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140 of those miscellaneous speculations on political, ethical, and historical subjects, which form so large a portion of his Treatise, and which so frequently succeed each other without any apparent connection or common aim.

Nor do the views of Grotius appear always enlarged or just, even when he is pointing at the object described by Mr Smith. The Roman system of Jurisprudence seems to have warped, in no inconsiderable degree, his notions on all questions connected with the theory of legislation, and to have diverted his attention from that philosophical idea of law, so well expressed by Cicero,—“” In this idolatry, indeed, of the Roman law, he has not gone so far as some of his commentators, who have affirmed, that it is only a different name for the Law of Nature; but that his partiality for his professional pursuits has often led him to overlook the immense difference between the state of society in ancient and modern Europe, will not, I believe, be now disputed. lt must, at the same time, be mentioned to his praise, that no writer appears to have been, in theory, more completely aware of the essential distinction between Natural and Municipal laws. In one of the paragraphs of his Prolegomena, he mentions it as a part of his general plan, to illustrate the Roman code, and to systematize those parts of it which have their origin in the Law of Nature. “The task,” says he, “of moulding it into the form of a system, has been projected by many, but hitherto accomplished by none. Nor indeed was the thing possible, while so little attention was paid to the distinction between natural and positive institutions; for the former being everywhere the same, may be easily traced to a few general principles, while the latter, exhibiting different appearances at different times, and in different places, elude every attempt towards methodical arrangement, no less than the insulated facts which individual objects present to our external senses.”

This passage of Grotius has given great offence to two of the most eminent of his commentators, Henry and Samuel de Cocceii, who have laboured much to vindicate the Roman legislators against that indirect censure which the words of Grotius appear to convey. “My chief object,” says the latter of those writers, “was, by deducing the Roman law from its source in the nature of things, to reconcile Natural Jurisprudence with the civil code; and, at the same time, to correct the supposition implied in the foregoing passage of Grotius, which is indeed one of the most exceptionable to be found in his work. The re-