try for Liberty or for Peace: where, by Liberty, we are to understand Civil Liberty, that is, the right of governing themselves: which right is plenary in a popular state, limited in an aristocracy, especially in one in which no one of the citizens is excluded from honours; and by Peace, we are to understand such a one as is the alternative of an internecine war, or as Cicero says, quoting Greek, where the question is about endangering the whole fortunes of the State; where nothing less than the destruction of the whole people is portended; as was the condition of Jerusalem besieged by Titus. In such a case, what Cato would have said, who chose to die rather than submit to the rule of one man, every one knows: as Lucan says in that case, It is an easy exercise of virtue to escape slavery by our own hand; and many other things in the same strain.

2 But right reason dictates another course; namely, that life, which is the foundation of all temporal and the occasion of eternal good, is of more value than liberty; whether you take the alternative in a single man or in a people. And so God himself speaks of it as a benefit, that he does not destroy men, but delivers them into slavery; 2 Chron. viii. 7, 8, [of the remnant of the Canaanites spared by Solomon.] And in another place he, by the Prophet, persuades the Jews to submit to servitude under the Babylonians, that they may not die of famine and pestilence, Jer. xxvii. 11. And therefore the act of the Saguntines [who destroyed themselves in their city rather than yield it], though praised by the ancients, is not to be praised by us; nor the courses which lead to it.

3 For the destruction of a people, in questions of this kind, is to be held as the greatest of evils. Cicero puts this as an example of necessity, that it was necessary for the Casilinenses to surrender to Annibal; although they had the alternative of perishing by hunger. We have this judgment of Diodorus, concerning the Thebans of the time of Alexander of Macedon, that they were more brave than prudent, in bringing destruction upon their country.

4 Concerning Cato, of whom we have spoken, and Scipio, who after the victory of Pharsalia would not yield to Cæsar, we have Plutarch's judgment, that they were to be blamed for having caused the destruction of many brave and excellent men in Egypt, for no valuable purpose.

5 What I have said of liberty, I would have understood also of other desirable objects, if the expectation of a greater opposite evil be more just, or be equal. As Aristides said, men are accustomed to save the ship by throwing overboard, not the passengers, but the cargo.

VII. Again, in exacting punishment, that is especially to be observed; that we are never on such ground to engage in war with one who is as strong as ourselves. For as a civil judge ought to be much more powerful than the criminal, so must he be who undertakes to punish crimes by arms. And not only does prudence and charity for those who are dependent upon us require us to abstain from a

perilous war, but often justice also, that is, rectorial justice; which, from the very nature of government, binds the superior to care for the inferiors, no less than the inferiors to obey the superior. From which it follows, as theologians have observed, that a king who undertakes wars for light causes, or for the purpose of exacting punishments which are not necessary, and which bring great danger with them, is bound to his subjects for reparation of the loss thence arising to them; for if he do no injury to the enemy, he does one to his own subjects, when, for such causes, he implicates them in so great evils. As Livy says, war is just, when it is necessary; their arms are pious, who have no hope left except in arms. This is what Ovid wishes:

No arms be borne save those which put down arms.

VIII. Thus the cases are rare, in which war either may not or ought not to be avoided; in cases only when, as Florus speaks, the enforcement of rights is worse than arms. Seneca says, We may run into danger, when we have as much to fear if we sit still: so Aristides. This Tacitus puts, by saying that A miserable peace is well changed for war; where, as he also says, Liberty may crown the attempt, and defeat will leave them no worse. So Livy: but not when the pretence is as Cicero describes it; If you are conquered you are proscribed; if you are victorious you are a slave.

IX. Then only is the time for war, when we have right on our side, and, what is of the greatest consequence, strength also. This is what Augustus said, that war was not to be undertaken except when there could be shewn more hope of gain than fear of loss. What Scipio Africanus and Emilius Paulus said of a battle, may be applied to war in general; that We ought never to fight except there were either the greatest necessity or the greatest occasion. And this is especially true, when there is a hope that the matter may be brought to an issue merely by terror and by the reputation of strength, with little or no danger. Pliny says, He gained the most brilliant kind of victory, conquering by terror.

X. 1 War, says Plutarch, is a dire business, and brings with it an accumulation of injuries and cruelty. And Augustine says wisely, that this being so, the wise man will not be satisfied merely if the war is just; he will grieve that there should be a necessity for just wars; since, except they were just, he would not go to war; and in this very way, there would be no wars. The iniquity of men may make wars just, and even necessary; but this iniquity is a thing to be lamented, even if it did not lead to war. Whoever considers the evils of war, must confess the miseries of the case; who suffers it without grief, is more miserable in his joy, because he has lost the sense of humanity. And in another place, The bad think war a pleasure, the good, a necessity. So Maximus Tyrius.

