of self-support and self-control. One of the causes of the lop-sided character of our present intellectual activity is no doubt to be found in the urgency with which material problems are still pressed upon us by physical wretchedness. When we contrast the death-rate of our urban with that of our rural districts, and reflect on the rapidity with which, not in this country alone, but almost everywhere in Europe, the rural populations are being driven into the towns by causes which are not beyond our control, we feel that it would be inhuman to turn to any other subject whilst thus standing beside the open graves which we have dug for our own chilren. In comparison with the ceaseless ravages of the morbus urbanus, the waste even of war sinks into insignificance.1 CHAPTER II. OF THE ACTIVE ABNORMAL JURAL RELATIONS. Within the sphere of the normal relations, we have seen that proximate will cannot jurally be constrained in behalf of ultimate will, for the very obvious reason that there, ex hypothesi, it is in accordance with ultimate will. Jurispru 1 "For every 10,000 of estimated population in the principal towns of Scotland, the deaths were at the annual rate of 264 ; in the large towns the rate was 210; in the small towns, 192; in the insular-rural districts, 186; and in the mainland-rural, 163. In Glasgow the death-rate was 320 per 10,000 inhabitants; in Dundee and in Greenock, 273; in Paisley, 255; in Leith, 227; in Perth, 221; and in Edinburgh and Aberdeen, 195."-Report of Registrar-General for Scotland for the quarter ending 30th June 1883, p. 3. dence, consequently, enjoins every separate entity to abstain from interfering with every other,' and passive take precedence of active relations. But the reverse is the case when we enter the sphere of the abnormal relations. Here proximate will is already in conflict with ultimate will; and active relations, ethically, and, as a necessary consequence, jurally, take precedence of passive relations. It is only they that are sick who need the physician, but the existence of the need that justifies his interposition. The object of the jural recognition of an abnormal relation, being the removal of the conditions which have given rise to its abnormality, nothing short of inability to act can justify inactivity. It is only when we cannot help it, that we are at liberty to let ill alone, and that we may blamelessly abandon either our own cause or the cause of our neighbour. If A. is barring B.'s way, or even impeding his march towards the realisation of his ultimate freedom, B. is not only entitled, but bound, to clear his own way of him if he can, even at the cost of A.'s proximate freedom. If A. and B. are injuring or hindering each other, C. must prevent them if he can, even at the cost of the proximate freedom of both of them. Each separate rational entity must act in behalf of his own or his neighbour's real and ultimate freedom, and consequent perfection, even at the cost of encroaching on his own or his neighbour's proximate and phenomenal freedom. He must go forth to battle, and spend and be spent for his own and his neighbour's freedom, up to the point at which his present activity is counteracted by the expenditure of the means of future action, or 1 Ante, vol. i. p. 231. of action in another direction, which it involves. When this point is reached, submission, in his own case, and neutrality in his neighbour's case, are warranted by the same considerations which justified the active assertion or active defence of subjective or objective freedom. States, like individuals, must, then, be contented to hope for the best, and strive to master the hard lesson that "They also serve who only stand and wait.' It is on the ground of these obvious ethical considerations, which hold good in all the relations in which humanity can be placed, that, in the presence of the abnormal relations of States to each other, active duties come first, and that we have to discuss the doctrines of self-vindication, self-defence, cooperation, and intervention, before we proceed to the doctrines of jural submission and neutrality. It is on the subject of neutrality that the greatest amount of misconception appears to exist; and I shall, consequently, dwell upon it with an amount of care beyond that which it will be necessary to devote even to the corresponding doctrine of intervention. If neutrality were an attitude, which, apart from necessity altogether, any State might justly assume, as my distinguished and lamented colleague, Dr Bluntschli, has maintained, it would of course be entitled to the precedence which he, and almost all international jurists give to it over the doctrine of intervention. But then it would fall to be classed, not with the abnormal relations, which have their warrant in necessity, but with the normal relations, which have their warrant in proximate, visible, and intelligible justice, and its consideration would not belong to the present portion of this work. CHAPTER III. WITHIN THE SPHERE OF THE ABNORMAL RELATIONS THE FUNCTION OF JURISPRUDENCE IS TO CONSTRAIN THE PROXI- But It must always be a difficult and anxious task to draw a distinction in fact between one class of relations and another, which shall warrant jurisprudence in shifting its ground from persuasion and reason to force and fear. That "perfect love casteth out fear," is most profoundly true. perfect love is possible only in coincidence with perfect reason; and human life, as we know it, and have to deal with it, is a conflict between love and hatred, between reason and unreason, between normality and abnormality. Hence no human relations are normal in the sense of being wholly undisturbed by irrational impulses, or abnormal in the sense of being altogether bereft of rational guidance. The proximate will and the ultimate will never conflict so directly and consistently as to warrant the entire suppression of the former in behalf of the latter. Nor, on the other hand, is the ultimate human will ever so coincident with absolute will as to entitle it to entire supremacy over the promptings of immediate sentiment. All that is humanly possible is, that the course of action which is indicated by our general nature should be made to preponderate over that to which our exceptional 1 John iv. 18. nature impels us. Now experience proves to us that, in the life both of men and of States, a point of disorganisation may be reached beyond which this preponderance can no longer be maintained by the action either of subjective or objective reason. It is at this point that we enter the sphere of the abnormal relations, and that, an appeal to fear as a substitute for reason being warranted by necessity, force acquires a jural character. The ascertainment of this point is always a matter of the gravest difficulty, and it is the standing reproach against international jurisprudence that it should still be left to be fixed by individual States. But, supposing it to be ascertained that the proximate will of a State with which we are called upon to deal has become self-contradictory and suicidal, and that its actions have ceased to be controlled by reason, it is obvious that the ordinary appliances of diplomacy are no longer in place, and that where we must fail to convince we must endeavour to coerce. All religions appeal to fear even when their dogmatic teaching, as in the case of the Decalogue, is in entire accordance with results which have already been reached by human reason, and fear is a factor with which no system of jurisprudence, however rational, can afford to dispense. It by no means follows that, in order to call this factor into play, physical force should be resorted to at once, or at all. The reason of the State, though insufficient for its guidance to what is right, is never, as we have said, wholly inoperative, and it may be sufficient to lead to its voluntary acceptance of what it recognises as inevitable. But the inevitable will be recognised only when it is presented from without. Pacific or non-physical international action |