
[Footnote 42: Ayala, _De iure et officiis bellicis et disciplina
militari_, i. 2. 29 _sq._]
[Footnote 43: Nys, _op. cit._ p. 89. _Idem_, in his Introduction to
Bonet's _L'arbre des batailles_, p. xxiv. According to Conradus Brunus
(_De legationibus_, iii. 8, p. 115), for instance, any war waged by
Christians against the enemies of the Christian faith is just, as
being undertaken for the defence of religion and the glory of God in
order to recover the possession of dominions unjustly held by infidels.]
Out of this union between war and Christianity there was born that
curious bastard, Chivalry. The secular germ of it existed already in
the German forests. According to Tacitus, the young German who aspired
to be a warrior was brought into the midst of the assembly of the
chiefs, where his father, or some other relative, solemnly equipped
him for his future vocation with shield and javelin.[44] Assuming arms
was thus made a social distinction, which subsequently derived its
name {353} from one of its most essential characteristics, the riding
a war-horse. But Chivalry became something quite different from what
the word indicates. The Church knew how to lay hold of knighthood for
her own purposes. The investiture, which was originally of a purely
civil nature, became, even before the time of the crusades, as it
were, a sacrament.[45] The priest delivered the sword into the hand of
the person who was to be made a knight, with the following words,
"Serve Christi, sis miles in nomine Patris, Filii, et Spiritus Sancti,
Amen."[46] The sword was said to be made in semblance of the cross so
as to signify "how our Lord God vanquished in the cross the death of
human lying";[47] and the word "Jesus" was sometimes engraven on its
hilt.[48] God Himself had chosen the knight to defeat with arms the
miscreants who wished to destroy his Holy Church, in the same way as
He had chosen the clergy to maintain the Catholic faith with Scripture
and reasons.[49] The knight was to the body politic what the arms are
to the human body: the Church was the head, Chivalry the arms, the
citizens, merchants, and labourers the inferior members; and the arms
were placed in the middle to render them equally capable of defending
the inferior members and the head.[50] "The greatest amity that should
be in this world," says the author of the 'Ordre of Chyualry,' "ought
to be between the knights and clerks."[51] The several gradations of
knighthood were regarded as parallel to those of the Church.[52] And
after the conquest of the Holy Land the union between the profession
of arms and the religion of Christ became still more intimate by the
institution of the two military orders of monks, the Knights Templars
and Knights of St. John of Jerusalem.
[Footnote 44: Tactitus, _Germania_, 13. According to Honoré de Sainte
Marie (_Dissertations historiques et critiques sur la Chevalerie_, p.
30 _sqq._), Chivalry is of Roman, according to some other writers, of
Arabic origin. M. Gautier (_La Chevalerie_, pp. 14, 16) repudiates
these theories, and regards Chivalry as "un usage germain idéalisé par
l'Église." See also Rambaud, _Histoire de la civilisation française_,
i. 178 _sq._]
[Footnote 45: Scott, 'Essay on Chivalry,' in _Miscellaneous Prose
Works_, vi. 16. Mills, _History of Chivalry_, i. 10 _sq._ For a
description of the various religious ceremonies accompanying the
investiture, see _The Book of the Ordre of Chyualry or Knyghthode_,
fol. 27 b _sqq._ _Cf._ also Favyn, _Theater of Honour and
Knight-Hood_, i. 52.]
[Footnote 46: Favyn, _op. cit._ i. 52.]
[Footnote 47: _Ordre of Chyualry_, fol. 31 a _sq._]
[Footnote 48: Mills, _op. cit._ i. 71.]
[Footnote 49: _Ordre of Chyualry_, fol. 11 b.]
[Footnote 50: _Le Jouuencel_, fol. 94 _sqq._]
[Footnote 51: _Ordre of Chyualry_, fol. 12 a.]
[Footnote 52: Scott, _loc. cit._ p. 15.]
{354} The duties which a knight took on himself by oath were very
extensive, but not very well defined. He should defend the holy
Catholic faith, he should defend justice, he should defend women,
widows, and orphans, and all those of either sex that were powerless,
ill at ease, and groaning under oppression, and injustice.[53] In the
name of religion and justice he could thus practically wage war almost
at will. Though much real oppression was undoubtedly avenged by these
soldiers of the Church, the knight seems as a rule to have cared
little for the cause or necessity of his doing battle. "La guerre est
ma patrie, Mon harnois ma maison: Et en toute saison Combatre c'est ma
vie," was a saying much in use in the sixteenth century.[54] The
general impression which Froissart gives us in his history is, that
the age in which he lived was completely given over to fighting, and
cared about nothing else whatever.[55] The French knights never spoke
of war but as a feast, a game, a pastime. "Let them play their game,"
they said of the cross-bow men, who were showering down arrows on
them; and "to play a great game," _jouer gros jeu_, was their
description of a battle.[56] Previous to the institution of Chivalry
there certainly existed much fighting in Christian countries, but
knighthood rendered war "a fashionable accomplishment."[57] And so
all-absorbing became the passion for it that, as real injuries were
not likely to occur every day, artificial grievances were created, and
tilts and tournaments were invented in order to keep in action the
sons of war when they had no other employments for their courage. Even
in these images of war--which were by no means so harmless as they
have sometimes been represented to be[58]--the intimate connection
{355} between Chivalry and religion displays itself in various ways.
