"One fallacy is that International Law has no existence whatever, and is a mere fiction of the political imagination. This assertion is usually made by those who, either for some particular argumentative purpose wish to prove it a fiction, or, by their own criminal acts, have already done that was in their power to render it such. It is no doubt perfectly true that the body of International Law is at present very imperfectly developed. Many of the rules which compose it are uncertain, ambiguous, or habitually interpreted in the most opposite senses. There are many doctrines which have the feeblest possible hold even upon the States which formally recognise them. There are other doctrines of the highest importance which, though very widely received and conformed to, are still frequently set at nought with utter impunity. But all this vacillation and uncertainty, taken by itself, gives the most incorrect picture of the practical cogency of the great mass of the Rules which compose the International Law of Europe."