ABSTRACT
The wealth of content in the idea of raison d’état does not allow itself to be forced into the close fetters of an abstract definition. For this reason (as we remarked in the Introduction) it is also impossible for our investigation to confine itself to indicating the presence of a unified and rigidly demarcated stream of intellectual development down the centuries. We must follow out the effects of the idea in whichever quarter they are for the moment being produced most strongly and broadly. Thus first one aspect, and then another aspect, of the entire problem will be examined closely, and the peculiar character of the successive historical epochs will make itself clearly felt in the process. Certainly, the contents of these epochs do also overlap with one another. For this reason we treated the spread in Germany of the chief doctrines of raison d’état, without making any pause for the deep division in the middle of the century, and taking them right up as far as the period of Louis XIV. During this period then, the dominant idea (apart from Germany itself) was the doctrine of State interests, which had arisen out of the doctrine of raison d’état. For the statesmen of the great powers had now heard enough about raison d’état in general; whereas just at this moment, being in the first flourishing stage of absolutist cabinet-policy, they were very responsive to all the concrete problems and devices of the policy of interest. But before going on to describe the most important representatives of the doctrine of interest during this period of time, we have to answer the question of what attitude the great and leading State theorists of the seventeenth century adopted towards the problem of raison d’état, and what significance it had for their doctrines about the State. The remarkable fact is that only one of them, the German Pufendorf, directly accepted the doctrines of raison d’état and State interest, and for this reason he must be considered by himself. Grotius, Hobbes and Spinoza on the other hand did not make a direct use of the doctrines, but rather built their theories 208of the State on the traditional foundation of Natural Law, which they developed along their own lines. The immense power of the old tradition of Natural Law is shown by the fact that even the most emancipated thinkers of the century lay under its spell and (in an age when empiricism was already beginning) made no attempt to grasp the handhold which the doctrine of raison d’état offered towards a new empirical doctrine of the State. But, being great and profound thinkers, besides imbibing the old tradition they also mentally digested the living reality of State life and of the whole world in general; and it was only directly, by reason of this fact, that they came into contact with the problems of raison d’état, and to some extent developed ideas in the process which broke up the presuppositions they had made on the basis of Natural Law. It is these disruptive ideas that are bound to arouse the greatest interest on our part.
