Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- INTRODUCTION
- PART I A HISTORY OF INTERNATIONALIST THEORIES
- 1 To the End of the Seventeenth Century
- 2 Penn, Bellers and Saint-Pierre
- 3 Rousseau
- 4 Kant
- 5 Bentham and James Mill
- 6 The First Half of the Nineteenth Century
- 7 From the Crimean War to the League of Nations
- PART II A HISTORY OF THE MODERN STATES' SYSTEM TO 1900
- PART III INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS AND INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
- References
- Index
2 - Penn, Bellers and Saint-Pierre
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 January 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- INTRODUCTION
- PART I A HISTORY OF INTERNATIONALIST THEORIES
- 1 To the End of the Seventeenth Century
- 2 Penn, Bellers and Saint-Pierre
- 3 Rousseau
- 4 Kant
- 5 Bentham and James Mill
- 6 The First Half of the Nineteenth Century
- 7 From the Crimean War to the League of Nations
- PART II A HISTORY OF THE MODERN STATES' SYSTEM TO 1900
- PART III INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS AND INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
- References
- Index
Summary
William Penn published his Essay towards the Present and Future Peace of Europe in 1693. John Bellers's Some Reasons for an European State appeared in 1710. Charles Francois Irénée Castel de Saint-Pierre first gave his Perpetual Peace to the world in 1712; he devoted the next twenty-five years to making his plan more elaborate in some books and to attempting to summarize it in others. Crucé apart, these men were the authors of the first proposals of modern times for establishing an international organisation whose primary object was the maintenance of peace.
There was nothing essentially new in their writings. None of them had heard of Crucé but all were directly influenced by Sully, as is shown by the full titles and the texts of their books; and they did little more than reproduce that part of the ‘Grand Design’ which, influenced by ideas like Crucé's, had sprung from a genuine interest in achieving peace. Nevertheless, they neglected―did not notice, indeed―that part of Sully's thought which had been inspired by traditional political aims. And with their reversion to Crucé's attitude after an interval of years the new approach was at last finally established. After the beginning of the eighteenth century it remained possible―if unusual―for men to suggest that international peace might be obtained by other means than international organisation.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Power and the Pursuit of Peace: Theory and Practice in the History of Relations Between States , pp. 33 - 45Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1962