If it were Right that ruled in the world, a man would have done enough in building his house, and would need no other protection than the right of possessing it, which would be obvious.  But since Wrong is the order of the day, it is requisite that the man who has built his house should also be able to protect it.  Otherwise his Right is de facto incomplete; the aggressor, that is to say, has the right of might—­Faustrecht; and this is just the conception of Right which Spinoza entertains.  He recognises no other.  His words are:  unusquisque tantum juris habet quantum potentia valet;[1] each man has as much right as he has power.  And again:  uniuscujusque jus potentia ejus definitur; each man’s right is determined by his power.[2] Hobbes seems to have started this conception of Right,[3] and he adds the strange comment that the Right of the good Lord to all things rests on nothing but His omnipotence.

[Footnote 1:  Tract.  Theol.  Pol., ch. ii., Sec. 8.]

[Footnote 2:  Ethics, IV., xxxvii., 1.]

[Footnote 3:  Particularly in a passage in the De Cive, I, Sec. 14.]

Now this is a conception of Right which, both in theory and in practice, no longer prevails in the civic world; but in the world in general, though abolished in theory, it continues to apply in practice.  The consequences of neglecting it may be seen in the case of China.  Threatened by rebellion within and foes without, this great empire is in a defenceless state, and has to pay the penalty of having cultivated only the arts of peace and ignored the arts of war.

There is a certain analogy between the operations of nature and those of man which is a peculiar but not fortuitous character, and is based on the identity of the will in both.  When the herbivorous animals had taken their place in the organic world, beasts of prey made their appearance—­necessarily a late appearance—­in each species, and proceeded to live upon them.  Just in the same way, as soon as by honest toil and in the sweat of their faces men have won from the ground what is needed for the support of their societies, a number of individuals are sure to arise in some of these societies, who, instead of cultivating the earth and living on its produce, prefer to take their lives in their hands and risk health and freedom by falling upon those who are in possession of what they have honestly earned, and by appropriating the fruits of their labour.  These are the beasts of prey in the human race; they are the conquering peoples whom we find everywhere in history, from the most ancient to the most recent times.  Their varying fortunes, as at one moment they succeed and at another fail, make up the general elements of the history of the world.  Hence Voltaire was perfectly right when he said that the aim of all war is robbery.  That those who engage in it are ashamed of their doings is clear by the fact that governments loudly protest their reluctance to appeal