Page:Diplomacy and the Study of International Relations (1919).djvu/137

 of certain rules regulating the relations and actions of States. They did this not by threatening punishments, but by the alternative and older method, long known in Europe and Asia, of creating a strong approval of a certain body of rules." To put it in a slightly different way, they were able to mould the custom of princes and their advisers while it was still plastic; and it took form as a real though imperfect customary law, not a mere assemblage of moral precepts. Ever since the time of Grotius these questions have been treated as belonging to jurisprudence, not to theology or casuistry, and have been handled in the manner of legal argument and not of merely moral persuasion. It may be and often is disputed what is the true rule, or how it is to be applied in particular cases; but the rule, ascertained or not ascertained, is conceived as an ordinance of justice, and not a counsel of perfection. Beyond the domain of positive duty there is a region for governments in the society of nations, as for individual citizens within a State, where rights may be exercised in a more or less friendly spirit, with greater or less consideration for the convenience of others, equitably or with insistence on the letter of the bond, stiffly or with readiness to give and take; and no formal ground of complaint is afforded by conduct which, though it may be displeasing or barely civil, is still within the scope of lawful discretion; as in municipal jurisdiction an action will not lie against a man for many things which do not become the character of an amiable neighbour. In this region the skill and tact of diplomatists finds much of its every-day work, and by no means the least important.'