2 To which we must add what Seneca says, that man is not to use man prodigally. Philiscus admonished Alexander, that he might

consult his glory, but on condition that he did not make himself a pestilence or a plague: meaning that he must not bring about the destruction of populations and the desolation of cities, such as a pestilence produces: while nothing more becomes a king, than to provide for the safety of all, as peace does provide.

3 When we consider that by the Hebrew law he who had slain a man, even without intending it, was obliged to fly; that God forbade his temple to be built by David, who is related to have carried on pious wars, because he had shed much blood; that even among the ancient Greeks, those who had stained their hands with manslaughter, even without fault, had need of expiation; how can any one fail to see, especially any Christian, what an unhappy and disastrous thing, and how strenuously to be avoided, is a war, even when not unjust? Certainly among the Grecks who professed Christianity, the Canon was long observed, by which those who had killed an enemy in any war whatever, were for a time excluded from participation in sacred offices.

CHAPTER XXV.

Of the Causes of going to War for others.

I. 1

W

HEN we above spoke of those who make war, it was said and proved by us that, by Natural Law, not only each person has an executive power to assert his own right, but also the rights of others. Whence it follows, that the causes which justify him whose interest is concerned, do also justify those who help him.

2 The first and closest of such relations is, the care which we are bound to exercise for those who are under us, whether as members of a family or of our civil community; for these are, in a way, a part of him who is at the head of the body, as we there said. Thus the Gibeonites having put themselves under the Jewish people, that people took up arms for them, with Joshua for their leader. Our ancestors, says Cicero, often undertook war, because merchants and sailors belonging to them were treated with injury. And elsewhere, How many wars did our ancestors undertake because Roman citizens were injured, their navigators detained, their merchants despoiled! The same Romans, though they would not take up arms for their allies, yet when the same peoples had become their subjects, thought it necessary to do so. The Campanians say to the Romans, Since you will not allow us to defend our property against force and injury by our own just force, you will certainly defend it by yours. Florus, as ambassador of the Campanians, says that the league which existed before had become more sacred by the surrender of all his countrymen. It was considered a point of good faith, says Livy, not to desert those who had surrendered to us.

II. But yet it is not always, even if the cause of a subject be just, that it obliges the rulers to enter upon a war; but then only, if it can be done without the damage of all, or the greater part, of the subjects. For the office of the ruler is concerned more with the whole than with the parts; and in proportion as the part is greater, it approaches nearer to the nature of the whole.

III. 1 Therefore if one citizen, though innocent, be demanded by the many, in order to be put to death, it is not doubtful that he may

be given up*, if it appear that the state of which the demand is made is much too weak to contend. Vasquius disputes against this opinion; but if we look, not so much at his words, as at his purport, he seems to come to this, that such a citizen is not lightly to be deserted, when there is a hope that he may be defended. For he adduces the history of the Italic infantry, which deserted Pompey when his cause was not yet desperate, being assured of their safety by Cæsar; which he blames, and deservedly.

2 Whether an innocent citizen may be delivered into the hands of the enemy to avoid the otherwise imminent destruction of the city, the learned dispute, and the dispute existed also in ancient times; as when Demosthenes narrated the clever fable of the wolves requiring the sheep to give up their dogs for the sake of peace. That it is not lawful to do so, is maintained not by Vasquius only, but Sotus also, whose opinion Vasquius condemns as approaching to perfidy. Yet Sotus holds that such a citizen is bound to surrender himself to the enemy: this Vasquius denies, because the nature of civil society which every one enters into for his own advantage, does not require such a step.

3 But from this, nothing follows but that a citizen is not bound to this step, by any law properly so called; but it does not follow that charity allows him to do otherwise. For there are many duties, not of justice properly so called, but of good will, which it is not only laudable to perform, but which it is blameable to omit. And of such nature appears this to be, that each person should prefer the life of an innocent multitude to his own. So Euripides. And so Phocion exhorted Demosthenes and others that they should rather submit to death, after the example of the daughters of Leos and the Hyacinthids, than bring an irreparable calamity on their country. Cicero, pleading for Sextius, says, that if he were in a ship attacked by pirates who demanded him in particular, and would destroy the ship if he were not given up, he would rather throw himself into the sea than bring upon all the rest, not only certain death, but even extreme danger of death. And again, he says that a wise and good man will rather consult the safety of all than of any one in particular, even of himself. In Livy we read: I have often heard of men who would die for their country, but I never heard of any who thought it reasonable that their country should perish for them.

4 But, this being assumed, there remains this doubt, whether,

This is an example of the evil of laying down rules for cases of necessity. If a city under the terror of destruction from a cruel enemy, should give up an innocent person to death, we might excuse them when the thing was done; but we can hardly look upon it as a speculative opinion which they may morally hold beforehand, that men are right in doing so. The certainty of saving themselves by such means must be doubtful, as Barbeyrac says: and no protest could be strong enough to express the horror which the Rulers of a State ought to feel towards such a step. W. W.