Before the tournament began, the coats of arms, helmets, and other
objects were carried into a monastery, and after the victory was
gained the arms and the horses which had been used in the fight were
offered up at the church.[59] The proclamations at the tournaments
were generally in the name of God and the Virgin Mary. Before battle
the knights confessed, and heard mass; and, when they entered the
lists, they held a sort of image with which they made the sign of the
cross.[60] Moreover, "as the feasts of the tournaments were
accompanied by these acts of devotion, so the feasts of the Church
were sometimes adorned with the images of the tournaments."[61] It is
true that the Church now and then made attempts to stop these
performances.[62] But then she did so avowedly because they prevented
many knights from joining the holy wars, or because they swallowed up
treasures which might otherwise with advantage have been poured into
the Holy Land.[63]
[Footnote 53: _Ordre of Chyualry_, foll. 11 b, 17 a. Sainte-Palaye,
_Mémoires sur l'ancienne Chevalerie_, i. 75, 129.]
[Footnote 54: De la Nouë, _Discours politiques et militaires_, p. 215.]
[Footnote 55: See Sir James Stephen's essay on 'Froissart's
Chronicles,' in his _Horæ Sabbaticæ_, i. 22 _sqq._]
[Footnote 56: Sainte-Palaye, _op. cit._ ii. 61.]
[Footnote 57: Millingen, _History of Duelling_, i. 70.]
[Footnote 58: Sainte-Palaye, _op. cit._ i. 179; ii. 75. Du Cange,
'Dissertations sur l'histoire de S. Louys,' in Petitot, _Collection
des Mémoires relatifs à l'histoire de France_, iii. 122 _sq._ Honoré
de Sainte Marie, _op. cit._ p. 186.]
[Footnote 59: Sainte-Palaye, _op. cit._ i. 151.]
[Footnote 60: _Ibid._ ii. 57.]
[Footnote 61: _Ibid._ ii. 57 _sq._]
[Footnote 62: Du Cange, _loc. cit._ p. 124 _sqq._ Honoré de Sainte
Marie, _op. cit._ p. 186. Sainte-Palaye, _op. cit._ ii. 75.]
[Footnote 63: Du Cange, _loc. cit._ p. 125 _sq._]
Closely connected with the feudal system was the practice of private
war. Though tribunals had been instituted, and even long after the
kings' courts had become well-organised and powerful institutions, a
nobleman had a right to wage war upon another nobleman from whom he
had suffered some gross injury.[64] On such occasions not only the
relatives, but the vassals, of the injured man were bound to help him
in his quarrel, and the same obligation existed in the case of the
aggressor.[65] Only greater crimes were regarded as legitimate causes
of private war,[66] but this rule was not at all strictly
observed.[67] As {356} a matter of fact, the barons fled to arms upon
every quarrel; he who could raise a small force at once made war upon
him who had anything to lose. The nations of Europe were subdivided
into innumerable subordinate states, which were almost independent,
and declared war and made treaties with all the vigour and all the
ceremonies of powerful monarchs. Contemporary historians describe the
excesses committed in prosecution of these intestine quarrels in such
terms as excite astonishment and horror; and great parts of Europe
were in consequence reduced to the condition of a desert, which it
ceased to be worth while to cultivate.[68]
[Footnote 64: The right of private war generally supposed nobility of
birth and equality of rank in both the contending parties (Beaumanoir,
_Coutumes du Beauvoisis_, lix. 5 _sq._ vol. ii. 355 _sqq._; Robertson,
_History of the Reign of Charles V._ i. 329). But it was also granted
to the French _communes_, and to the free towns in Germany, Italy, and
Spain (Du Boys, _Histoire du droit criminel des peuples modernes_,
ii. 348).]
[Footnote 65: Du Cange, _loc. cit._ pp. 450, 458.]
[Footnote 66: _Ibid._ p. 445 _sq._ Arnold, _Deutsche Urzeit_, p. 341.
von Wächter, _Beiträge zur deutschen Geschichte_, p. 46.]
[Footnote 67: We read of a nobleman who declared war against the city
of Frankfort, because a lady residing there had promised to dance with
his cousin, but danced with another; and the city was obliged to
satisfy the wounded honour of the gentleman (von Wächter, _op. cit._
p. 57).]
[Footnote 68: Robertson, _op. cit._ i. 332.]
The Church made some feeble attempts to put an end to this state of
things. Thus, about the year 990, ordinances were directed against the
practice of private war by several bishops in the south of France, who
agreed to exclude him who violated their ordinances from all Christian
privileges during his life, and to deny him Christian burial after his
death.[69] A little later, men engaged in warfare were exhorted, by
sacred relics and by the bodies of saints, to lay down their arms and
to swear that they would never again disturb the public peace by their
private hostilities.[70] But it is hardly likely that such directions
had much effect as long as the bishops and abbots themselves were
allowed to wage private war by means of their vidames, and exercised
this right scarcely less frequently than the barons.[71] Nor does it
seem that {357} the Church brought about any considerable change for
the better by establishing the Truce of God, involving obligatory
respite from hostilities during the great festivals of the Church, as
also from the evening of Wednesday in each week to the morning of
Monday in the week ensuing.[72] We are assured by good authorities
that the Truce was generally disregarded, though the violator was
threatened with the penalty of excommunication.[73] Most barons could
probably say with Bertram de Born:--"La paix ne me convient pas; la
guerre seule me plaît. Je n'ai égard ni aux lundis, ni aux mardis. Les
semaines, les mois, les années, tout m'est égal. En tout temps, je
veux perdre quiconque me nuit."[74] The ordinance enjoining the
_treuga Dei_ was transgressed even by the popes.[75] It was too
unpractical a direction to be obeyed, and was soon given up even in
theory by the authorities of the Church. Thomas Aquinas says that, as
physicians may lawfully apply remedies to men on feast-days, so just
wars may be lawfully prosecuted on such days for the defence of the
commonwealth of the faithful, if necessity so requires; "for it would
be tempting God for a man to want to keep his hands from war under
stress of such necessity."[76] And in support of this opinion he
quotes the first Book of the Maccabees, where it is said, "Whosoever
shall come to make battle with us on the sabbath day, we will fight
against him."[77]
[Footnote 69: 'Charta de Treuga et Pace per Aniciensem Praesulem
Widonem in Congregatione quamplurium Episcoporum, Principium, et
Nobilium hujus Terrae sancita,' in Dumont, _Corps universel
diplomatique du droit des gens_, i. 41.]
