Reading Note

( I Furor impius intus-fremit horridus ore sruento.” (Virgil.) *

THIRD DEFINITIVE ARTICLE OF PERPETUAL PEACE

.III.-aiThe rights o f men, as citizens o f the world, shall be limited to the conditions of universal hospitality.”

We are speaking here, as in the previous articles, not o f philanthropy, but o f right; and in this sphere hospitality signifies the claim o f 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. I t is not a right to be treated a s a guest to which the stranger can lay

in the pride o f their independence to use the barbarous method of war, which after all does not really settle what is wanted, namely, the right o f each state in a quarrel. The feasts of thanksgiving during a war for a victorious battle, the hymns which are sung-to use the Jewish expression-“to the Lord of Hosts” are not in less strong contrast to the ethical ides of a father o f mankind; for, apart from the indifference these customs show to the way in which nations seek to establish their rights- sad enough as it is-these rejoicings bring in an clement of exultation that a great number o f lives, or at least the happiness of many, has been destroyed.

* Cf. Atncidos, 1. a94 rcg. “Furor impius intus,

Saeva sedens super arma, et centum vinctus ainis port tergum nodis. fremet horridus ore cruenio.” [l’r.]

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 * 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 o f 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 in- hospitality of the inhabitants of certain sea coasts -as, for example, the coast of Barbary-in plunder- ing ships in neighbouring seas or making slaves of shipwrecked mariners; or the behaviour of the Arab Bedouins in the deserts, who think that

Cf. Vattel (op. (if., II. ch. IX. 8 123):--"The right of passage is also a remnant of the primitive state o f communion, in which the entire earth was common to all mankind, and the passage Has every-hue free to each indiviclual according to his necessities. Nobody can be entirely deprived of this right." See also above, p, 65, notr. [Tr.]

proximity to nomadic tribes constitutes a right to rob, is thus contrary to the law of nature. Thio right to hospitality, however-that is to say, the privilege of strangers arriving on foreign s o i l - d o e r 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 hu- man race may be brought nearer the realisation of a cosmopolitan constitution.

Let us look now, for the sake o f 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 no- body; for the native inhabitants were reckoned as nothing. In Hindustani under the pretext of in- tending to establish merely commercial depots, the Europeans introduced foreign troops ; and, as a result, the different states of Hindustan were stirred up t o far-spreading wars. Oppression of the natives followed, famine, insurrection, perfidy and all

140 Perjrtual Pearc -

the rest of the litany of evils which can aftlict mankind.

China * and Japan (Nipon) which had made an attempt at receiving guests o f this kind, have now

* 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: A4ha6. Tibd., pp. 651-654, particularly noh b., below. According to the observation of Professor Fischer of St Petenburg, there is really no particular name which it always goes by: the most usual is the word Kin, iz. gold, which the inha- bitants o f Tibet call Srr. Hence the emperor is called the king of gold, i.t. the king of the most splendid country i n the world. This word K i n may probably be Chin i n the empire itself, but be pronounced Kin by the Italian missionaries on account o f the gutturals. Thus we see that the counhy of the Seres, w often lnentioned by the Romans, was China: the silk, however, waa 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 01 Tschina which is said to be gi.ven to this land by neigh- bouring peoples leads to nothing. -

Perhaps we can explain the ancient intercourse o f 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, KGYE O ~ r a g ( K o n x Ompax), the cry of the Ilierophants in the Eleusinian mysteries (cf. TravcLE of Anarharsis the Younger', Part V., p. 447, stp.). For, according to Georgii A f f h . Tibet., the word Concioo which bears a striking resemblmce to Konx means G o d Pah-cia (id. p. 520) which might easily be pronounced by the Greeks like 901 means promulgator It+, the divine principle permeating natnre (called also, on p. 177, Cencrm). Om, however, which La Crow translates by bcnrdirtus, it. blessed, can when applied to the Deity mean nothing but beatified (p. 507). Now P. Franz. Horatius, when h e asked the Lhamas of Tibet, as he often did, what they understood by God (Conrioo) always got the answer :-

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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 con- cessions ; 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 com- panies stand on the verge of ruin, that the Sugar Islands, that seat of the most horrible and delib-

“ i t is the assembly o f 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 lut returned to God, to Burchane: that is to say, they are beings to be worshipped, souls which have undergone transmigratiou g. 223). So the mysterious expression K o n x O m f u r ought probably to mean the holy (KoAx), blessed, (Om) and wise (Par)

Its flse in the Greek mysteries probably signified monotheism for supreme Being pervading the universe, the persooification o f nature.

the Epoptes, in distinction from the polytheism of the people, dthough elsewhere P. Horatius scented atheism here. How that mysterious word came by way of Tibet to the Greeks may be aplained as above; and, on the other hand, in this way is made probable an early intercourse of Europe with China across Tibet, der perhaps than the communication with Hind-.

’6prg-ding to Liddell and Scott, a cormption of xdyk (There ir some difference o f opinion as to the meaning of the nor&

drofus r i t . * K a n Y r inferences here seem to be more ban far- fetched. Lobeck, in his R p h p h a m u ~ @. 7 7 9 , g i v e r a quite di5ereat intupretstion which has, he says, betn rpproved by scholan. And w h w l y (Hub& D o d & re&riw lo Napolren Bonaponk, 3rd. ad, Postcript) rues K o a Ompas PI a pseudonym. p r . ] )

erate 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.

The intercourse, more or less close, which has been everywhere steadily increasing between the nations of the earth, has now extended so enor- mously that a violation of right in one part of the world is felt all over it. Hence the idea of a cos- mopolitan right is no fantastical, high-flown notion of right, but a complement o f 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 approach- ing that ideal.