"Dicitur ergo humana lex quia proximè ab hominibus inventa et posita est. Dico autem proximè, quia primordialiter omnis lex humana derivatur aliquo modo à lege eterna."-SUAREZ, De legibus et Deo Legislatore, L. I. c. iii. § 17. OF THE LAW OF NATIONS A TREATISE OF THE JURAL RELATIONS OF SEPARATE BY JAMES LORIMER, LL.D. ADVOCATE, REGIUS PROFESSOR OF PUBLIC LAW AND OF THE LAW OF NATURE AND OF INTERNATIONAL LAW, CORRESPONDING MEMBER OF THE ACADEMY OF JURISPRUDENCE OF MADRID, ETC. IN TWO VOLUMES VOL. II. WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS EDINBURGH AND LONDON MDCCCLXXXIV All Rights reserved PREFATORY NOTE. THOUGH I have every reason to thank the Press and the Public for the indulgent reception which has been accorded to the previous volume of this work, no criticism of its contents has come under my notice which seems to call for any special reply. In one of the latest reviews of it, the writer, speaking in the name of English jurists, says, "If he," the author, "could convert us to his own sturdy belief in the Law of Nature, we should feel that he had swept away half the difficulties of the subject." I more than reciprocate his sentiment, because to me it is obvious that, apart from Natural Law, all true knowledge of anything is not only difficult but impossible. Nature is the goal of science, in jurisprudence as in every other department of inquiry; and the jurist who does not believe that the human relations are governed by laws that have a deeper 1 Academy, January 12, 1884. b |