[Footnote 70: Raoul Glaber, _Histori sui temporis_, iv. 5 (Bouquet,
_Rerum Gallicarum et Francicarum Scriptores_, x. 49). Robertson, _op.
cit._ i. 335.]
[Footnote 71: Brussel, _Nouvel examen de l'usage général des fiefs en
France_, i. 144. How much the prelates were infected by the general
spirit of the age, appears from a characteristic story of an
archbishop of Cologne who gave to one of his vassals a castle situated
on a sterile rock. When the vassal objected that he could not subsist
on such a soil, the archbishop answered, "Why do you complain? Four
roads unite under the walls of your castle" (Du Boys, _Histoire du
droit criminel de l'Espagne_, p. 504).]
[Footnote 72: Raoul Glaber, _op. cit._ v. 1 (_loc. cit._ p. 59). Du
Cange, _Glossarium ad scriptores mediæ et infimæ Latinitatis_, vi.
1267 _sq._ Henault, _Nouvel abrégé chronologique de l'histoire de
France_, p. 106.]
[Footnote 73: Du Cange, _Glossarium_, vi. 1272. Nys, _Droit de la
guerre et les précurseurs de Grotius_, p. 114.]
[Footnote 74: Villemain, _Cours de littérature française_,
_Littérature du Moyen Age_, i. 122 _sq._]
[Footnote 75: Belli, _De re militari_, quoted by Nys, _op. cit._ p. 115.]
[Footnote 76: Thomas Aquinas, _op. cit._ ii.-ii. 40. 4.]
[Footnote 77: _Maccabees_, ii. 41.]
It seems that the main cause of the abolition of private war was not
any measure taken by the Church, but the increase of the authority of
emperors or kings. In France the right of waging private war was
moderated by Louis IX., checked by Philip IV., suppressed by {358}
Charles VI.[78] In England, after the Norman Conquest, private wars
seem to have occurred more rarely than on the Continent, probably
owing to the strength of the royal authority, which made the execution
of justice more vigorous and the jurisdiction of the King's court more
extensive than was the case in most other countries.[79] In Scotland
the practice of private war received its final blow only late in the
eighteenth century, when the clans were reduced to order after the
rebellion of 1745.[80] Whilst, then, it is impossible to ascribe to
the Church any considerable part in the movement which ultimately led
to the entire abolition of private war, we have, on the other hand, to
take into account the encouragement which the Church gave to the
warlike spirit of the time by the establishment of Chivalry[81] and by
sanctioning war as a divine institution. War came to be looked upon as
a judgment of God and the victory as a sign of his special favour.
Before a battle, the service of mass was usually performed by both
armies in the presence of each other, and no warrior would fight
without secretly breathing a prayer.[82] Pope Adrian IV. says that a
war commenced under the auspices of religion cannot but be
fortunate;[83] and it was commonly believed that God took no less
interest in the battle than did the fighting warriors. Bonet, who
wrote in the fourteenth century, puts to himself the question, why
there are so many wars in the world, and gives the answer, "que toutes
sont pour le pechié du siecle dont nostre seigneur Dieu pour le pugnir
permet les guerres, car ainsi le maintient l'escripture."[84]
[Footnote 78: Robertson, _op. cit._ i. 55, 56, 338 _sqq._ Hallam,
_View of the State of Europe during the Middle Ages_, i. 207. Brussel,
_op. cit._ i. 142.]
[Footnote 79: _Ibid._ i. 343 _sq._ Prof. Freeman (_Comparative
Politics_, p. 328 _sq._) mentions as the last instance of private war
in England one from the time of Edward IV.]
[Footnote 80: Lawrence, _Essays on some Disputed Questions in Modern
International Law_, p. 254 _sq._]
[Footnote 81: I do not understand how M. Gautier can say (_op. cit._
p. 6) that Chivalry was the most beautiful of those means by which the
Church endeavoured to check war.]
[Footnote 82: Mills, _History of Chivalry_, i. 147.]
[Footnote 83: Laurent, _op. cit._ vii. 245.]
[Footnote 84: Bonet, _op. cit._ iv. 54, p. 150.]
Similar opinions have retained their place in the orthodox creeds both
of the Catholic and Protestant {359} Churches up to the present day.
