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Rh incomparable treatise of Grotius de Jure Belli et Pacis restored to more than its ancient splendour that part of it which defines the relative duties of individuals; and which, in consequence of the immense variety of cases comprehended under it, is by far the most extensive of any. Since that period, the most learned and polite scholars of Europe, as if suddenly roused by the alarm of a trumpet, have vied with each other in the prosecution of this study,—so strongly recommended to their attention, not merely by its novelty, but by the importance of its conclusions, and the dignity of its object.” The last sentence is thus expressed in the original. “” (See the edition of Puffendorff, De officio Hominis et Civis, by Professor Gerschom Carmichael of Glasgow, 1724); an author whom Dr Hutcheson pronounces to be “by far the best commentator on Puffendorff; and “whose notes,” he adds, “are of much more value than the text.” See his short Introduction to Moral Philosophy.

Puffendorff’s principal work, entitled De Jure Naturæ et Gentium, was first printed in 1672, and was afterwards abridged by the author into the small volume referred to in the foregoing paragraph. The idea of Puffendorff’s aim, formed by Mr Carmichael, coincides exactly with the account of it given in the text: “” See Carmichael’s edition of the Treatise De Officio Hominus et Civis, p. 7.

To so late a period did this admiration of the Treatise, De Officio Hominis et Civis, continue in our Scotch Universities, that the very learned and respectable Sir John Pringle (afterwards President of the Royal Society of London), adopted it as the text-book for his lectures, while he held the Professorship of Moral Philosophy at Edinburgh. Nor does the case seem to have been different in England. “I am going,” says Gray, in a letter written while a student at Cambridge, “to attend a lecture on one Puffendorff.” And, much in the same spirit, Voltaire thus expresses himself with respect to the schools of the Continent: “On est partagé, dans les écoles, entre Grotius et Puffendorff. Croyez moi, lisez les Offices de Ciceron.” From the contemptuous tone of these two writers, it should seem that the old systems of Natural Jurisprudence had entirely lost their credit among men of taste and of enlarged views, long before they ceased to form an essential part of academical instruction; thus affording an additional confirmation of Mr Smith’s complaint, that “the greater part of universities have not been very forward to adopt improvements after they were made; and that several of those learned societies have chosen to remain, for a long time, the sanctuaries in which exploded systems found shelter and protection, after they had been hunted out of every other corner of the world.” Considering his own successful exertions, in his academical capacity, to remedy this evil, it is more than probable that Mr Smith had Grotius and Puffendorff in his view, when he wrote the foregoing sentence.

I have selected this passage, in preference to many others that might be quoted to the same purpose from writers of higher name; because, in the sequel of this historical sketch, it appears to me peculiarly interesting to mark the progress of Ethical and Political specula-