Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 20.djvu/112

Rh 100 PUFENDORF zation of the holy empire and exposed its feebleness, denounced in no measured terms the faults of the house of Austria, and attacked with remarkable vigour the politics of the ecclesiastical princes. But he did not thus describe the evil without at the same time suggesting the remedy. Thinking that Germany could not attain to a true monarchy without a great revolution, he proposed to call together a confederation, with a perpetual council representing all the members and occupying itself with external affairs. Before Pufendorf, Philipp Bogislaw von Chemnitz, publicist and soldier, had written, under the pseudonym of " Hippolytus a Lapide," De ratione status in imperio nostro Homano-Germanico. Inimical, like Pufen- dorf, to the house of Austria, Chemnitz had gone so far as to make an appeal to France and Sweden. Pufendorf, on the contrary, rejected all idea of foreign intervention. But in his plan, in which national initiative was all in all, were propounded the ideas of an army supported at the general expense, the secularization of the ecclesiastical principalities, the abolition of convents, and the expulsion of the Jesuits. His little book is perhaps the most im- portant that was produced in relation to the public law and politics of Germany, and it is noteworthy that he reveals himself as a consummate statesman, having a broad comprehension of the present and a clear insight into the future. Subsequent events proved the justice of his conclusions. In 1670 Pufendorf was called to the university of Lund. The influence of his brother Isaiah, as also some disagree- ments which he had had with his colleagues at Heidelberg, influenced his decision to accept the call; but by this acceptance he did not break with German culture, for in Scandinavia that culture was predominant. The sojourn at Lund was fruitful. In 1672 appeared the De jure naturae, et gentium, libri octo, and in 1675 a resume" of it under the title of De offido hominis et civis. The treatise Dejure nature et gentium is the first systematic work on the subject Grotius, whom Pufendorf has been accused of having too servilely followed, had more especially treated of international relations ; and on the other hand Olden- dorp, Hemming, and Winkler treated of the rudimentary part of the subject. Pufendorf took up in great measure the theories of Grotius and sought to complete them by means of the doctrines of Hobbes and of his own ideas. Judging of the work of Pufendorf as a whole, Mr Lorimer has felt justified in saying that "his conception was a magnificent one, and in the effort which he made to realize it he has left behind him a work which, notwithstanding the unpardonable amount of commonplace which it con- tains and its consequent dulness, is entitled to the respect of all future jurists. It was nothing less than an attempt to evolve from the study of human nature a system of jurisprudence which should be of universal and permanent applicability." The author derived law from reason, from the civil law, and from divine revelation, and established thus three " disciplines " natural law, civil law, and moral theology. Natural law is all that is commanded to us by pure reason, and hence resulted the first important pcint in Pufendorf 's theory, viz., that natural law does not ex- tend beyond the limits of this life and that it confines itself to regulating external acts. Pufendorf combats Hobbes's conception of the state of nature, and concludes that the state of nature is not one of war but of peace. But this peace is feeble and insecure, and if something else does not come to its aid it can do very little for the preservation of mankind. As regards public law Pufen- dorf, while recognizing in the state (civitas) a moral person (persona moralis), teaches that the will of the state is but the sum of the individual wills that constitute it, and that this association explains the state. In this a priori con- ception, in which he scarcely gives proof of historical insight, he shows himself as one of the precursors of J. J. Rousseau and of the Contrat social. On the subject of international law, with which he occupies himself in- cidentally, it is to be noted that Pufendorf belongs to the philosophical school, and also that he powerfully defends the idea that international law is not restricted to Christen- dom, but constitutes a common bond between all nations because all nations form part of humanity. As was to be expected, the work made a sensation : it provoked enthusiastic admiration as well as anger and indignation ; the author was praised to the skies on the one hand, and accused of irreligion and atheism on the other. The universities of Lund and Leipsic, above all, furnished adversaries and critics. Being passionately attacked, he defended himself with passion, and he may be held to have come victorious out of these conflicts in which his combative and sarcastic soul delighted, for Pufendorf dearly loved a fray. In 1677 he was called to Stockholm in the capacity of historiographer-royal. To this new period belong among others the work On the Spiritual Monarchy of the Pope, which was afterwards inserted in his Introduction to the History of the principal States in Europe at the present Day, also the great Commentariorum de rebus Suecicis, libri XXVI., ah expeditione Gustavi Adolphi regis in German- iam ad abdicationem usque Christinas, and a History of Charles Gustavus. In his historical works Pufendorf is hopelessly dry ; but he professes a great respect for truth and generally draws from archives. The treatise On the Spiritual Monarchy of the Pope alone recalls Severinus de Monzambano. There we find the same vigour and the same passion, and all through its pages we feel the indig- nation of the Protestant who sees the noble cause of reli- gious liberty menaced by the papacy and by its two allies Louis XIV. and James II. Of the same nature is another work of this period, De habitu religionis christianx ad vitam civilem, in which he undertakes to trace the limits between ecclesiastical and civil power, and where he expounds for the first time completely the theory known under the name of " Kollegial System " or " Kollegialismus," which was actually applied later in Prussia. This work is dated 1687. In 1688 Pufendorf was called to the service of Frederick William, elector of Brandenburg. He accepted the call ; but he had no sooner arrived than the elector died. His son Frederick III. fulfilled the promises of his father, and Pufendorf, historiographer and privy coun- cillor, was instructed to write The Histoi'y of the Elector William the Great. The king of Sweden did not on this account cease to testify his goodwill towards Pufendorf, and in 1694 he created him a baron. In the same year, on the 26th of October, Pufendorf died at Berlin and was buried in the church of St Nicholas, where an inscription to his memory is still to be seen. The value of the man whose life has been thus briefly sketched was great ; he was at once philosopher, lawyer, economist, historian, we may even add statesman. His influence also was considerable, and he has left a profound impression on thought, and not on that of Germany alone. Posterity nas, however, done him scant justice, and has not acknowledged what it really owes to him. Much of the responsibility for this injustice rests with Leibnitz, who would never recognize the incontestable greatness of one who was con- stantly his adversary. Everybody knows the bitter criticism which he made OH Pufendorf, " vir parum jurisconsultus et miuime philo- sophus." This is only the condensed expression of a multitude of judgments passed by him on the author of the Dejure naturx, et gentium. It was on the subject of the pamphlet of Soverinus do Monzambano that the quarrel began. The conservative and timid Leibnitz was beaten on the battlefield of politics and public law, and the aggressive spirit of Pufendorf aggravated yet more the dis- pute, and so widened the division. From that time the two writers could never meet on a common subject without attacking e<odi other. The combat was almost always decided in favour of Pufen- dorf, but the irony of fate has ratified the words of his adversary,