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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 April 2024
Chapter 1: About Offensive Force
Offensive force is ruled by the law of nations, which is the political law of nations considered in the relationship they have with one another.
Chapter 2: About War
The life of states is like that of men. The latter have the right to kill, in the case of natural defense. The former have the right to make war for the sake of their own preservation.
In the case of natural defense, I have a right to kill. For my life is to me as the life of him that attacks me is to him. Similarly, a state wages war because its preservation is just, like every other preservation.
Among citizens the right of natural defense does not entail the necessity of attack. Rather than to attack, they require only to recur to tribunals. Therefore, they may not exercise the right of this defense, except in the momentary circumstance in which one were lost if he awaited the help of the laws. But, among societies, the right of natural defense sometimes entails the necessity to attack, whenever one people sees that a longer peace could place another people in position to destroy them and that attack, at that moment, is the only means of preventing that destruction.
It follows from this that small societies more often have the right to wage war than large ones, for they are more often in the circumstance of fearing to be destroyed.
The right of war, therefore, derives from necessity and from rigid justice. If they who direct the conscience or the councils of princes do not hold by this, all is lost. And when one bases himself on arbitrary principles of glory, seemliness, and utility, waves of blood will flood the earth.
Above all let none speak about the prince's glory; his glory would be his pride; it is a passion and not a legitimate right.
It is true that the reputation of his power could increase his state's forces; but the reputation of his justice would similarly increase it.
Chapter 3: About the Right of Conquest
From the right of war derives the right of conquest, which is its consequence. The right of conquest, therefore, must follow the spirit of the right of war.
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