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136 tion in that seat of learning, which, not many years afterwards, was to give birth to the Theory of Moral Sentiments, and to the Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. The powerful effect which the last of these works has produced on the political opinions of the whole civilized world, renders it unnecessary, in a Discourse destined to form part of a Scotish Encyclopædia, to offer any apology for attempting to trace, with some minuteness, the train of thought by which an undertaking, so highly honourable to the literary character of our country, seems to have been suggested to the author.

The extravagance of the praise lavished on Grotius and Puffendorff, in the above citation from Carmichael, can be accounted for only by the degraded state into which Ethics had fallen in the hands of those who were led to the study of it, either as a preparation for the casuistical discussions subservient to the practice of auricular confession, or to justify a scheme of morality which recommended the useless austerities of an ascetic retirement, in preference to the manly duties of social life. The practical doctrines inculcated by the writers on Natural Law, were all of them favourable to active virtue; and, how reprehensible soever In point of form, were not only harmless, but highly beneficial in their tendency. They were at the same time so diversified (particularly in the work of Grotius) with beautiful quotations from the Greek and Roman classics, that they could not fail to present a striking contrast to the absurd and illiberal systems which they supplanted; and perhaps to these passages, to which they thus gave a sort of systematical connection, the progress which the science made in the course of the eighteenth century, may, in no inconsiderable degree, be ascribed. Even now, when so very different a taste prevails, the treatise de Jure Belli et Pacis possesses many charms to a classical reader; who, although he may not always set a very high value on the author’s reasonings, must at least be dazzled and delighted with the splendid profusion of lis learning.

The field of Natural Jurisprudence, however, was not long to remain circumscribed within the narrow limits commonly assigned to the province of Ethics. The contrast between natural law and positive institution, which it constantly presents to the mind, gradually and insensibly suggested the idea of comprehending under it every question concerning right and wrong, on which positive law is silent. Hence the origin of two different departments of Jurisprudence, little attended to by some of the first authors who treated of it, but afterwards, from their practical importance, gradually encroaching more and more on those ethical disquisitions by which they were suggested. Of these departments, the one refers to the conduct of individuals in those violent and critical moments when the bonds of political society are torn asunder; the other, to the mutual relations of independent communities. The questions connected with the former article, lie indeed within a compara- 5