The attitude adopted by the great Christian congregations towards war
has been, and is still, to a considerable degree, that of sympathetic
approval. The Catechism of the Council of Trent brings home that there
are on record instances of slaughter executed by the special command
of God Himself, as when the sons of Levi, who put to death so many
thousands in one day, after the slaughter were thus addressed by
Moses, "Ye have consecrated your hands this day to the Lord."[85] Even
quite modern Catholic writers refer to the canonists who held that a
State might lawfully make war upon a heretic people which was
spreading heresy, and upon a pagan people which prevented the
preaching of the Gospel.[86] Again, when the Protestant Churches
became State-Churches, their ministers, considering themselves as in
the service of the State, were ready to champion whatever war the
Government pleased to undertake. As Mr. Gibb observes, the Protestant
minister was as ready with his Thanksgiving Sermon for the victories
of a profligate war, as the Catholic priest was with his _Te Deum_;
"indeed, the latter was probably the more independent of the two,
because of his allegiance to Rome."[87] The new Confessions of Faith
explicitly claimed for the State the right of waging war, and the
Anabaptists were condemned because they considered war unlawful for a
Christian.[88] Even the necessity of a just cause as a reason for
taking part in warfare, which was reasserted at the time of the
Reformation, was subsequently allowed to drop out of sight. Mr. Farrer
calls attention to the fact that in the 37th article of the English
Church, which is to the effect that a Christian at the command of the
magistrate may wear weapons and serve in wars, the word _justa_ in the
Latin form preceding the word _bella_ has been omitted altogether.[89]
[Footnote 85: _Catechism of the Council of Trent_, iii. 6. 5.]
[Footnote 86: Adds and Arnold, _Catholic Dictionary_, p. 944.]
[Footnote 87: Gibb, _loc. cit._ p. 90.]
[Footnote 88: _Augsburg Confession_, i. 16. _Second Helvetic
Confession_, xxx. 4.]
[Footnote 89: Farrer, _Military Manners and Customs_, p. 208.]
{360} Nor did the old opinion that war is a providential institution
and a judgment of God die with the Middle Ages. Lord Bacon looks upon
wars as "the highest trials of right; when princes and states that
acknowledge no superior upon earth shall put themselves upon the
justice of God, for the deciding of their controversies by such
success as it shall please Him to give on either side."[90] Réal de
Curban says that a war is seldom successful unless it be just, hence
the victor may presume that God is on his side.[91] According to
Jeremy Taylor, "kings are in the place of God, who strikes whole
nations, and towns, and villages; and war is the rod of God in the
hands of princes."[92] And it is not only looked upon as an instrument
of divine justice, but it is also said, generally, "to work out the
noble purposes of God."[93] Its tendency, as a theological writer
assures us, is "to rectify and exalt the popular conception of God,"
there being nothing among men "like the smell of gunpowder for making
a nation perceive the fragrance of divinity in truth."[94] By war the
different countries "have been opened up to the advance of true
religion."[95] "No people ever did, or ever could, feel the power of
Christian principle growing up like an inspiration through the
national manhood, until the worth of it had been thundered on the
battle-field."[96] War is, "when God sends it, a means of grace and of
national renovation"; it is "a solemn duty in which usually only the
best Christians and most trustworthy men should be commissioned to
hold the sword."[97] According to M. Proudhon, it is the most sublime
phenomenon of our moral life,[98] a divine revelation more
authoritative than the Gospel itself.[99] The warlike people is the
religious people;[100] war is the sign of {361} human grandeur, peace
a thing for beavers and sheep. "Philanthrope, vous parlez d'abolir la
guerre; prenez garde de dégrader le genre humain."[101]
[Footnote 90: Bacon, _Letters and Life_, i. (_Works_, viii.), 146.]
[Footnote 91: Réal de Curban, _La science du gouvernement_, v. 394 _sq._]
[Footnote 92: Taylor, _Whole Works_, xii. 164.]
[Footnote 93: 'The Sword and Christianity,' in _Boston Review devoted
to Theology and Literature_, iii. 261.]
[Footnote 94: _Ibid._ iii. 259, 257.]
[Footnote 95: Holland, _Time of War_, p. 14.]
[Footnote 96: _Boston Review_, iii. 257.]
[Footnote 97: 'Christianity and War,' in _Christian Review_, xxvi. 604.]
[Footnote 98: Proudhon, _La guerre et la paix_, ii. 420.]
[Footnote 99: _Ibid._i.62; ii. 435.]
[Footnote 100: _Ibid._ i. 45.]
[Footnote 101: _Ibid._ i. 43.]
