Page:Supplement to the fourth, fifth, and sixth editions of the Encyclopaedia Britannica - with preliminary dissertations on the history of the sciences - illustrated by engravings (IA gri 33125011196181).pdf/195

Rh marks on this subject, scattered over the following commentary, the reader will find arranged in due order in my twelfth Preliminary Dissertation, the chief design of which is to systematize the whole Roman law, and to demonstrate its beautiful coincidence with the Law of Nature.” In the execution of this design, Cocceii must, I think, be allowed to have contributed a very useful supplement to the jurisprudential labours of Grotius, the Dissertation in question being eminently distinguished by that distinct and luminous method, the want of which renders the study of the treatise de Jure Belli et Pacis so peculiarly irksome and unsatisfactory.

The superstitious veneration for the Roman code expressed by such writers as the Cocceii, will appear less wonderful, when we attend to the influence of the same prejudice on the liberal and philosophical mind of Leibnitz; an author, who has not only gone so far as to compare the civil law (considered as a monument of human genius) with the remains of the ancient Greek geometry; but has strongly intimated his dissent from the opinions of those who have represented its principles as being frequently at variance with the Law of Nature. In one very powerful paragraph, he expresses himself thus: “I have often said, that, after the writings of geometricians, there exists nothing which, in point of strength, subtilty, and depth, can be compared to the works of the Roman lawyers. And as it would be scarcely possible, from mere intrinsic evidence, to distinguish a demonstration of Euclid’s from one of Archimedes or of Appollonius (the style of all of them appearing no less uniform than if reason herself were speaking through their organs,) so also the Roman lawyers all resemble each other like twin-brothers; insomuch that, from the style alone of any particular opinion or argument, hardly any conjecture could be formed about its author. Nor are the traces of a refined and deeply meditated system of Natural Jurisprudence anywhere to be found more visible, or in greater abundance. And even in those cases where its principles are departed from, either in compliance with the language consecrated by technical forms, or in consequence of new statutes, or of ancient traditions, the conclusions which the assumed hypothesis renders it necessary to incorporate with the eternal dictates of right reason, are deduced with the soundest logic, and with an ingenuity that excites admiration. Nor are these deviations from the Law of Nature so frequent as is commonly apprehended.”

In the last sentence of this passage, Leibnitz had probably an eye to the works of Grotius and his followers; which, however narrow and timid in their views they may now appear, were, for a long time, regarded among civilians as savouring somewhat of theoretical innovation, and of political heresy.

To all this may be added, as a defect still more important and radical in the systems of