The Reformation wrought an immense change in those ideas. Protestants could not renounce commerce with Papists, and so the idea of Christendom was at once raised to a higher level. It is interesting to watch how the orthodoxy of Grotius yields under the influence of external pressure, and how he allows treaties between Christians and heathens, if the former are Dutch and the object is to oppose Spain. The peace of Westphalia closed a century of war. It put Protestants and Catholics on the same basis in the community of European states; and hence, it has been justly regarded as the foundation of modern international law. It was no longer religion, as then understood, but law which was to regulate the relations of states, and we now commence to hear of the idea of "the balance of power." There was one important element to which I have not referred, and that was the introduction of Feudalism. As a result of this institution, the state was regarded as the property of the monarch. The law of succession applied as in property, and hence, by succession, purchase, gift, theft, and otherwise states or estates were becoming consolidated. But the establishment of Swiss independence, the revolt in the Netherlands, and the revolutions in England and America gave a rude shock to such a notion. In the century and a-half between the peace of Westphalia and the French Revolution, this idea of property in the state was at the root of the wars of Louis XIV. and Frederick the Great. The French Revolution reaffirmed the lessons which had been so often taught before, but had fallen on deaf ears. in Hell-fire, since men would have it so." It was a truth "clad We here see for the first time a crusade for a political idea and not for religion. The Revolution ran into the empire of Napoleon, which was a caricature of the ancien régime. If Louis Capet, James Stewart, and Philip of Hapsburg, could traffic in states and their inhabitants, who could say that it was wrong for Napoleon Buonaparte to do so also? But the attempt to revive the empire of Karl der Grosse in the person of a Frenchman, was 1,000 years behind date. The problem of humanity could not be solved by arbitrarily dividing the world among the relatives of a Corsican adventurer, and physically uniting them under his suzerainty. The tyrant was overthrown by a coalition between the oppressed peoples and their former proprietors, and the Congress of Vienna tried to patch up the ancien régime. It was an expiring struggle. We have since heard no more of the rights of kings and princes, except in the paper protests of petty Italian dukes and such potentates. Belgium, Greece, Germany, Italy, Roumania, Servia, Montenegro, all point to another principle-the spirit of nationality. The Congress of Vienna tried to solder up the claims of princes and rulers. The Congress of Berlin discussed only questions of nationality. A state is now a free union of free men. And these states are now united by law. It is significant to note that the disgraceful squabbles among ambassadors as to precedence were put an end to at the Congress of Vienna. The kings were no longer the states. The balance of power which was intended, and failed, to keep the conterminous proprietors within specific bounds, was spasmodically revived by the Russian war, but it has now disappeared from practical politics. The idea of law has given rise to the concert of Europe, and the practice, still somewhat unsettled, of authorising one power to carry out the decision of the whole. In this society of nations are now included American and Asiatic States, and though we still divide men into civilised, semi-civilised, and uncivilised, these distinctions will no doubt gradually disappear. It is a more humane division than the Greek or the Medieval one; but in international intercourse, a tremendous responsibility is thrown on civilised states to see that their conduct towards their inferior neighbours is regulated by justice and morality, and not by cupidity and selfishness. It is beyond my present purpose to discuss the effect of those ideas on the special doctrines of international law. I have already indicated the revolution which has taken place in our ideas of war, and particularly, in our ideas of neutrality, and it may be sufficient to note in addition, that nine-tenths of what is called international law in the books, is law of procedure and forms— adjective law including laws of war, neutrality, contrabrand, blockade, treaties, ambassadors, &c. It is Professor Lorimer's great merit as a publicist that he has reminded lawyers that there is an idea of right underlying those forms-a substantive law, which they are intended to enforce. Parallel to and simultaneously with this change in the idea of the state and of the relations between states, we have the progress formerly noticed in private and mercantile law, caused by the invention of the compass and steam navigation; and, as a necessary result, the doctrines of private international law. But, while we are