III.—“The rights of men, as citizens of the world, shall be limited
to the conditions of universal hospitality.”
We are speaking here, as in the previous articles, not of
philanthropy, but of right; and in this sphere hospitality signifies
the claim of a stranger entering foreign territory to be treated by
its owner without hostility. The latter may send him away again,
if this can be done without causing his death; but, so long as he
conducts himself peaceably, he must not be treated as an enemy.
It is not a right to be treated as a guest to which the stranger
can lay claim—a special friendly compact on his behalf would be
required to make him for a given time an actual inmate—but he has
a right of visitation. This right[133] to present themselves to
society belongs to all mankind in virtue of our common right of
possession on the surface of the earth on which, as it is a globe,
we cannot be infinitely scattered, and must in the end reconcile
ourselves to existence side by side: at the same time, originally
no one individual had more right than another to live in any one
particular spot. Uninhabitable portions of the surface, ocean and
desert, split up the human community, but in such a way that ships
and camels—“the ship of the desert”—make it possible for men to come
into touch with one another across these unappropriated regions
and to take advantage of our common claim to the face of the earth
with a view to a possible intercommunication. The inhospitality of
the inhabitants of certain sea coasts—as, for example, the coast of
Barbary—in plundering ships in neighbouring seas or making slaves
of shipwrecked mariners; or the behaviour of the Arab Bedouins in
the deserts, who think that proximity to nomadic tribes constitutes
a right to rob, is thus contrary to the law of nature. This right
to hospitality, however—that is to say, the privilege of strangers
arriving on foreign soil—does not amount to more than what is implied
in a permission to make an attempt at intercourse with the original
inhabitants. In this way far distant territories may enter into
peaceful relations with one another. These relations may at last
come under the public control of law, and thus the human race may be
brought nearer the realisation of a cosmopolitan constitution.
[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.]
Let us look now, for the sake of comparison, at the inhospitable
behaviour of the civilised nations, especially the commercial
states of our continent. The injustice which they exhibit on
visiting foreign lands and races—this being equivalent in their
eyes to conquest—is such as to fill us with horror. America, the
negro countries, the Spice Islands, the Cape etc. were, on being
discovered, looked upon as countries which belonged to nobody; for
the native inhabitants were reckoned as nothing. In Hindustan, under
the pretext of intending to establish merely commercial depots, the
Europeans introduced foreign troops; and, as a result, the different
states of Hindustan were stirred up to far-spreading wars. Oppression
of the natives followed, famine, insurrection, perfidy and all the
rest of the litany of evils which can afflict mankind.
China[134] and Japan (Nipon) which had made an attempt at receiving
guests of this kind, have now taken a prudent step. Only to a single
European people, the Dutch, has China given the right of access to
her shores (but not of entrance into the country), while Japan has
granted both these concessions; but at the same time they exclude the
Dutch who enter, as if they were prisoners, from social intercourse
with the inhabitants. The worst, or from the standpoint of ethical
judgment the best, of all this is that no satisfaction is derived
from all this violence, that all these trading companies stand on
the verge of ruin, that the Sugar Islands, that seat of the most
horrible and deliberate slavery, yield no real profit, but only have
their use indirectly and for no very praiseworthy object—namely, that
of furnishing men to be trained as sailors for the men-of-war and
thereby contributing to the carrying on of war in Europe. And this
has been done by nations who make a great ado about their piety, and
who, while they are quite ready to commit injustice, would like, in
their orthodoxy, to be considered among the elect.
[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.])
The intercourse, more or less close, which has been everywhere
steadily increasing between the nations of the earth, has now
extended so enormously that a violation of right in one part of the
world is felt all over it. Hence the idea of a cosmopolitan right
is no fantastical, high-flown notion of right, but a complement of
the unwritten code of law—constitutional as well as international
law—necessary for the public rights of mankind in general and thus
for the realisation of perpetual peace. For only by endeavouring
to fulfil the conditions laid down by this cosmopolitan law can we
flatter ourselves that we are gradually approaching that ideal.