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The Mediaeval Ideal
179

Individuals and from those of other Communities.[1] Therefore, in all centuries of the Middle Age Christendom, which in destiny is identical with Mankind, is set before us as a single, universal Community, founded and governed by God Himself Mankind is one "mystical body"; it is one single and internally connected "people" or "folk"; it is an all-embracing corporation (universitas), which constitutes that Universal Realm, spiritual and temporal, which may be called the Universal Church (ecclesia universalis), or, with equal propriety, the Commonwealth of the Human Race (respublica generis humani). Therefore that it may attain its one purpose, it needs One Law (lex) and One Government (unicus principatus).'[2]

'Le moyen âge fournit un beau chapitre à l'intéressant sujet de l'idéal de la paix dans histoire.'[3]

3. Projects of Perpetual Peace[4] (Modern). The best-known are those of the Abbé de Saint-Pierre, Rousseau, Bentham, and Kant.

The Abbé de Saint-Pierre's Projet de Paix perpétuelle[5] was

  1. 'Dante, I, c. 3 and 4, endeavours to define the common purpose of Mankind. He finds it in the continuous activity of the whole potency of Reason, primarily in the speculative, secondarily in the practical. This is the 'operatio propria universitatis humanae'; the individual man, the household, the civitas and the regnum particulare are insufficient for it. For the achievement of it only a World-Realm will serve, and the propinquissimum medium is the establishment of an Universal Peace. Comp. III, c. 16.' Ibid., note, p. 103.
  2. Gierke, op. cit., p. 10, and note, pp. 103–4, on mediaeval thought in relation to the Universal Church and the Commonwealth of Mankind. See, further, pp. 17–18, 22 (Society as organism), 75-6 (the Law of God, of Nature, and of Nations—Ius Commune Gentium, such law as all nations agreed in recognizing), 90–1 (the Final Cause of the State), and notes on pp. 188–9.
  3. Nys, Les Origines du Droit International (1894), p. 388. The high mission of the Emperor was to maintain peace. 'Imperator-pacificus, tel était le plus ancien, le plus beau de ses titres.' Ibid., p. 390. 'Karolus gratia Dei Rex … a Deo coronatus magnus Pacificus Imperator.'
  4. Nys, ch. xiv, 'Les Irénistes,' gives mediaeval anticipations and analogies. See also the chapter, 'La Paix et les Traités de Paix', pp. 264–77.
  5. 'Projet de Traité pour rendre la paix perpétuelle entre les souverains chrétiens, pour maintenir toujours le commerce entre les nations et pour