Tradition : Principally with Reference to Mythology and the

THE LA W OF NA TIONS. 11
More recently, however, the extraordinary successes
and subversions i which we have witnessed during ^*^^this
last year, */ 7 have brought CJ the Pall Mall Gazette face to
face with problems pressing for immediate and anxious
settlement; and in a series of articles it has discussed
the question of the law of nations with much depth
and earnestness.
I there observe phrases which I can hardly distinguish
from those I have just employed. Combating Mr Mill's
view, the writer says:
"Nobody knows better than lie that International Law is not
really law, and why it is not law ; but he seems to have jumped to
the conclusion that it is therefore the same thing as morality. . . .
There cannot, in truth, be any closer analogy than that which we drew
the other day between the law of nations and the law of honour, and
between public war and private duelling." [This is upon an assumption
that there is nothing " essentially immoral in the code of
honour," as " to a great extent it coincided with morality/7] " But
it differed from simple morality in that its precepts were enforced,
not by general disapprobation, but by a challenge to the offender by
anybody who supposed himself to be aggrieved by the offence. The
possible result always was, that the champion of the law might himself
be shot, and this was the weakness of the system. But this is
exactly the weakness of international law, and the original idea at
the basis both of public war and of private duelling was precisely the
same,-that God Almighty somehow interposed in favour of the combatant
who had the juster cause. There is clear historical evidence
that the feuds which became duels were supposed to be fought out
under divine supervision, just as battles were believed to be decided
by the God of battles."
I believe that if history could be re-written from this
point of view that many startling revelations would be
brought to light. It is with reluctance that I turn from
the points upon which I approach to agreement with the
writer, to those upon which we fundamentally differ.
And here I must remark, that " {he accurate and intelligible
account of law and government which forms