292 A Positive Century (1815–1914)“new doctrines” that were in the air— namely, those of socialism and soli-
darism. At the heart of these two beliefs (which he combined into a more
general concept of “solidarity”) was the replacement of the individualistic
orientation of law by a collectivist one. Th ere should be a preference, Álva-
rez insisted, for the general social interest over private individual con-
cerns. Th e traditional emphasis of the law on the rights of individuals
should give way, he contended, to a recognition of the duties of persons to
assist fellow members of society in cases of need, and to the rights of as-
sociations of persons formed for the pursuit of various specialized collec-
tive interests.
Systematic applications of these ideas to international law would only
come aft er the First World War. But even before that, it is evident that soli-
darist ideas were part of the general intellectual atmosphere. Wherever there
were infl uences of modern so cio log i cal ideas, a general spirit of solidarism
could oft en be discerned. Th e American lawyer Amos S. Hershey, of the Uni-
versity of Indiana, writing in 1912, is an example. As he suggested,
In the further development of International Law, motives of utility and
a sense of international community interests should be allowed to have
at least as much infl uence as tradition and pre ce dents based upon
metaphysical conceptions of natural law or abstract principles of jus-
tice. Jurists must learn to look forward as well as backward, and should
have regard to the probable or possible social consequences of a given
practice.... Social utility, or adaptability to human needs and human
social conditions, is thus the ultimate test of international, as of all hu-
man law.Bonfi ls expressed similar sentiments, holding “the law of sociability” to be
“a natural and necessary law, not only for individuals, but also for States.”
In an interdependent world, each state, Bonfi ls maintained, “has the mis-
sion of working, with its own genius, for the general work of civilization.”
In his opinion, the two opposing forces of in de pen dence and interdepen-
dence are simultaneously at work— interdependence in the economic, intel-
lectual, and moral spheres, and in de pen dence in the po liti cal one— with in-
ternational law attempting to strike a balance between them. He surmised
that, over the long run, interdependence would prevail and that the de facto