In order to prove the consistency of war with Christianity appeals are
still, as in former days, made to the Bible; to the divinely-sanctioned
example of the ancient Israelites, to the fact that Jesus never
prohibited those around Him from bearing arms, to the instances of the
centurions mentioned in the Gospel, to St. Paul's predilection for
taking his spiritual metaphors from the profession of the soldier, and
so on.[102] According to Canon Mozley, the Christian recognition of
the right of war was contained in Christianity's original recognition
of nations.[103] "By a fortunate necessity," a universal empire is
impossible.[104] Each nation is a centre by itself, and when questions
of right and justice arise between these independent centres, they
cannot be decided except by mutual agreement or force. The aim of the
nation going to war is exactly the same as that of the individual in
entering a court, and the Church, which has no authority to decide
which is the right side, cannot but stand neutral and contemplate war
forensically, as a mode of settling national questions, which is
justified by the want of any other mode.[105] A natural justice, Canon
Mozley adds, is inherent not only in wars of self-defence; there is an
instinctive reaching in nations and masses of people after alteration
and readjustment, which has justice in it, and which arises from real
needs. The arrangement does not suit as it stands, there is want of
adaptation, there is confinement and pressure; there are people kept
away from each other that are made to be together, and parts separated
that were made to join. All this uneasiness in States naturally leads
to war. Moreover, there are wars of progress which, so far as they are
really necessary for the due advantage of mankind and {362} growth of
society, are approved of by Christianity, though they do not strictly
belong to the head of wars undertaken in self-defence.[106] A doctrine
which thus, in the name of religion, allows the waging of wars for
rectifying the political distribution of nationalities and races, and
forwarding the so-called progress of the world, naturally lends itself
to the justification of almost any war entered upon by a Christian
State.[107] As a matter of fact, it would be impossible to find a
single instance of a war waged by a Protestant country, from any
motive, to which the bulk of its clergy have not given their sanction
and support. The opposition against war has generally come from other
quarters.
[Footnote 102: See _e.g._, Browne, _Exposition of the Thirty-Nine
Articles_, p. 827 _sq._; _Christian Review_, xxvi. 603 _sq._;
_Eclectic Magazine_, xiii. 372.]
[Footnote 103: Mozley, 'On War,' in _Sermons preached before the
University of Oxford_, p. 119.]
[Footnote 104: _Ibid._ p. 112.]
[Footnote 105: _Ibid._ p. 100 _sqq._]
[Footnote 106: _Ibid._ 104 _sq._]
[Footnote 107: On the principle of progress, Canon Mozley himself
justifies (_ibid._ p. 110 _sq._) not only the wars undertaken against
two Eastern empires which have shut themselves up and excluded
themselves from the society of mankind, but "two of the three great
European wars of the last dozen years." This was said in 1871.]
There have been, and still are, Christian sects which, on religious
grounds, condemn war of any kind. In the fourteenth century the
Lollards taught that homicide in war is expressly contrary to the New
Testament; they were persecuted partly on that account.[108] Of the
same opinion were the Anabaptists of the sixteenth century; and they
could claim on their side the words of men like Colet and Erasmus.
From the pulpit of St. Paul's Colet thundered that "an unjust peace is
better than the justest war," and that, "when men out of hatred and
ambition fight with and destroy one another, they fight under the
banner, not of Christ, but of the Devil."[109] According to Erasmus
"nothing is more impious, more calamitous, more widely pernicious,
more inveterate, more base, or in sum more unworthy of a man, not to
say of a Christian," than war. It is worse than brutal; to man no wild
beast is more destructive than his fellow-man. When brutes fight, they
fight with weapons which nature has given them, whereas we arm
ourselves for mutual slaughter with weapons which nature never thought
of. Neither do beasts break out {363} in hostile rage for trifling
causes, but either when hunger drives them to madness, or when they
find themselves attacked, or when they are alarmed for the safety of
their young. But we, on frivolous pretences, what tragedies do we act
on the theatre of war! Under colour of some obsolete and disputable
claim to territory; in a childish passion for a mistress; for causes
even more ridiculous than these, we kindle the flame of war.
Transactions truly hellish, are called holy wars. Bishops and grave
divines, decrepit as they are in person, fight from the pulpit the
battles of the princes, promising remission of sins to all who will
take part in the war of the prince, and exclaiming to the latter that
God will fight for him, if he only keeps his mind favourable to the
cause of religion. And yet, how could it ever enter into our hearts,
that a Christian should imbrue his hands in the blood of a Christian!
What is war but murder and theft committed by great numbers on great
numbers! Does not the Gospel declare, in decisive words, that we must
not revile again those who revile us, that we should do good to those
who use us ill, that we should give up the whole of our possessions to
those who take a part, that we should pray for those who design to
take away our lives? The world has so many learned bishops, so many
grey-headed grandees, so many councils and senates, why is not
recourse had to their authority, and the childish quarrels of princes
settled by their wise and decisive arbitration? "The man who engages
in war by choice, that man, whoever he is, is a wicked man; he sins
against nature, against God, against man, and is guilty of the most
aggravated and complicated impiety."[110] These were the main arguments
of reason, humanity, and religion, which Erasmus adduced against war.
They could not leave the reformers entirely unaffected. Sir Thomas More
charged Luther himself and his disciples with carrying the doctrines of
peace to the extreme limits {364} of non-resistance.[111] But, as we
have noticed, these peaceful tendencies only formed a passing phase in
the history of Reformation, and were left to the care of sectarians.
[Footnote 108: Perry, _History of the English Church_, First Period,
pp. 455, 467.]
[Footnote 109: Green, _History of the English People_, ii. 93.]
[Footnote 110: Erasmus, _Adagia_, iv. 1, col. 893 _sqq._]
[Footnote 111: Farrer, _Military Manners and Customs_, p. 185.]
Among these the Quakers are the most important. By virtue of various
passages in the Old and the New Testament,[112] they contend that all
warfare, whatever be its peculiar features, circumstances, or
pretexts, is wholly at variance with the Christian religion. It is
always the duty of Christians to obey their Master's high and holy
law--to suffer wrong, to return good for evil, to love their enemies.
