[p. i]
PERPETUAL PEACE
[p. ii]
“For I dipt into the future, far as human eye could see,
Saw the Vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be;
Saw the heavens fill with commerce, argosies of magic sails,
Pilots of the purple twilight, dropping down with costly bales;
Heard the heavens fill with shouting, and there rain’d a ghastly dew
From the nations’ airy navies grappling in the central blue;
Far along the world-wide whisper of the south-wind rushing warm,
With the standards of the peoples plunging thro’ the thunder-storm;
Till the war-drum throbb’d no longer, and the battle-flags were furl’d
In the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world.
There the common sense of most shall hold a fretful realm in awe,
And the kindly earth shall slumber, lapt in universal law.”
Tennyson: Locksley Hall.
[p. iii]
PERPETUAL PEACE
A PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAY
BY
IMMANUEL KANT
1795
TRANSLATED WITH INTRODUCTION
AND NOTES BY
M. CAMPBELL SMITH, M.A.
WITH A PREFACE BY PROFESSOR LATTA
LONDON: GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN LTD.
RUSKIN HOUSE 40 MUSEUM STREET, W.C.
NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
[p. iv]
First Edition, 1903
Second Impression, February 1915
Third ” February 1917
[p. v]
PREFACE
Thistranslation of Kant’s essay on Perpetual Peace was undertaken byMiss Mary Campbell Smith at the suggestion of the late ProfessorRitchie of St. Andrews, who had promised to write for it a preface,indicating the value of Kant’s work in relation to recent discussionsregarding the possibility of “making wars to cease.” In view of thegeneral interest which these discussions have aroused and of thevague thinking and aspiration which have too often characterisedthem, it seemed to Professor Ritchie that a translation of thiswise and sagacious essay would be both opportune and valuable.[1] Hisuntimely death has prevented the fulfilment of his promise, and Ihave been asked, in his stead, to introduce the translator’s work.
This is, I think, the only complete translation into English ofKant’s essay, including all the notes as well as the t