TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE * Italics are denoted by underscores as in _italics_. * Bold text is denoted by equals as in =bold=. * Small caps are represented in upper case as in SMALL CAPS. * Original spelling was kept, but variant spellings were made consistent when a predominant usage was found. * Obvious printer errors have been silently corrected. PERPETUAL PEACE [Illustration] “For I dipt into the future, far as human eye could see, Saw the Vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be; Saw the heavens fill with commerce, argosies of magic sails, Pilots of the purple twilight, dropping down with costly bales; Heard the heavens fill with shouting, and there rain’d a ghastly dew From the nations’ airy navies grappling in the central blue; Far along the world-wide whisper of the south-wind rushing warm, With the standards of the peoples plunging thro’ the thunder-storm; Till the war-drum throbb’d no longer, and the battle-flags were furl’d In the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world. There the common sense of most shall hold a fretful realm in awe, And the kindly earth shall slumber, lapt in universal law.” TENNYSON: _Locksley Hall_. PERPETUAL PEACE A PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAY BY IMMANUEL KANT 1795 TRANSLATED WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES BY M. CAMPBELL SMITH, M.A. _WITH A PREFACE BY PROFESSOR LATTA_ LONDON: GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN LTD. RUSKIN HOUSE 40 MUSEUM STREET, W.C. NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY _First Edition, 1903_ _Second Impression, February 1915_ _Third ” February 1917_ PREFACE This translation of Kant’s essay on _Perpetual Peace_ was undertaken by Miss Mary Campbell Smith at the suggestion of the late Professor Ritchie of St. Andrews, who had promised to write for it a preface, indicating the value of Kant’s work in relation to recent discussions regarding the possibility of “making wars to cease.” In view of the general interest which these discussions have aroused and of the vague thinking and aspiration which have too often characterised them, it seemed to Professor Ritchie that a translation of this wise and sagacious essay would be both opportune and valuable.[1] His untimely death has prevented the fulfilment of his promise, and I have been asked, in his stead, to introduce the translator’s work. [1] Cf. his _Studies in Political and Social Ethics_, pp. 169, 170.