Between the philosopher who returns thanks “to nature for the incompatibility, for the envious emulating vanity, for the insatiable appetite to acquire, or even to rule, (for) without them all the excellent natural predispositions in mankind would slumber to all eternity without being developed,” and the General who proclaims that “war is not merely a necessary element in the life of nations, but an indispensable factor of culture,"* for “without war, inferior or decaying races would easily choke the growth of healthy budding elements, and a universal decadence would follow,” there is a striking “air de famille.”

We may well wonder how the old man of Konigsberg, who saw in human struggles “the direction of a wise Creator,” could write an essay on “Perpetual Peace,” and can easily understand how the controversy as to whether Kant were pacifist or imperialist arose.

It can be affirmed without doubt that Kant was at heart a pacifist, his treaty on “Perpetual Peace” being sufficient proof of that. But had he written this essay alone, he would never have gained his present authority among philosophers; he would rapidly have been relegated to the little comer reserved for an Abbé de St. Pierre, a de Tattel, and other utopists.

Kant’s works may be divided into two parts:

(1) his destructive work, which culminates in the Critique of Pure Reason;

(2) his constructive work, with his Critique of Practical Reason, his writings on Morals and Right, and his study on Universal and Perpetual Peace, which “constitutes not merely a part, but whole final purpose and end of the Science of Right.”