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cution of such a task we show by act rather than by words, in this present work, in which is contained by far the noblest part of jurisprudence.

33. For in the First Book (after a preface concerning the origin of rights and laws) we have examined the question. whether any war be just. Next, in order to distinguish between public and private war, we have to explain the nature of sovereignty, what peoples, what kings, have it entire, what partial, who with a right of alienation, who otherwise; and afterward we have to speak of the duty of subjects to superiors.

34. The Second Book, undertaking to expound all the causes from which war may arise, examines what things are common, what are property, what is the right of persons over persons, what obligation arises from ownership, what is the rule of royal succession, what right is obtained by pact or contract, what is the force and interpretation of treaties, of oaths private and public, what is due for damage done, what is the sacredness of ambassadors, the right of burying the dead, and the nature of punishments.

35. The Third Book has for its subject, in the first place, what is lawful in war; and, when it has drawn a distinction between that which is done with impunity, or may even, in dealing with foreigners, be defended as consistent with rights, and that which is really free from fault, it then descends to the kinds of peace and to conventions in war.

36. The undertaking such a work appeared to me the more worthy of the labor which it must cost, because, as I have said, no one has treated the whole of the argument; and those who have treated parts thereof have so treated them that they have left much to the industry of others. Of the old philosophers nothing is extant of this kind, neither of the Greeks, among whom Aristotle is said to have written a book called the Laws of War,* nor of those (the fathers) who wrote as Christians in the early period of the Church,— which is much to be regretted; and even of the books of the ancient Romans concerning the law recognized by their Feciales, or "Heralds' College," we have received nothing but the name. [See Cic. Off. i. 11; iii. 29.] Those who have made what they call Summa of Cases of Conscience have introduced chapters, as concerning other things, so concerning war, concerning promises, concerning oaths, concerning reprisals.

* But the true reading is Δικαιώματα πόλεων (not πο Kéμwv), the Laws of States. — Barbeyrac.

37. I have also seen special books concerning the laws of war, written partly by theologians, as Francis Victoria,* Henry Gorichem,† William Matthæi [Mathison?], Johannes de Carthagena; some by doctors of law, as Johannes Lupus, § Francis Arias, Joannes à Lignano, Martinus Laudensis.** But all these have said very little, considering the copiousness of the argument, and said it in such a way that they have mingled and confounded law natural, law divine, law of nations, civil law, and canon law.

38. What was most wanting in all these namely, illustrations from history—the learned Faber †† has undertaken to supply in some chapters of his Semestria, but no further than served his own special purpose and only giving references. The same has been done more largely, and that by applying a multitude of examples to certain maxims laid down, by Balthazar Ayala,‡‡ and still more largely by Albericus Gentilis, §§ whose labor, as I know it may be serviceable to others, and confess it has been to me, so what may be faulty in his style, in his arrangement, in his distinctions of questions, and of the different kinds of law, I leave to the judgment of the reader. I will only say that in the decision of controversies he is often wont to follow either a few examples that are not always to be approved of or else the authority of modern lawyers in opinions given, not a few of which are accommodated to the interest of those that consult them, and not founded upon the nature of equity and justice. The causes for which a war is denominated just or

*A Spanish Dominican who lived in the sixteenth century. The treatise here mentioned is De Indis et Jure Belli, and appears among his twelve theological lectures.

† A Dutchman, so named from the place of his birth, and chancellor of Cologne. He lived about the middle of the fifteenth century, and wrote a treatise Del Bello Justo.

His book was printed at Rome in 1609.

§ A native of Segovia. His treatise De Bello et Bellatoribus may be found in a large collection called Tractatus Tractatuum. Tom. xvi. of the Venice edition, 1584.

A Spaniard. His book is in the same volume of the same collection, under the title De Bello et ejus Justitia.

¶ A native of Bologna. His treatise De Bello is in the same volume.

**His name was Garat. His treatise De Bello appears in the same volume of the collection. It was reprinted at Louvain in 1648, with the treatise of Ayala, spoken of afterward.

†† Peter du Faur of St. Jori, Councillor of the Grand Council, afterward Master of Requests, and at last First President of the Parliament of Thoulouse. He was scholar to Cujas. His work entitled Semestrium Libri Tres has been several times printed at Paris, Lyons, and Geneva.

‡‡ He was a native of Antwerp, of Spanish extraction. His treatise De Jure et Officiis Bellicis was printed at that city in 1597.

$$ Professor at Oxford about 1600. His book is De Jure Belli.

unjust, Ayala has not so much as touched upon. Gentilis has indeed described, after his manner, some of the general heads; but many prominent and frequent cases of controversy he has not even touched upon.

39. We have been careful that nothing of this kind be passed over in silence, having also indicated the sources from which we derive our judgments, so that it may be easy to determine any question that may happen to be omitted by us. It remains now that I briefly explain with what aids and with what care I undertook this work.

