[Sidenote: Law not to be identified with Municipal Law.]
§ 6. But it must be emphasised that, if there is law to be found in every community, law in this meaning must not be identified with the law of States, the so-called Municipal Law,[7] just as the conception of State must not be identified with the conception of community. The conception of community is a wider one than the conception of State. A State is a community, but not every community is a State. Likewise the conception of law pure and simple is a wider one than that of Municipal Law. Municipal Law is law, but not every law is Municipal Law, as, for instance, the Canon Law is not. Municipal Law is a narrower conception than law pure and simple. The body of rules which is called the Law of Nations might, therefore, be law in the strict sense of the term, although it might not possess the characteristics of Municipal Law. To make sure whether the Law of Nations is or is not law, we have to inquire whether the three essential conditions of the existence of law are to be found in the Law of Nations.
[Footnote 7: Throughout this work the term "Municipal Law" is made use of in the sense of national or State law in contradistinction to International Law.]
[Sidenote: The "Family of Nations" a Community.]
§ 7. As the first condition is the existence of a community, the question arises, whether an international community exists whose law could be the Law of Nations. Before this question can be answered, the conception of community must be defined. A community may be said to be the body of a number of individuals more or less bound together through such common interests as create a constant and manifold intercourse between the single individuals. This definition of community covers not only a community of individual men, but also a community of individual communities such as individual States. A Confederation of States is a community of States. But is there a universal international community of all individual States in existence? This question is decidedly to be answered in the affirmative as far as the States of the civilised world are concerned. Innumerable are the interests which knit all the individual civilised States together and which create constant intercourse between these States as well as between their subjects. As the civilised States are, with only a few exceptions, Christian States, there are already religious ideas which wind a band around them. There are, further, science and art, which are by their nature to a great extent international, and which create a constant exchange of ideas and opinions between the subjects of the several States. Of the greatest importance are, however, agriculture, industry, and trade. It is totally impossible even for the largest empire to produce everything its subjects want. Therefore, the productions of agriculture and industry must be exchanged by the several States, and it is for this reason that international trade is an unequalled factor for the welfare of every civilised State. Even in antiquity, when every State tried to be a world in itself, States did not and could not exist without some sort of international trade. It is international trade which has created navigation on the high seas and on the rivers flowing through different States. It is, again, international trade which has called into existence the nets of railways which cover the continents, the international postal and telegraphic arrangements, and the Transatlantic telegraphic cables.[8]