JOIIANN KASPAR BLUNTSCHLI, 447 



Yet he never left his first political directiou so far as to become a 

 Radical. He was treated with great consideration by the King of 

 Bavaria, and his relations were friendly to the distinguished men 

 around him. Still he wanted a sphere of more practical action than 

 Bavaria could furnish. He accordingly accepted a professorship of 

 political science in the University of Heidelberg, which liubert von 

 Mohl had just resigned in order to represent tlie Grand Duchy of 

 Baden in the Reichstag. This post he filled from 18G1 to his death. 



From the time of his removal to Heidelberg onward there was a 

 new tendency given to his studies ; henceforth international law, to 

 which he had hitherto paid no great attention, absorbed his chief 

 interest. M. Alphonse Rivier, the general secretary of tlie Institut 

 de Droit International, — to whose obituary notice of Bluntschli in 

 the "Revue du Droit International" we have been very deeply 

 indebted in preparing this memoir, — speaks of him as he advanced in 

 years in terms like tiiese : " Instead of contracting himself, as so many 

 do, with the advance of age, this noble intellect developed itself inces- 

 santly in height and breadth. From the laio of Zurich he had passed 

 forward to Swiss laio^ then to German, then to law in general. 

 Henceforth international law will be his favorite stuily ; and to this 

 he will join a tendency to • vulgarization' in the elevated meaning of 

 that word [that is, the bringing of the results of his study more within 

 the reach of the common mind]. He has been reproached for this ; 

 it has been looked upon as a lowering of his talents. 1 look on it 

 rather fi'om a contrary point of view ; and when in the decline of 

 life a prince of science and of thought seeks to bring his treasures 

 within the reach of the small and of the weak, he seems to me to do 

 a work of self-denial of which a refined soul alone is capable." 



The first-fruits of this new direction in his studies was his " Moderne 

 Volkerrecht der civilisirten Staaten, als Rechtsbuch dargestellt," 

 1868, or " Modern International Law Codified." This was prefaced 

 by a letter to Dr. Lieber, whose rules of war, prepared in 18G3, and 

 entitled " Instructions for the Government of Armies of the United 

 States in the Field," he tliought very highly of, and has inserted in his 

 own woi'k as an appendix. This work of his was translated into 

 French, Spanish, and Chinese, and passed through three editions in 

 Germany between 18G8 and 1878. Being constructed in the form of 

 a code with occasional annotations, it was capable of condensation and 

 precision; but the form exposed the author occasionally to the making 

 of international rules of his own. A number of smaller works we 

 will mention here together with the years when they first came to 



