The Law of Nations Treated According to the Scientific Method. Christian von Wolff
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state, into which nature has united nations, unless from it some law should arise for the whole in regard to the individuals. Of what sort this is will be shown in what follows.
§ 14. How this is to be measured
§ 30, part 8, Jus Nat.
§ 13.
The law of nations as a whole with reference to individual nations in the supreme state must be measured by the purpose of the supreme state. For the law of the whole with reference to individuals in a state must be measured by the purpose of the state. Therefore, since in the supreme state too a certain right belongs to nations as a whole with reference to the individual nations, this right also must be measured by the purpose of the supreme state.
Note, § 30, part 8, Jus Nat.
Since in any state the right of the whole over the individuals must not be extended beyond the purpose of the state, so also the right of nations as a whole over individual nations cannot be extended beyond the purpose of the supreme state into which nature herself has combined them, so that forthwith individual nations may be known to have assigned a right of this sort to the whole.
§ 15. Of what sort this is
§ 31, part 8, Jus Nat.
§ 14.
Some sovereignty over individual nations belongs to nations as a whole. For a certain sovereignty over individuals belongs to the whole in a state. Therefore, as is previously shown, some sovereignty over individual nations belongs also to nations as a whole.
§ 32, part 8, Jus Nat.
That sovereignty will seem paradoxical to some. But these will be such as do not have a clear notion of the supreme state, nor recognize the benefit which nature provides, when she establishes a certain civil
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society among nations. Moreover, it will be evident in its own place that nothing at all results from this, except those things which all willingly recognize as in accordance with the law of nations, or what it is readily understood they ought to recognize. Nor is it less plain that this sovereignty has a certain resemblance to civil sovereignty.
§ 16. Of the moral equality of nations
§ 2.
§ 81, part 1, Jus Nat.
By nature all nations are equal the one to the other. For nations are considered as individual free persons living in a state of nature. Therefore, since by nature all humans are equal, all nations too are by nature equal the one to the other.
It is not the number of humans coming together into a state that makes a nation, but the bond by which the individuals are united, and this is nothing else than the obligation by which they are bound to one another. The society which exists in the greater number of humans united together, is the same as that which exists in the smaller number. Therefore just as the tallest person is no more a human being than the dwarf, so also a nation, however small, is no less a nation than the greatest nation. Therefore, since the moral equality of humans has no relation to the size of their bodies, the moral equality of nations also has no relation to the number of people of which they are composed.
§ 17. In what it consists
§ 16.
§ 78, part 1, Jus Nat.
Since by nature all nations are equal, since moreover all humans are equal in a moral sense whose rights and obligations are the same; the rights and obligations of all nations also are by nature the same.
Therefore a great and powerful nation can assume no right to itself against a small and weak nation such as does not belong to the weaker against the stronger, nor is a small and weak nation bound to a great and powerful one in any way in which the latter is not equally bound to it.
§ 18. Whether by nature anything is lawful for one nation which is not lawful for another
§ 17.
§ 170, part 1, Jus Nat.
Since by nature the rights and obligations of all nations are the same, and since that is lawful which we have a right to do, and unlawful which
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we are obliged not to do or to omit; what is lawful by nature for one nation, that likewise is lawful for another, and what is not lawful for one, is not lawful for another.
Might gives to no nation a special privilege over another, just as force gives none to one man over another. Just as might is not the source of the law of nature, so that any one may do what he can to another, so neither is the might of nations the source of the law of nations, so that right is to be measured by might.
§ 19. What form of government is adapted to the supreme state
§ 10.
§ 50, part 8, Jus Nat.
§ 16.
§ 136, part 1, Jus Nat.
§ 131, part 8, Jus Nat.
The supreme state is a kind of democratic form of government. For the supreme state is made up of the nations as a whole, which as individual nations are free and equal to each other. Therefore, since no nation by nature is subject to another nation, and since it is evident of itself that nations by common consent have not bestowed the sovereignty which belongs to the whole as against the individual nations, upon one or more particular nations, nay, that it cannot even be conceived under human conditions how this may happen, that sovereignty is understood to have been reserved for nations as a whole. Therefore, since the government is democratic, if the sovereignty rests with the whole, which in the present instance is the entire human race divided up into peoples or nations, the supreme state is a kind of democratic form of government.
The democratic form of government is the most natural form of a state, since it begins at the very beginning of the state itself and is only de facto changed into any other form, a thing which cannot even be conceived of in the supreme state. Therefore for the supreme state no form of government is suitable other than the democratic form.
§ 20. What must be conceived of in the supreme state as the will of all the nations
§ 157, part 8, Jus Nat.
§ 19.
§ 10.
§ 173, part 8, Jus Nat.
Since in a democratic state that must be considered the will of the whole people which shall have seemed best to the majority, since moreover the supreme state is a kind of democratic form of government, and is made up of all the nations, in the supreme state also that must be considered
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the will of all the nations which shall have seemed best to the majority. Nevertheless, since in a democratic state it is necessary that individuals assemble in a definite place and declare their will as to what ought to be done, since moreover all the nations scattered throughout the whole world cannot assemble together, as is self-evident, that must be taken to be the will of all nations which they are bound to agree upon, if following the leadership of nature they use right reason. Hence it is plain, because it has to be admitted, that what has been approved by the more civilized nations is the law of nations.
Prolegomena, De Jure Belli ac Pacis, § 46.
Grotius recognized that some law of nations must be admitted which departs from the law of nature, the inflexibility of which cannot possibly be observed among nations. Moreover, he does not think that this law is such that it can be proved otherwise than by precedents and decisions, and especially the agreements of the more civilized nations. We indeed shall enter upon a safer course if we point out that nations following reason ought to agree as to either this or that which has prevailed, or now prevails, among them as law—a thing which can be proved from the concept of the supreme state no less plainly than the necessary or natural law of nations can.
§ 21. Of the ruler of the supreme state
§ 20.