To Grotius then is due, I think, the merit which His adaptation is usually accorded to him, of having been the origi- to his times. nator of that which, unaided, he permanently established as a science in Europe. He had the happiness of being exactly adapted to the times in which he lived, for had he lived much earlier he would have found Europe unfitted for the reception of his doctrines; and his times required a mind like that of Grotius, the new relations of the European powers needing reference to settled principles for their guidance. What I mean will be obvious to those who are acquainted with the discussions on international questions in the reigns of Elizabeth and James I., where they will find positions laid down that are sometimes correct, sometimes erroneous; but where it is obvious that in all cases a customary law was nearly all that was thought of by the statesmen of those times, with an absence of settled principles whereby to test those customs, or to serve for guidance where precedent failed. The wars, too, consequent upon the Reformation, which were fully as much political as religious, developed those new relations of the Christian powers, of which some rude traces are observable in the rivalries of Charles V. and his contemporary monarchs, and in the jealousy of her neighbours shown by Elizabeth; but which now began to assume their present aspect of a system of which the various European powers are components, demanding an ascertained precision in those national rights and duties made of more frequent controversy by this nearer intercourse. That this estimate of Grotius is not exaggerated, may be shown from the value which was placed upon his work by his contemporaries. It was regarded by princes and ministers as of first-rate importance, especially by Gustavus Adolphus and by Oxenstiern; and it attracted the attention of the most eminent men of letters in all countries. So great was the notice taken of the work, that within fifty years from the death of its author an edition was published with variorum notes, in the manner of the ancient classics, an at

The method

of Grotius.

tention never before shown to any modern production. Ompteda gives an account of forty-five different editions of the work published before 1759, (1) and of these twenty-three appeared in the half century after the first publication of the work in 1625. And the Elector Palatine, moved by the consideration of this treatise, deemed the study so important that he caused public lectures to be delivered on the subject at Heidelberg, where Pufendorf became the first professor of the science.

It is no detraction from the merit of Grotius to say, that a work, so admirable for his own times, has been found incomplete in the examination which the science has undergone during the two succeeding centuries. Any diminution of his fame, arising from such a source, is immediately counterbalanced by the remembrance of how much of his work is applicable at all periods, and that it is still, what it has been ever since its publication, a standard authority for reference in the disputes of nations. The defect of his method has been remarked by many writers. Instead of establishing the foundations of right, and then referring his various questions to those principles, he proceeds to the discussion of different points, only mentioning incidentally the principles by which these points must be determined. This is not only a fault in method, but it is a defect which sometimes leads him into false conclusions. I would instance his decision regarding the slaying of women and children in war. Were any one now asked if this were allowable, a negative answer would be immediately returned. But Grotius maintains that such a right does exist according to the law of nations; and this opinion is maintained by nothing but such curious support as a passage from Homer, and by the quotation of the words of the Psalmist, "Blessed shall he be who taketh thy

(1) Litteratur des Völker-Rechts, II. 392.

little ones and dasheth them against the stones." (1) From these passages, and a few other citations of instances where such cruelties had been perpetrated, Grotius concludes, that "jus hoc offendendi etiam ad infantes et fœminas porrigi." In a subsequent chapter, respecting" temperamentum circa jus interficiendi in bello justo," he says, that mercy should be shown to such, as well as to husbandmen, tradesmen, clergymen and others. (2) Here, therefore, he has arrived at a right conclusion; but this again is supported by quotations from poets and historians, and not by a deduction from the immutable principles of justice; mention being merely made, incidentally, in a different part of the chapter, of that which is the real criterion of the question, namely, that we have no right to kill any one, unless by way of punishment, or to avoid some greater evil, as when we cannot protect our lives or property without such violence. (3) Similar are various other parts of his work, as that wherein he maintains the right of a father to sell his child when he has no means of supporting him. (4) Had Grotius reverted more frequently to the original principles of justice, he would not have fallen into these errors; but we must remember that the system of philosophy in those days, was, compared to that now existing, what mechanics were before the invention of the lever. The master-minds of that age were ignorant of the use of that principle, utility, with which every member of every petty debating society is now conversant. And to counteract any unfavourable impression arising from such comparison with a later age, let it be considered what would be the results of a mind like that of Grotius, if in action at the present day, from the vantage ground afforded by the progress of enlightenment, and the advance of moral science. His astonishing learning,

The style of
Grotius.

and the happiness with which he calls up the different portions of his vast stores just as they are wanted; his eagerness after truth, and that exact attention to rectitude in his own life, which cannot but sharpen the perception of what is just in the morality of nations, this union of qualifications, which must render a man great in any times, would, at the present day, have made the results of the powers of Grotius of the highest eminence. As it is, under the many disadvantages of his times, Grotius has bequeathed a name that will be remembered with admiration as long as respect follows scholarship, or as long as veneration is insured by an adherence to principles, never swerved from under persecution, and an integrity that was preserved unblemished under the trial of long continued misfortune.

The style of Grotius has been mentioned by different critics with the extremes of approval and reprobation. Sir James Mackintosh has replied to the objections of Paley, and has applauded the citation from the classics, in that character of Grotius which is one of the most eloquent panegyrics in our language. (1) I am compelled to differ from him a little in his conclusions. If it were merely an affair of taste I might not object to those constant quotations from the poets, historians, and philosophers of antiquity, which abound in the De Jure: the feeling that they are redundant, might be passed over in the remembrance of the little likelihood of this style being imitated; and the pleasure given by their perusal is an argument in their favour whenever they do not divert the mind from the real purpose of the discussion. But it is not merely as ornaments that these quotations are introduced: the fault of the work of Grotius is, that although he made so great an advance in establishing correct principles of national conduct, he leaned to precedent, not with implicit reliance, but with a bend

(1) Discourse on the study of the Law of Nature and Nations, 20-27.

ing to authority which is characteristic even of the freest spirits of his age. His age was but recently emancipated from the trammels of a mental despotism; religion was just emerging from the authority of the church, and learning from the discipline of the schools; and we find a deference to authority existing even among reformers in those times, which is in strong contrast with the abstract love of novelty that has been common in the great political convulsions of the last half century. But Grotius, who appears to us too often contented with a precedent where he should have consulted a principle, was regarded as a great innovator in his own times, and his work was inserted in the Index Expurgatorius, from the dangerous tenor of its novel doctrines.

By this constant reference to his age, I am not, I hope, endeavouring to produce an undue favour for Grotius: I trust that I have only that tenderness for his reputation which a student must ever feel for the memory of so great a scholar.

Sixteen years before the publication of the De Jure, Selden, Grotius published, in 1609, his Mare Liberum. It was answered by Selden, in his Treatise entitled Mare Clausum, a work of amazing erudition, but one where the faults of the method of Grotius are displayed in their fullest extent. The quotations from the classic poets, from the works of philosophers, from ancient records, and from books of law and of history, are really astonishing from their number and variety: some of them are very curious, and some are very interesting, and they convey a high notion of the extensive reading of the author, but they are not, what all illustration should be, to the purpose. So often is this the case, that the reader is sometimes tempted to suspect Selden of endeavouring to bewilder his antagonists by a practice similar to what he mentions as then usual in naval warfare, namely, throwing dust into the air to be blown into the eyes of your adversary: and his vast citations tell