ganized system of arbitration. (Maine, Early Hist. of Institutions, ch. 9, "Primitive Forms of Legal Remedies.")

(3) In connection with the pacific agencies thus far noticed, there also takes place, in the evolution of the modern state the gradual definition of legal rights and duties. It is a well-established fact that the civil law, in its earliest form, is not the result of statutory legislation. It rather begins with the judicial enforcement of what are regarded as the existing customs of the community.

These customs represent the prevailing habits of the people, and are, in their origin, for the most part, the unconscious product of the social life. They become crystallized by traditional observance, and are maintained through judicial sanctions. Each judicial decision furnishes a precedent for future decisions, thus resulting in a body of customary or common law. The fact that the customary law does not meet all the needs of an advanced society leads to the necessity for statutory legislation. It is in this way that the growth of a system of customary and statute law, which controls the acts of individuals, is a powerful agency for the elimination of private warfare and the promotion of peace throughout the nation. (Maine, Ancient Law, ch. I.)

(4) Furthermore, with the progressive organization of society, the state becomes more and more. conscious of its own corporate will, and assumes the coercive power hitherto scattered among its constituent members. The individual thus becomes an integral part of the social organism. His relation to other individuals, instead of being a matter of purely personal interest, becomes a subject of concern to the

entire body-politic, to be adjudicated by the organized reason and will of the community at large.

The various steps and agencies which have thus far been traced as marking the evolution of peace within the national society may be briefly summarized as follows: (1) the restraints put upon vengeance and the exercise of private force; (2) the settlement of private disputes by the growth of arbitration and legal procedure; (3) the definition of legal rights through judicial interpretation and legislative enactment; and (4) the growth of organized society with a common coercive power. By these methods there has been gradually evolved that condition of relative peace which prevails to a large extent within the area of the modern civilized state. It cannot, of course, be maintained that the condition of peace has become perfectly realized even within the limits of any modern state, except so far as the agencies mentioned have become completely effective in subduing the lawless elements of society.

But with all necessary qualifications, we may feel justified in holding to the proposition that the evolution of human society has been characterized by the progressive enlargement of the areas of peace, and that this movement, beginning with the elementary groups of mankind, has been maintained, with more or less continuity, until it has reached the modern sovereign state, or that political organism which forms the constituent factor of the present international system.

§ 6. INITIAL STEPS TOWARD INTERNATIONAL PEACE How far these conclusions have any bearing upon the growth of an international peace is a question

the answer to which can be scarcely more than suggested within the limits of our present discussion. That the pacific tendencies which have been active for centuries in the growth of the national society have yet reached their final goal, it is difficult to believe. It is also quite as difficult to believe that these tendencies which have been so slow in their operation in the evolution of the national system will effect a sudden and radical transformation of the whole international society. If however we should continue to apply the historical method, which we have thus far attempted to follow, we may perhaps ascertain how far the conditions of peace have or have not been realized in international relations; and what are the pacific agencies already developed which may be utilized to advance the general cause of peace.

It is sometimes asserted that, in its international relations, Europe is still in a state of barbarism; that however civilized the several states of the world may be in their internal affairs, in their external relations they are still pursuing the methods of savages. It is no doubt true that war, as a mode of settling disputes, is a survival from a more primitive condition. of mankind; and that it seems to be out of harmony with the more rational and judicial methods which prevail, to a large extent, within the states themselves. This is true simply because those large social groups which we call "nations" are in a condition, in relation to one another, quite similar to that of the smaller social groups before they were pacified and united into nations. But to suppose that the present international relations of the world present the same phase of absolute hostility that existed among the primitive groups of savages, unrestrained by any pacific influences

whatever, is to ignore more than three centuries of European history.

It should be remembered that there has been not only an international history of war; there has also been an international history of peace. The same pacific agencies which have been referred to as operating within the area of the national domain, we may see in the progressive steps already taken in the direction of an international peace. To verify this statement, it will be necessary simply to call attention to some of the rules and regulations which have been developed and accepted by civilized states in their relations to one another. These will be seen to be in general accord with the progressive steps already followed in the pacification of the states themselves, for example:

(1) In the first place, the attempts made within the national society to throw up barriers against the unrestrained exercise of force in the conduct of private warfare, have been reproduced, to a certain extent, upon the more extended field of international warfare. This will be evident if we call to mind some of the provisions contained in the so-called "rules of war," which formed a part of the accepted "Law of Nations" —that is, before the late war. Specific examples of such provisions may be summarized as follows: The growing conception that war is not an act of unrestrained vengeance, but a regulated mode of redress -the tendency to confine the conduct of hostilities to combatants in the field-the respect paid to the rights of non-combatants, whether in the field or outside the theater of war-the efforts to prevent the use of poisonous gases, and of explosive missiles below a certain weight-the condemnation of pillage and

plunder in occupied territory-the exemption from destruction of private property on the land, and of all public property of a non-hostile character-the general recognition of the restraints imposed by the Declaration of Paris (1856) upon privateering, and upon the capture of enemies' property under a neutral flag-the humane efforts made by the Conventions of Geneva (1864) and of St. Petersburg (1867) to protect the sick and wounded, and to regard as neutral all ambulances and military hospitals and all persons engaged in the medical service.

These specific provisions are sufficient to show the laudable efforts that had been made in the international society to restrain the undue exercise of force and to prevent the inhumanities of war before the year 1914.

(2) In the next place, the attempts made within the area of the modern state to introduce rational methods of settling disputes in place of the earlier modes of private redress and blood revenge, have been reproduced upon the higher plane of international conflicts. This is being effected through the growth of diplomacy and the establishment of legations— through the agency of treaties and conventionsthrough the calling of congresses and conferences -and through the use of mediation and arbitration.

It is especially in the growing respect paid to arbitration as an international remedy and as a basis for judicial procedure that the earlier stages in the evolution of peace are continuing as a pacific factor. It is significant that while international arbitration. was not often used before the last century, since 1815 it has been appealed to in an increasing number of cases; and it is to the credit of the English-speaking