TO THE MOST SERENE PRINCE AND LORD, THE LORD KARL LUDWIG, COUNT OF THE RHENISH PALATINATE, LORD HIGH TREASURER AND PRINCE ELECTOR OF THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE, DUKE OF BAVARIA, ETC., MY MOST CLEMENT LORD.
Most Serene Prince Elector, Most Clement Lord, Bold indeed is the undertaking of this book, which, without any confidence in its own merit, ventures to approach so great a Prince, and is not ashamed to draw upon itself by its own act those eyes before whose radiance they who appraise themselves according to the consciousness of their own insignificance cannot but blush. And to some it might have seemed more modest to inscribe a less august name at the forefront of so slight a work, were it not a well established fact that those lofty minds beam more blandly upon many men, the more unaffected they perceive to be the estimate which the same have made of their humanity. Your far-famed benevolence towards letters and those that cultivate them, MOST SERENE PRINCE, makes us believe that to have made what is no more even than an effort in letters has the value of a commendation in Your eyes; and, although we cherish Your greatness with a religious veneration, we have no fear that the same will suffer any diminution in accepting these meagre offerings. Indeed, You increase the glory of Your eminence rather than diminish it, in that from time to time You condescend to such interests of ordinary men, just as the sun, which does not disdain to pour forth his light even for the low-lying lands of earth to use, retains his glory none the less undimmed on that account.
The kind of portrait of a great Prince which others industriously limn,1 this we may behold at close range most felicitously expressed in You. The blood descended through so many heroes and the dignity but one removed from supreme, together with all the other characteristics which have been set forth as the sole ground for laudations in the case of those whom blind fates, as it were, seem to have thrust forward to such position, we may regard as residing properly and preeminently in You, abounding as You do in Your own resources. You can of Yourself bestow something upon Your ancestors, because through You they have been the glory not of their own ages only; and so easy is it for You to clear Your name of indebtedness to fortune, that fortune herself would be in debt to You, if, indeed, it might please her to bestow her blessings in proportion to each individual’s deserts. Your glory springs up for You out of Your very self. A mind sublime, elevated, of which fortune herself should stand in fear, penetrating <xxvii> moreover, profoundly versed in law human and divine, and one which, if any can, in itself meets the measure required of a Prince. This mind of Yours it is which the age admires in You beyond all else, and proudly displays among its ornaments. And yet that same mind, when it has fulfilled the duty of a Prince, turns aside also to the pleasures of study, and applies with the utmost felicity that well-known vigour to every kind of Wisdom. You could not fill the intervals in Your occupation with a more holy pleasure, nor ought the leisure moments of a mind so noble to be otherwise employed. Here You discover with what sincere veneration the memory of men like Yourself is cherished by those who have no further profit from flattery; and while You hear and see those silent ones, You cease to have need of the ears and eyes of others through which full often facts are presented to Princes in a distorted manner. Nay more, by Your patronage no less than by Your example You cause these studies to flourish among Your friends. The shattered shrines of Wisdom You restore with a most liberal hand,2 and, that nothing be lacking to their splendour, You do not regard it as beneath Your high estate to grant them also the favour of Your presence. By such an honour You give courage to the timid Muses,* nor can their own fortune fail longer to satisfy them after the favour of so great a Patron dispenses itself upon such terms of intimacy.
I too have been persuaded by that humanity of Yours, although I have never yet experienced it, to feel that I should be doing no wrong against Your dignity, if I should venture to offer you this little book with all seemly veneration. While according to the scanty measure of my ability I have striven to set forth in this the principles of universal justice, I foresee for it an approach to Your presence, which, by virtue of the very subject-matter, is the more easy, the more confident Themis† is in claiming by her own right admission to the inmost audience of Princes.
Your Serenity’s
most devoted
SAMUEL PUFENDORF. <xxviii>
Leyden, September 1, 1660.
PREFACE
The science of law and equity, which is not comprehended in the laws of any single state, but by virtue of which the duties of all men whatsoever toward one another are governed, has hitherto not been cultivated, to the extent that its necessity and dignity demanded, by those who have extolled the study of universal knowledge under that designation. Among the chief reasons for this state of affairs the following also seems to belong, namely: A common conviction has prevailed down to the present among the learned that in matters of morality, by their very nature, there is no firm and infallible certainty, and that all knowledge of such matters rests upon probable opinion only. Hence it came about that they gave as it were but a light touch to what in their opinion rested upon so slippery a foundation; and herein the negligent found the plausible excuse, that such matters were not embodied in sure demonstrations, but could be treated only in a crude sort of way. The common run, indeed, felt the less shame in offering this excuse, because Aristotle himself, who, by some almost fatal partiality, has hitherto appeared to the majority of mankind to surpass the summit of human genius, prefixed it to the frontispiece of his work on ethics,3 as though it were some proud ornament. Now, of a truth, aside from the fact that it appears utterly absurd for men to be denied sure knowledge of those things which they were enjoined by the authority [autoritatem] of their Creator to put into action, while at the same time one may have definite and clear knowledge of things which can be safely ignored, this whole error has hitherto been so persistently nourished by the false interpretation of no more than three or four words in Aristotle. When you restore them to their proper sense, even by the decrees of the Stagirite, Law will be allowed to claim its place among the sciences which are called demonstrative. For what he had said about demonstration from which comes true and certain knowledge, has been explained in this fashion, namely, that it was denied a place among questions of morals because these latter were contingent entities produced by free causes. But, as a matter of fact, in that passage he observes that the subject of the demonstration [subjectum demonstrationis] is a declaration or proposition (by no means, however, the subject in a demonstrative proposition, as distinguished from the predicate), which must be demonstrated, that is, one in which a necessary connexion of the predicate with the subject must be shown by virtue of some principle or very general declaration, which contains the reason for that connexion.4 Whence it follows that it is sufficient for a demonstration, if some thing or action have an attribute <xxix> whose necessary connexion with the subject one can directly or indirectly demonstrate by some undoubted axiom, whether the action or thing itself does or does not depend upon necessary causes. And thus, just as it would be ridiculous if one should wish to demonstrate in some body of doctrine that, for example, “Seius is here and now committing theft, Titius is committing highway robbery,” so no prudent man would dare deny that, when we assert “Seius is committing theft, Titius is committing highway robbery,” a demonstration can be given that these same persons are sinning against the Law of Nature;5 at all events, that one would be any less certain about this point than about that which is inculcated ad nauseam in the bodies of doctrine which by universal consent rejoice in the certainty of sciences, to wit, that “man is risible, because he is rational,” and that “a sparrow is one, true, and good, because it is an entity.”
All this was set forth not long since in a special treatise6 in the most clear and reliable manner by that illustrious man, Herr Erhard Weigel, Professor of Mathematics in the University of Jena, a respected friend of mine. He it was who first exhorted me to attempt something in this field, and his genius has supplied me with a most helpful torch in matters not a few. This task, furthermore, I have undertaken with the greater zeal, because also by a special inclination I felt disposed to studies of that kind, and because it seemed to be worth making the effort to prove that what is handed down on this matter does by no means all rest upon vacillating opinions,