often made, and more often threatened, war to compel other States to acts or abstinences which have not been imposed on the latter by the generally accepted rules of international law and in many cases it cannot be said that the coercion that they have exercised in such cases has met with general disapproval. For instance, it seems to have been generally held in the last century in Europe that a State may reasonably and properly go to war merely to prevent a formidable aggrandisement of a neighbour and maintain the "balance of power"; but it has never been a recognised rule of international law that a State may not grow so strong as to alarm its neighbours. So again, in more recent times, wars to liberate "oppressed nationalities," oppressed nationalities," or to promote the union into one State of divided groups of persons having a common nationality, have been widely approved; though it has certainly never been held to be a rule of strict international duty that a government should grant independence to any portion of its subjects who dislike its rule, if they belong to a different nationality from the rest. In short, if we consider the practice of modern States, we have to recognise that, besides the violent coercion exercised by States on each other in consequence of an alleged violation of international law, coercion no less violent has been commonly exercised without such justification, yet not generally disapproved ; and therefore that we cannot effectively distinguish the rules of international behaviour that are to be called law by the sanction actually attached to them. If we keep close to actual facts, we can only define international law as a system of rules to which it is generally held that States, under ordinary circumstances, not only ought to conform, but may legitimately be compelled to conform; and which will accordingly be applied, in deciding disputes between States, by duly qualified arbitrators:1 while we, at the same time, admit that circumstances are liable to arise under which a State will not be widely disapproved for overriding these rules, on the ground either of some imperative national

1 That is, unless the States that refer the dispute to arbitration expressly agree upon any other rules.

interest or some alleged higher principle of international morality.

That this is an unsatisfactory state of things is clear: and so long as it continues we cannot but expect-as was before said—that the most important issues between States will not be settled by arbitration. It may perhaps be said that

at least in the case of a conflict between the supposed interest of any particular State and the received rules of international duty, the opinion of impartial persons ought to be clearly declared against the State in question: and that where it is not so declared, there must be a degradation of public morality in which no theoretical writer ought to acquiesce. And I agree that such a conflict is an evil which we ought to try to minimise: but I think that in laying down. principles of conduct for which we desire to obtain effective general acceptance, it would be idle to ignore it or to hope to eliminate it altogether. Even in the private relations of individuals in a modern civilised State cases occasionally occur in which an individual is widely held excused for breaking a rule which it is yet thought desirable to maintain as law and we must expect similar cases of approved or tolerated illegality to be more frequent in international relations, owing to the comparative fewness of the members of the society of civilised States, and the far greater importance of any one State relatively to the whole society.

I have been supposing a manifest conflict of national interest with recognised international right: but the cases are probably more common in which the promptings of the discordant interests of States would be mixed with or veiled by divergent views of imperfectly defined rights. Such mixture is necessarily promoted by the inevitably less perfect definition of international-as compared with ordinary civil-rights: owing partly to the absence of a common government in the society of nations, partly to the imperfect internal cohesion of many States, and partly to the great differences in the degree of civilisation attained by different human communities. For instance, the first of

these causes renders necessary and legitimate an extension of the right of self-defence which it is difficult precisely to limit. War must be admitted to be justified not only by actual aggression, real or alleged, but also by unmistakable manifestations of an aggressive design-a nation unmistakably threatened can hardly be condemned for striking the first blow, if by so doing it gains an important advantage in self-defence. But this enlarged right of self-protection is easily extended to justify anticipation of a blow that is merely feared, not really threatened: and thus by gradual transitions we are led to a more or less plausible apology for hostile interference merely to prevent a formidable increase of strength on the part of a neighbour. I think that moral opinion should set itself steadily against this latter extension of the right of self-protection: still, it is obviously difficult to define exactly the degree of danger that would justify hostile action.

§ 3. In other cases it is not so much the claims of national interest admitted as semi-legitimate, but rather the development of international morality which comes into conflict with recognised international law. Thus (e.g.) the restriction of the right of conquest, which in the last chapter I took to be commonly accepted, is due to the increased recognition which the rights of nationalities have received in recent times;-a recognition that in other ways inconveniently clashes with the established political order of modern Europe. In considering this interference of gradually changing international morality with the established rules of strict international duty, we are led naturally to the second part of the comparison proposed at the outset of this chapter:-i.e. to the question whether the system of rules commonly recognised as International Law resembles Positive Law-within a State-or Positive Morality most, in respect of the elaborated precision, systematic coherence, and clear acceptance of its rules.

For it follows inevitably from the absence of any recognised regular organ with authority to settle disputed points, that in international relations the important distinction

between laws actually established and laws that a statesman or jurist may think ought to be established is not clear and unmistakable, nor the transition from the latter to the former abrupt and definite as it is in the main in the sphere of civil law in a modern State. In any survey of social relations within any community, we are pretty sure to find a certain number of duties which it is recognised that men are not legally bound to fulfil, though there is a strong opinion that the legal obligation ought to be imposed. However much I may think that a man ought to be punished for mischief he has caused, and however decidedly public opinion may be on my side, still if he has not committed. any act that has already been determined to be a crime either by precedent or by statute, the judge if really an expert will not condemn him to punishment: and if I try to supplement this defect in the legal system by private violence, the judge will condemn me. This distinction was not apprehended with perfect clearness, so long as the notion of a Law of Nature, having a validity prior to and independent of positive law, had a leading place among jural conceptions: but since it has come to be recognised that the proper source of new law is a special legislative organ distinct from the judicature, it is clearly seen that there are two distinct species or grades of "what ought to be," in respect of legal coercion :-there are rules which the judge actually ought to enforce by punishing their violation, and there are other rules which it ought to be his duty to enforce, but is not.

In the case, however, of positive morality a similar distinction obviously cannot be applied without qualification : since moral rules that men generally think ought to be accepted as actually binding must ipso facto be accepted: it is this general thought which constitutes their acceptance. Further, though careful reflection will enable a man to distinguish between the generally accepted moral rules of his own age and country and the rules that the reflective individual thinks ought to be accepted, still the distinction. is obscure and vague to most minds as regards their own

morality here and now,-though sufficiently clear as regards morality in past ages or in China. If a "plain honest man feels himself disposed to condemn any conduct, he is apt to think that all plain honest men must equally condemn it, if the circumstances of the case were clearly brought before them; hence it is his habit to express his personal condemnation in the name of common sense: he does not habitually recognise as possible a definite divergence between his own. view of what ought to be and the positive morality of his age and country, unless such possibility has been brought home to him by some exceptionally sharp and public collision between the two. And, generally speaking, when such a conflict of opinions is disclosed on a moral question, there is really some doubt as to what rule is generally accepted, or whether any can be said to be so: a dissident individual rarely stands alone, and it is uncertain (1) what majority constitutes general acceptance, and (2) whether there is such a majority in any particular case of controversy. Again, in judging of any moral claim made by an individual or a class upon other individuals or classes, the divergence between the customary actions of men and their customary judgments of the actions of others introduces a further doubt as to the standard that ought to be applied: and the previous conduct of the particular claimant becomes an important consideration; since a man would not ordinarily be held justified in claiming from another a service that he had himself refused in a similar case.

In all these respects it must, I think, be admitted that what I have agreed to call International Law-the rules prescribing the duties which States may properly be compelled to perform-bears a closer resemblance to the moral than to the legal system of rules governing civil relations. Even in the processes of thought of many international jurists the distinction between what is and what ought to be an established rule seems to be obscure and imperfect. Both in theoretical discussions on international duty and in the practical debates on such questions between States, there appears a strong indisposition to recognise that a rule which