War is also inconsistent with the Christian principle that human life
is sacred, and that death is followed by infinite consequences. Since
man is destined for eternity, the future welfare of a single
individual is of greater importance than the merely temporal
prosperity of a whole nation. When cutting short the days of their
neighbour and transmitting him, prepared or unprepared, to the awful
realities of an everlasting state, Christians take upon themselves a
most unwarrantable responsibility, unless such an action is expressly
sanctioned by their divine Master, as was the case among the
Israelites. In the New Testament there is no such sanction, hence it
must be concluded that, under the Christian dispensation, it is
utterly unlawful for one man to kill another, under whatever
circumstances of expediency or provocation the deed may be committed.
And a Christian who fights by the command of his prince, and in behalf
of his country, not only commits sin in his own person, but aids and
abets the national transgression.[113]
[Footnote 112: _Isaiah_, ch. ii. _sqq._ _Micah_, iv. 1 _sqq._ _St.
Matthew_, v. 38 _sqq._; xxvi. 52. _St. Luke_, vi. 27 _sqq._ _St.
John_, xviii. 36. _Romans_, xii. 19 _sqq._ _1 Peter_, iii. 9.]
[Footnote 113: Gurney, _Views & Practices of the Society of Friends_,
p. 375 _sqq._]
It must be added that views similar to these are also found
independently of any particular form of sectarianism. According to Dr.
Wayland, all wars, defensive as well as offensive, are contrary to the
revealed will of God, aggression from a foreign nation calling not for
retaliation and {365} injury, but rather for special kindness and
good-will.[114] Theodore Parker, the Congregational minister, looks
upon war as a sin, a corrupter of public morals, a practical denial of
Christianity, a violation of God's eternal love.[115] W. Stokes, the
Baptist, observes that Christianity cannot sanction war, whether
offensive or defensive, because war is an "immeasurable evil, by
hurling unnumbered myriads of our fellow-men to a premature judgment
and endless despair."[116] Moreover, those who compare the state of
opinion during the last years with that of former periods, cannot fail
to observe a marked progress of a sentiment antagonistic to war in the
various sections of the Christian Church.[117] Yet, speaking
generally, the orthodox are still of the same opinion as Sir James
Turner, who declared that "those who condemn the profession or art of
soldiery, smell rank of Anabaptism and Quakery";[118] and war is in
our days, as it was in those of Erasmus,[119] so much sanctioned by
authority and custom, that it is deemed impious to bear testimony
against it. The duties which compulsory military service imposes upon
the male population of most Christian countries presuppose that a
Christian should have no scruples about taking part in any war waged
by the State, and are recognised as binding by the clergy of those
countries. With reference to the Church of England, Dr. Thomas Arnold
asks, "Did it become a Christian Church to make no other official
declaration of its sentiments concerning war, than by saying that
Christian men might lawfully engage in it?"[120]
[Footnote 114: Wayland, _Elements of Moral Science_, pp. 375, 379.]
[Footnote 115: Parker, _Sermon of War_, p. 23.]
[Footnote 116: Stokes, _All War inconsistent with the Christian
Religion_, p. 41.]
[Footnote 117: _Cf._ Gibb, _loc. cit._ p. 81.]
[Footnote 118: Turner, _Pallas Armata_, p. 369.]
[Footnote 119: Erasmus, _op. cit._ iv. 1. 1. col. 894.]
[Footnote 120: Arnold, _On the Church_, p. 136.]
The protest against war which exercised perhaps the widest influence
on public opinion came from a school of moralists whose tendencies
were not only anti-orthodox, but distinctly hostile to the most
essential dogmas of Christian theology. Bayle, in his Dictionary,
calls Erasmus' essay {366} against war one of the most beautiful
dissertations ever written.[121] He observes that the more we consider
the inevitable consequences of war, the more we feel disposed to
detest those who are the causes of it.[122] Its usual fruits may,
indeed, "make those tremble who undertake or advise it, to prevent
evils which, perhaps, may never happen and which, at the worst, would
often be much less than those which necessarily follow a
rupture."[123] To Voltaire war is an "infernal enterprise," the
strangest feature of which is that "every chief of the ruffians has
his colours consecrated, and solemnly prays to God before he goes to
destroy his neighbour."[124] He asks what the Church has done to
suppress this crime. Bourdaloue preached against impurity, but what
sermon did he ever direct against the murder, rapine, brigandage, and
universal rage, which desolate the world? "Miserable physicians of
souls, you declaim for five quarters of an hour against the mere
pricks of a pin, and say no word on the curse which tears us into a
thousand pieces."[125] Voltaire admits that under certain
circumstances war is an inevitable curse, but rebukes Montesquieu for
saying that natural defence sometimes involves the necessity of
attack, when a nation perceives that a longer peace would place
another nation in a position to destroy it.[126] Such a war, he
observes, is as illegitimate as possible:--" It is to go and kill your
neighbour for fear that your neighbour, who does not attack you,
should be in a condition to attack you; that is to say, you must run
the risk of ruining your country, in the hope of ruining without
reason some other country; this is, to be sure, neither fair nor
useful."[127] The chief causes which induce men to massacre in all
loyalty thousands of their brothers and to expose their own people to
the most terrible misery, are the ambitions and {367} jealousies of
princes and their ministers.[128] Similar views are expressed in the
great Encyclopédie:--"La guerre est le plus terrible des fléaux qui
détruisent l'espèce humaine: elle n'épargne pas même les vainqueurs;
la plus heureuse est funeste. . . . Ce ne sont plus aujourd'hui les
peuples qui déclarent la guerre, c'est la cupidité des rois qui leur
fait prendre les armes; c'est l'indigence qui les met aux mains de
leurs sujets."[129]
[Footnote 121: Bayle, _Dictionnaire historique et critique_, vi. 239,
art. Erasme.]