tracing the history of the legal idea of person in municipal law, and the corresponding idea of citizen in constitutional law which unites the individuals into a state, and also the prolongation of this process in international law-the "person" giving rise to private international law, and public law making the individual a member of a world-state-we must also trace the history of the individual states which now form this world-system. We must answer the question why England and not Ireland or Scotland became the leading power in the British islands. We have to show how Gaul became France and not Burgundy. We must explain how Russia rose and Poland fell. We must trace the union external and physical, of the small kingdoms in the Spanish peninsula; the disappearance of the small German principalities and ecclesiastical powers, and their absorption into Prussia and Austria; the division and subsequent union of Italy, and such changes. For this purpose, treaties and other legal documents form a veritable quarry of information; but this is not the history of law. It is the history of an organic self-conscious unity which is the subject of law, and originates law in and by the process of living and growing. These external changes have been brought about by associations of race, religion, and geographical position; by great inventions,— gun-powder, bayonets, rifled guns, breech-loaders, iron-clad ships, heavy artillery, steam, electricity; and by great preachers, statesmen, soldiers, and sailors. This history of the states actually existing, is a necessary complement to the history of the legal ideas which have been growing up along with them. Law in this way supplies to some extent the place of a philosophy of history; but legal ideas are not the only ones involved in the growth and history of humanity, and if we would understand fully what is comprehended in civilisation, we must treat in the same way the history of religion, morals, science, art, practical industry, and commerce. But as lawyers we must rest content if we can contribute our share to the solution of the question :-What is the end of Humanity? E. BIBLIOGRAPHY.1 I. ANCIENT WRITERS. PLATO-The Republic and The Laws. II. EARLY CHRISTIAN WRITERS. LACTANTIUS (330 A.D.) Institutiones Divinæ. ST. AMBROSE (387) De Officiis Ministrorum. ST. AUGUSTIN-(354-430) De diversis Quæstionibus; De Civitate Dei. III. THE SCHOOLMEN AND MEDIEVAL WRITERS. ST. THOMAS AQUINAS (1225-1274) Summa Theologiæ; De Regimine Principis. 'This list is borrowed chiefly from Ahrens, omitting the special works on international law given by him. Of these a somewhat complete list will be found in Appendix I. to Woolsey's Introduction to the Study of International Law. The subject of Law is often discussed in works on Morals under the idea of Justice. Down to a comparatively late period the legal works of Grotius and Pufendorf were used as ethical text-books, and both Ethics and Theology show decided traces of their treatment by lawyers; but I have generally omitted writers who have treated solely of Ethics. I have also omitted works on Political Economy. This science deals only with things which are the objects of rights, treating even the body as merely a machinea supply of labour. But, as it is impossible entirely to abstract things from their relation to persons, writers on Economics frequently discuss ethical and political questions. This abstract science of things as property, corresponds to the equally abstract science of Natural Law which deals with individuals as persons. Students commencing the study of the Philosophy of Law are recommended to read Maine's Ancient Law and Holland's Jurisprudence, along with either Trendelenburg's Naturrecht, Ahrens' Cours de droit naturel, or Lorimer's Institutes of Law. DANTE (1265-1321) De Monarchia. ENGELBERT, of Admont, in Styria-(1331) De Ortu, Progressu, et Fine Romani Imperii. MARSILIUS, of Padua (1328) De Translatione Imperii. WILLIAM, of Occam-(1347) Disputatio de Potestate Ecclesiastica et Seculari. LUDOLF, of Bebenburg-(1354) Tractatus de Juribus Regni et Imperii Romanorum. DOMINIC SOTO-De Justitia et Jure (1560). FRANCISCO SUAREZ (1548-1617) De Legibus ac Deo Legislatore. PETER DENS-Theologia Moralis et Dogmatica, 8 vols. (2d ed.). Dublin, 1832. IV. EARLY PROTESTANT WRITERS. MELANCTHON-Epitome Philosophiæ Moralis (1538). HEMMING (Danish), De Lege Naturæ (1562). ALB. BOLOGNETUS-(1585) De Lege Jure et Equitate Disputa tiones. ALBERICO GENTILI-De Legationibus (1583); De Jure Belli (1588). WINKLER-Principiorum Juris Libri V., Lipsiæ (1615). The following writers of this period treated the subject of LANGUET (Junius Brutus)-Vindicia contra Tyrannos (1577). CLAUDIUS SALMASIUS-Defensio Regia pro Carolo I. (1649). JUAN DE MARIANA (Jesuit)—(1536-1623) De Rege et Regis Institutione. ALGERNON SIDNEY-(d. 1683) Discourses concerning Government. V. THE SCHOOL OF GROTIUS. HUGO GROTIUS-De Jure Belli ac Pacis Lib. iii. Parisiis (1625). Published, with an English translation, by Dr. Whewell, |