It is now some 122 years since Kant wrote the essay, _Zum ewigen Frieden_.

Many things have happened since then, although the Peace to which he looked forward with a doubtful hope has not been among them.
But many things have happened which the great critical philosopher, and no less critical spectator of human events, would have seen with interest.

To Kant the quest of an enduring peace presented itself as an intrinsic human duty, rather than as a promising enterprise.

Yet through all his analysis of its premises and of the terms on which it may be realised there runs a tenacious persuasion that, in the end, the regime of peace at large will be installed.

Not as a deliberate achievement of human wisdom, so much as a work of Nature the Designer of things--_Natura daedala rerum_.
To any attentive reader of Kant's memorable essay it will be apparent that the title of the following inquiry--On the nature of peace and the terms of its perpetuation--is a descriptive translation of the caption under which he wrote.