[Footnote 122: _Ibid._ ii. 463, art. Artaxata.]
[Footnote 123: _Ibid._ i. 472, art. Alting (Henri).]
[Footnote 124: Voltaire, _Dictionnaire philosophique_, art. Guerre
(_[OE]uvres complètes_, xl. 562).]
[Footnote 125: _Ibid._ p. 564.]
[Footnote 126: Montesquieu, _De l'esprit des lois_, x. 2 (_[OE]uvres
complètes_, p. 256).]
[Footnote 127: Voltaire, _loc. cit._ p. 565.]
[Footnote 128: _Ibid._ pp. 466, 564. For Voltaire's condemnation of
war, see Morley, _Voltaire_, p. 311 _sq._ I have availed myself of
Lord Morley's translation of some of the passages quoted.]
[Footnote 129: _Encyclopédie méthodique_, Art militaire, ii. 618 _sq._]
However vehemently Voltaire and the Encyclopedists condemned war, they
did not dream of a time when all wars would cease. Other writers were
more optimistic. Already in 1713 Abbé Saint-Pierre--whose abbotship
involved only a nominal connection with the Church--had published a
project of perpetual peace, which was based on the idea of a general
confederation of European nations.[130] This project was much laughed
at; Voltaire himself calls its author "un homme moitié philosophe,
moitié fou." But once called into being, the idea of a perpetual peace
and of a European confederation did not die. It was successively
conceived by Rousseau,[131] Bentham,[132] and Kant.[133] But on the
other hand it met with a formidable enemy in the awakening spirit of
nationalism.
[Footnote 130: Saint-Pierre, _Projet de Traité pour rendre la paix
perpétuelle entre les souverains Chrétiens_.]
[Footnote 131: Rousseau, _Extrait du Projet de paix perpétuelle, de M.
l'Abbé de Saint-Pierre_ (_[OE]uvres complètes_, i. 606 _sqq._).]
[Footnote 132: Bentham, _A Plan for an universal and perpetual Peace_
(_Works_, ii. 546 _sqq._).]
[Footnote 133: Kant, _Zum ewigen Frieden._]
The Napoleonic oppression called forth resistance. Philosophers and
poets sounded the war trumpet. The dream of a universal monarchy was
looked upon as absurd and hateful, and the individuality of a nation
as the only possible security for its virtue.[134] War was no longer
attributed to the pretended interests of princes or to the caprices of
their advisers. It was praised as a vehicle of the highest right,[135]
as a source or national renovation.[136] {368} By war, says Hegel,
"finite pursuits are rendered unstable, and the ethical health of
peoples is preserved. Just as the movement of the ocean prevents the
corruption which would be the result of perpetual calm, so by war
people escape the corruption which would be occasioned by a continuous
or eternal peace."[137] Similar views have been expressed by later
writers. War is glorified as a stimulus to the elevated virtues of
courage, disinterestedness, and patriotism.[138] It has done more
great things in the world than the love of man, says Nietzsche.[139]
It is the mother of art and of all civil virtues, says Mr.
Ruskin.[140] Others defend war, not as a positive good, but as a
necessary means of deciding the most serious international
controversies, denying that arbitration can be a substitute for all
kinds of war. Questions which are intimately connected with national
passions and national aspirations, and questions which are vital to a
nation's safety, will never, they say, be left to arbitration. Each
State must be the guardian of its own security, and cannot allow its
independence to be calmly discussed and adjudicated upon by an
external tribunal.[141] Moreover, arbitration would prove effective
only where the contradictory pretensions could be juridically
formulated, and these instances are by far the less numerous and the
less important.[142] And would it not, in many cases, be impossible to
find impartial arbiters? Would not arbitration often be influenced by
a calculation of the forces which every power interested could bring
into the field, and would not war be resorted to where arbitration
failed to reconcile conflicting interests, or where a decision was
opposed to a high-spirited people's sense of justice? These and
similar arguments are constantly adduced against the idea of a
perpetual peace. But at the same time the opponents of war are
becoming more numerous {369} and more confident every day. Already
after the fall of Napoleon, when there was a universal longing for
peace in the civilised world, the first Peace Societies were
formed;[143] and the idea of Saint-Pierre, from being the dream of a
philosopher, has become the object of a popular movement which is
rapidly increasing in importance. There is every reason to believe
that, when the present high tide of nationalism has subsided, and the
subject of war and peace is no longer looked upon from an exclusively
national point of view, the objections which are now raised against
arbitration will at last appear almost as futile as any arguments in
favour of private war or blood-revenge. There is an inveterate
tendency in the human mind to assume that existing conditions will
remain unchanged. But the history of civilisation shows how unfounded
any such assumption is with reference to those conditions which
determine social relationships and the extent of moral rights and duties.
[Footnote 134: Fichte, _Reden an die deutsche Nation_. _Cf._ _Idem_,
_Ueber den Begriff des wahrhaften Krieges_.]
[Footnote 135: Arndt, quoted by Jähns, _Krieg, Frieden und Kultur_,
p. 302.]
