Here the whole private and public conduct of men; to discover those "fountains of justice," without purfuing the "ftreams" through the endless variety of their courfe. But another part of the subject is treated with greater fulness and minuteness of application; namely, that important branch of it which profeffes to regulate the relations and intercourse of states, and more efpecially, both on account of their greater perfection and their more immediate reference to use, the regulations of that intercourse as they are modified by the ufages of the civilized nations of Christendom. this fcience no longer refts in general principles. That province of it which we now call the law of nations, has, in many of its parts, acquired among our European nations much of the precifion and certainty of pofitive law, and the particulars of that law are chiefly to be found in the works of those writers who have treated the fcience of which I now fpeak. It is because they have claffed (in a manner which feems peculiar to modern times) the duties of individuals with thofe of nations, and established their obligation on fimilar grounds, that the whole fcience has been called, "The Law of Nature and Na❝tions." Whether this appellation be the happiest that could have been chofen for the science, and by what steps it came to be adopted among our mo dern dern moralifts and lawyers, are inquiries, pers haps, of more curiofity than ufe, and which, if they deserve any where to be deeply pursued, will be purfued with more propriety in a full examination of the fubject than within the fhort limits of an introductory difcourfe. Names are, however, in a great meafure arbitrary; but the diftribution of knowledge into its parts, though it may often perhaps be varied with little difadvantage, yet certainly depends upon fome fixed principles. The modern method of confidering individual and national morality as the fubjects of the fame science, feems to me as convenient and reasonable an arrangement as can be adopted. 66 * The learned reader is aware that the "jus natura" and "jus gentium" of the Roman lawyers are phrafes of very different import from the modern phrases, law of nature "and law of nations." "Jus naturale," fays Ulpian, “eft "quod natura omnia animalia docuit." D. 1. I. 1. 3. "Quod naturalis ratio inter omnes homines conftituit, id que apud omnes peræque cuftoditur vocaturque jus gen"tium." D. 1. 1. 9. But they fometimes neglect this fubtle diftinction" Jure naturali quod appellatur jus gen"tium." I. 2. 1.11. Jus feciale was the Roman term for our law of nations. "Belli quidem æquitas fanctiffime populi Rom. feciali jure perfcripta eft." Off. 1. 11. Our learned civilian Zouch has accordingly entitled his work, “De "Jure Feciali, five de Jure inter Gentes." The Chancellor D'Agueffeau, probably without knowing the work of Zouch, fuggefted that this law fhould be called, "Droit entre les Gens" (Oeuvres, tom. ii. p. 337), in which he has been followed by a late ingenious writer, Mr. Bentham, Princ. of Morals and Pol. p. 324. Perhaps thefe learned writers do employ a phrafe which expreffes the fubject of this law with more accuracy than our common language; but I doubt, whether innovations in the terms of fcience always repay us by their fuperior precifion for the uncertainty and confufion which the change occafions. I The The fame rules of morality which hold together men in families, and which form families into commonwealths, alfo link together thefe commonwealths as members of the great fociety of mankind. Commonwealths, as well as private men, are liable to injury, and capable of benefit, from each other; it is, therefore, their interest as well as their duty to reverence, to practife, and to enforce thofe rules of juftice, which control and reftrain injury, which regulate and augment benefit, which, even in their prefent imperfect obfervance, preferve civilized ftates in a tolerable condition of fecurity from wrong, and which, if they could be generally obeyed, would establish, and permanently maintain, the well-being of the univerfal commonwealth of the human race. It is therefore with juftice that one part of this science has been called "the natural law of in“dividuals,” and the other," the natural law of "ftates;" and it is too obvious to require obfervation*, that the application of both thefe laws, of the former as much as of the latter, is modified and varied by customs, conventions, character, and fituation. With a view to thefe principles, the writers on general jurifprudence have confidered ftates as moral perfons; a mode of expreffion which has been called a fiction of law, but which *This remark is fuggefted by an objection of Vattel, which is more fpecious than folid.-See his Prelim. § 6. may may be regarded with more propriety as a bold metaphor, used to convey the important truth, that nations, though they acknowledge no common fuperior, and neither can nor ought to be fubjected to human punishment, are yet under the fame obligations mutually to practife honesty and humanity, which would have bound individuals, even if they could be conceived ever to have fubfifted without the protecting reftraints of government; if they were not compelled to the discharge of their duty by the just authority of magiftrates, and by the wholefome terrors of the laws. With the fame views this law has been ftyled, and (notwithstanding the objections of fome writers to the vagueness of the language) appears to have been styled with great propriety," the law of nature." It may with fufficient correctnefs, or at least by an easy metaphor, be called a "law," inafmuch as it is a fupreme, invariable, and uncontrollable rule of conduct to all men, of which the violation is avenged by natural punishments, which neceffarily flow from the conftitution of things, and are as fixed and inevitable as the order of nature. It is "the law of nature," because its general precepts are effentially adapted to promote the happinefs of man, as long as he remains a being of the fame nature with which he is at present endowed, or, in other words, as long as he continues to be man, in all the variety of times, places, and (9) and circumstances, in which he has been known, or can be imagined to exist; because it is difcoverable by natural reason, and fuitable to our natural constitution; because its fitnefs and wisdom are founded on the general nature of human beings, and not on any of thofe temporary and accidental fituations in which they may be placed. It is with still more propriety, and indeed with the highest ftrictness, and the most perfect accuracy,' confidered as a law, when, according to those just and magnificent views which philofophy and reli-' gion open to us of the government of the world, it is received and reverenced as the facred code, promulgated by the great Legiflator of the univerfe for the guidance of his creatures to happiness, guarded and enforced, as our own experience may inform us, by the penal fanctions of fhame, of remorfe, of infamy, and of mifery; and ftill farther enforced by the reasonable expectation of yet more awful penalties in a future and more permanent ftate of exiftence. It is the contemplation of the law of nature under this full, mature, and perfect idea of its high origin and tranfcendent dignity, that called forth the enthusiasm of the greatest men, and the greatest writers of ancient and modern times, in thofe fublime defcriptions, where they have exhaufted all the powers of language, and furpaffed all the other exertions, even of their own eloquence, in the |