Grotius distinctly holds, like Kant and Rousseau, and unlike Hobbes, that the state can never be regarded as a unity or institution separable from the people; the terms _civitas_, _communitas_, _coetus_, _populus_, he uses indiscriminately. But these nations, these independent units of society cannot live together side by side just as they like; they must recognise one another as members of a European society of states.[29] Law, he said, stands above force even in war, “which may only be begun to pursue the right;” and the beginning and manner of conduct of war rests on fixed laws and can be justified only in certain cases. War is not to be done away with: Grotius accepts it as fact,[30] (as Hobbes did later) as the natural method for settling the disputes which were bound constantly to arise between so many independent and sovereign nations. A terrible scourge it must ever remain, but as the only available form of legal procedure, it is sanctioned by the practice of states and not less by the law of nature and of nations. Grotius did not advance beyond this position. Every violation of the law of nations can be settled but in one way—by war, the force of the stronger. [29] In the Peace of Westphalia, 1648, the balance of power in Europe was recognised on the basis of terms such as these. [30] Grotius, however, is a painstaking student of Scripture, and is willing to say something in favour of peace—not a permanent peace, that is to say, the idea of which would scarcely be likely to occur to anyone in the early years of the seventeenth century—but a plea for fewer, shorter wars. “If therefore,” he says, “a peace sufficiently safe can be had, it is not ill secured by the condonation of offenses, and damages, and expenses: especially among Christians, to whom the Lord has given his peace as his legacy. And so St. Paul, his best interpreter, exhorts us to live at peace with all men.... May God write these lessons—He who alone can—on the hearts of all those who have the affairs of Christendom in their hands.” (_De Jure Belli et Pacis_, III. Ch. XXV., Whewell’s translation.) See also _op. cit._, II., Ch. XXIII., Sect. VIII., where Grotius recommends that Congresses of Christian Powers should be held with a view to the peaceful settlement of international differences.