Lars Niléhn 70 treated in a not dissimilar way, if not consistently so, this may very well provide a background to the edge of his argument, but not to his bias.'® Thus the reader is hardly in doubt as to which states or princes behaved correctly or which did not. Certainly in one case (perhaps two cases) it was a question of a breach of treaty. But then the very break was governed by interests of state. In the second possible case fighting was resumed because of the fact that one party throughout avoided keeping its part of a formal agreement; it may even have broken it —if the treaty had ever been a proper treaty at all. Here it is obviously a matter of deceit. No mitigating circumstances exist. This may be seen in the perspective of natural law. But in one of the two cases interests of state are part of the picture as well. The breach of agreement may be explained here by the fact that interests of state are a factor that determine actions. Thus this may be seen as an example of how historical circumstances affects the actual manifestation of natural law. In the other case, however, the breach of natural lawis total. If a formal agreement may at all be said to exist, the breaking party is not the one who takes to arms but the one who hinders the realization of the treaty, and it is certainly not interests of state that decide this. Aclear pattern is seen in the analysis of the actors. The princes towards whomPufendorf had duties may break treaties, but if they do so, they act in accordance with interests of state. The country towards which Pufendorf had no obligations, and against which he may even have had private grudges, not only breaks a treaty but breaks natural law in doing so. Thus Pufendorf even uses natural law to emphasize the opinions he puts forward and thus also to pass judgments, even rather harsh ones, on historicalpolitical actors, in this case Denmark. Stade puts forward that Pufendorf, excepting the part about the siege of Copenhagen in 1658, hardly shows any bias at all towards the Danes, Stade p 333, footnote 108. As had been shown here, this, however, is not the case. Stade may be right in his conelusion about the origins of the bias of Pufendorf, but he has not observed the constancy of the bias which may very well also have other causes, as has been hinted at here.
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