[Footnote 136: Anselm von Feuerbach, _Unterdrückung und
Wiederbefreiung Europens_.]
[Footnote 137: Hegel, _Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts_, § 324,
p. 317 (English translation, p. 331).]
[Footnote 138: See, _e.g._, Mabille, _La Guerre_, p. 139.]
[Footnote 139: Nietzsche, _Also sprach Zarathustra_, i. 63.]
[Footnote 140: Ruskin, _Crown of Wild Olive_, Lecture on War (_Works_,
vi. 99, 105).]
[Footnote 141: Lawrence, _op. cit._ p. 275 _sq._ Sidgwick, 'Morality
of Strife,' in _International Journal of Ethics_, i. 13.]
[Footnote 142: Geffken, quoted by Jähns, _op. cit._ p. 352, n. 2.]
[Footnote 143: Jähns, _op. cit._ p. 307 _sq._]
It is said that, though Christianity has not abolished war, it has
nevertheless, even in war, asserted the principle that human life is
sacred by prohibiting all needless destruction. The Canon, 'De treuga
et pace,' laid down the rule that non-resisting persons should be
spared;[144] and Franciscus a Victoria maintained not only that
between Christian enemies those who made no resistance could not
lawfully be slain,[145] but that even in war against the Turks it was
wrong to kill children and women.[146] However, this doctrine of mercy
was far in advance of the habits and general opinion of the time.[147]
If the simple peasant was often spared, that was largely from motives
of prudence,[148] or because the valiant knight considered him
unworthy of the lance.[149] As late as the seventeenth century,
Grotius was certainly not supported by the spirit of the age when he
argued that, "if justice {370} do not require, at least mercy does,
that we should not, except for weighty causes tending to the safety of
many, undertake anything which may involve innocent persons in
destruction";[150] or when he recommended enemies willing to surrender
on fair conditions, or unconditionally, to be spared.[151] Afterwards,
however, opinion changed rapidly. Pufendorf, in echoing the doctrine
of Grotius,[152] spoke to a world which was already convinced; and in
the eighteenth century Bynkershoek stands alone in giving to a
belligerent unlimited rights of violence.[153] In reference to the
assumption that this change of opinion is due to the influence of the
Christian religion, it is instructive to note that Grotius, in support
of his doctrine, appealed chiefly to pagan authorities, and that even
savage peoples, without the aid of Christianity, have arrived at the
rule which in war forbids the destruction of helpless persons and
captives.
[Footnote 144: Gregory IX. _Decretales_, i. 34. 2.]
[Footnote 145: Franciscus a Victoria, _op. cit._ vi. 13, 35, 48; pp.
232, 241, 246 _sq._]
[Footnote 146: _Ibid._ vi. 36, p. 241.]
[Footnote 147: Hall, _Treatise on International Law_, p. 395, n. 1.]
[Footnote 148: d'Argentré, _L'histoire de Bretagne_, p. 391.]
[Footnote 149: Mills, _op. cit._ p. 132.]
[Footnote 150: Grotius, _op. cit._ iii. 11. 8.]
[Footnote 151: _Ibid._ iii. 11. 14 _sqq._]
[Footnote 152: Pufendorf, _De jure naturæ et gentium_, viii. 6. 8,
p. 885.]
[Footnote 153: van Bynkershoek, _Questiones juris publici_, i. 1, p.
31: "Omnis enim vis in bello justa est." Hall, _Treatise on
International Law_, p. 395, n. 1.]
The prevailing attitude towards war indicates the survival, in modern
civilisation, of the old feeling that the life of a foreigner is not
equally sacred with the life of a countryman. In times of peace this
feeling is usually suppressed; it appears in no existing law on
homicide, nor does it, generally, find expression in public opinion.
It dares to disclose itself only in the form of national
aggressiveness, under the flag of patriotism, or, perhaps, in the
treatment of the aborigines of some distant country. The behaviour of
European colonists towards coloured races only too often reminds us of
the manner in which savages treat members of a foreign tribe. It was
said that the frontier peasants at the Cape found nothing morally
wrong in the razzias which they undertook against the Bushmans,
without any provocation whatsoever, though they would consider it a
heinous sin to do the same to their Christian fellow-men.[154] In
Australia {371} there are instances reported of young colonists
employing the Sunday in shooting blacks for the sake of sport. "The
life of a native," says Mr. Lumholtz, "has but little value,
particularly in the northern part of Australia, and once or twice
colonists offered to shoot blacks for me so that I might get their
skulls. On the borders of civilisation men would think as little of
shooting a black man as a dog. The law imposes death by hanging as the
penalty for murdering a black man, but people live so far apart in
these uncivilised regions that a white man may in fact do what he
pleases with the blacks. . . . In the courts the blacks are
defenceless, for their testimony is not accepted. The jury is not
likely to declare a white man guilty of murdering a black man. On the
other hand if a white man happens to be killed by the blacks, a cry is
heard throughout the whole colony."[155]
[Footnote 154: Waitz, _Introduction to Anthropology_, p. 314.]
[Footnote 155: Lumholtz, _Among Cannibals_, p. 346 _sqq._ See also
Mathew, in _Jour. & Proceed. Roy. Soc. N. S. Wales_, xxiii. 390;
Breton, _Excursions in New South Wales_, p. 200 _sq._; Stokes,
_Discoveries in Australia_, ii. 459 _sqq._]