218 A Positive Century (1815–1914)
century. It had become scientifi c in the nineteenth- century sense of that
term— meaning a body of knowledge based on observation and experiment
rather than on speculation and deductive reasoning. More specifi cally, in-
ternational law had embraced the fashionable “positive philosophy” of the
age, the creed of science and progress. In so doing, it had paid the necessary
entry fee. Th at is, it had discarded a great deal— and for some lawyers, even
all— of the venerable legacy of natural law.
Much of the older critical spirit of international legal writing was lost in
this pro cess. No longer would writers cheerfully proclaim, as Vattel did, that
their outpourings would be (and were intended to be) critical of the ways of
statesmen. Now it would be conceded that it was those very statesmen who
actually made international law by way of state practice. Th e task of interna-
tional lawyers was to record and systematize this pro cess, not to criticize it.
Th e mission of the new scientifi c lawyer was to be an apo liti cal craft sman,
not a harping social critic. But if international lawyers lost much of their
critical edge in this period, they gained very greatly in other ways. Th ey ac-
quired access to the inner circles of power, for one thing, even if was more in
the role of servant than of policy maker. No one pretended that it was the
task of international lawyers to make policy, but their ser vices were required
for implementation. In the international sphere, in short, lawyers were com-
ing to function as the mechanics who labored behind the scenes to keep the
juridical machinery of everyday life humming smoothly.
Th ere were many in the international-law community who chafed at these
limitations. Some natural- law partisans— whose ranks were now greatly
attenuated— continued to dream of power as the servant of law rather than
vice versa. Other lawyers pledged allegiance to some of the other new trends
of the time: to pop u lar nationalism, a legacy of the French Revolution that
even the fashionistas of Vienna were unable to bottle up; or to liberalism,
with its entrancing calls for liberation, democracy, and human rights. Th ere
were glimmerings, too, of so cio log i cal perspectives on international law.
Th e nineteenth century, in short, was an age of great achievement in in-
ternational law as in so many other walks of life. (How curious, then, that a
major book on the subject has never been written.) Th ere were landmark
advances in a host of fi elds— from the laws of war, to arbitration, to the rise
of multilateral treaty making, and (not least) to the emergence of interna-
tional law itself as a (more or less) or ga nized profession.