HILL— WORLD ORGANIZATION. 323 



tianity. Before its existence there were, indeed, certain generally ac- 

 cepted juristic principles, derived from the experience of right and 

 wrong in the conduct of neighboring peoples; and an important con- 

 tribution to the clearer apprehension of them was made by the Stoic 

 philosophy, which was itself a fertile source of elementary legal 

 conceptions. But it was the sense of a wider community, inspired 

 by the possession of a common religious faith, involving ideas of 

 duty, fidelity and honor, that eventually made possible a nearer ap- 

 proach than had ever before been made to the idea of an actual so- 

 ciety of nations — a " Christendom," in which all races of men were, 

 or might become, participants. 



The Society of States as Defined by Suarez. 



Looking, as Christian princes did, to a common .divine source of 

 their authority, this feeling of community had in a certain degree long 

 existed before its natural grounds were distinctly formulated. This 

 was first done in the sixteenth century, in a passage of remark- 

 able clearness and depth of insight, by the Portuguese theologian, 

 Franciscus Suarez, who wrote : 



" The human race, however divided into various peoples and kingdoms, 

 has always not only its unity as a species but also a certain moral and quasi- 

 political unity, pointed out by the natural precepts of mutual love and pity, 

 which extends to all, even to foreigners of any nation. Wherefore, although 

 every perfect state, whether a republic or a kingdom, is in itself a perfect 

 community composed of its own members, still each such state, viewed in 

 relation to the human race, is in some measure a member of that universal 

 unity. For those communities are never singly so self-sufficing but that they 

 stand in need of some mutual aid, society, and communion, sometimes for 

 the improvement of their condition and their greater convenience, but some- 

 times also for their moral necessity and need, as appears by experience. For 

 that reason, they are in need of some law by which they may be directed and 

 rightly ordered in that kind of communion and society. And, although this 

 is to a great extent supplied by natural reason, yet it is not so supplied suffi- 

 ciently and immediately for all purposes; and, therefore, it has been possible 

 for particular laws to be introduced by the practice of those nations. For 

 just as custom introduced law in a state or province, so it was possible for 

 laws to be introduced in the whole human race by the habitual conduct of 

 nations." 