In the first place it was my object to refer the truth of the things which belong to natural law to some notions, so certain that no one can deny them without doing violence to his own nature. For the principles of such natural law, if you attend to them rightly, are of themselves patent and evident almost in the same way as things which are perceived by the external senses, which do not deceive us if the organs are rightly disposed and if other things necessary are not wanting. Therefore, Euripides, in his Phanissa, makes Polynices, whose cause he would have to be represented manifestly just, express himself thus:

I speak not things hard to be understood,
But such as, founded on the rules of good
And just, are known alike to learn'd and rude.

And he immediately adds the judgment of the chorus (which consisted of women, and these, too, barbarians), approving what he said.

40. In order to give proofs on questions respecting this natural law, I have made use of the testimonies of philosophers, historians, poets, and finally orators. Not that I regard these as judges from whose decision there is no appeal,- for they are warped by their party, their argument, their cause,—but I quote them as witnesses whose conspiring testimony, proceeding from innumerable different times and places, must be referred to some universal cause, which, in the questions with which we are here concerned, can be no other than a right deduction proceeding from the principles of reason or some common consent. The former cause of agreement points to the law of nature, the latter to the law of nations; though the difference of these two is not to be collected from the testimonies themselves (for writers everywhere confound the law

matter.

of nature and the law of nations), but from the quality of the For what cannot be deduced from certain principles by solid reasoning, and yet is seen and observed everywhere, must have its origin from the will and consent of all.

41. I have therefore taken pains to distinguish natural law from the law of nations, as well as both from the civil law. I have even distinguished, in the law of nations, that which is truly and universally lawful, true rights; and quasi-rights, which only produce some external effect similar to that of the true rights, for instance this effect, that they may not be resisted by force or may even be defended by force, in order to avoid grave inconvenience. [Such quasi-rights are those of a master over his slave where slavery is established by law. Whewell.] How necessary this observation is, in many instances, will appear in the course of the work. No less careful have I been to separate those things which belong to jus, or right, properly and strictly so called (out of which arises the obligation of restitution), and those which are more laxly described by right, adjectively; because to act otherwise is at variance with some dictate of right reason, concerning which diversity of jus, or right, we have already said something above.

42. Among the philosophers the first place is deservedly assigned to Aristotle, whether we regard the order of his treatment of these subjects or the acuteness of his distinctions or the weight of his reasons. Only it were to be wished that his authority had not, some ages ago, been converted into a tyranny by others, so that truth, in the pursuit of which Aristotle faithfully spent his life, suffers no oppression so great as that which is inflicted in Aristotle's name. I, both here and in other places, follow the liberty of the old Christians, who did not pin their faith to any sect of philosophers, not that they agreed with those who say that nothing can be known, than which nothing is more foolish, but that they thought that there was no sect which had seen the whole of the truth and none which had not seen some part of the truth. They, therefore, aimed at collecting the truth which was diffused among individual philosophers and among sects into one body; and they thought that this result could be nothing else but the true Christian doctrine.

43. Among other points, to mention this in passing as not foreign to our purpose, it appears to me that both some of the Platonists and the ancient Christians had good reason to

depart from Aristotle's doctrine, in which he placed the very nature of virtue in a medium of the affections and actions, which, having once laid down, carried him so far that he compounded liberality and frugality, two very different virtues, into one virtue, and assigned to truth two opposites which are by no means co-ordinate, boasting and dissimulation, and fastened upon some things the name of vices, which either do not exist or are not, of themselves, vices, as the contempt of pleasure and of honor and a lack of irascibility toward men.

44. That this foundation of virtue [that it is the medium between two extremes] is not a right one appears from the example of justice itself; for the too much and too little which are opposed to this, since he cannot find them in the affections and the consequent actions, he seeks in the things with which justice deals, which proceeding is, in the first place, a transition to another genus,— a fault which he justly blames in others; and, in the next place, to take less than is one's own may, indeed, have a vice adventitiously connected with it, growing out of a consideration of what a person, under the circumstances, owes to himself and those who depend on him, but certainly cannot be repugnant to justice, which resides entirely in abstaining from what is another's. And to this mistake that other is similar, that adultery as the fruit of lust, and homicide arising from anger, he will not allow to belong properly to injustice; though injustice is nothing else in its nature than the usurpation of what is another's, nor does it make any difference whether that proceeds from avarice or from lust or from anger or from thoughtless compassion, or, on the other hand, from the desire of superiority, in which the greatest examples of unjust aggressions originate. For to resist all impulses on this account only, that human society may not be violated, is what is really the proper character of justice.

45. To return to the point from which I started, it is true that it belongs to the character of certain virtues that the affections are kept in moderation; but it does not follow that this is the proper and universal character of all virtue, but that right reason, which virtue everywhere follows, dictates that in some things a medium course is to be followed, in others the highest degree of the affection is to be aimed at. Thus, for instance, we cannot love God too much; for superstition does not err in this, that it loves God too much, but that its love

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