[8. B. DAWSON] THE LINES OF DEMARCATION 471 



not exist before Grotius, or that he originated its principles. The most 

 cursory ghance at his great work, De Jure Belli, will show that all his 

 illustrations were drawn from Greek, Eoman and Jewish history, and it 

 will be found, on perusal, that his principles are derived from natural 

 law or the law of nature as laid down by the Roman lawyers, upon the 

 Roman civil law as found in the Corpus Juris, upon the works of the 

 more philosophical of the Christian Fathers, upon the Synodieal Canons 

 recorded in ecclesiastical history and upon the Divine law as revealed 

 in the Bible. Gïotius does not, himself, pretend to anything else. He 

 was born in 1583, ninety years after the discovery of America, and to 

 attempt therefore, to pass judgment on the Bull of 1493 in the light of 

 our present notions, is an absurd anachronism. Grotius goes further, 

 and, while justly claiming the merit of his work, refers to authors who 

 had preceded him who, as he says, were "partly Divines and partly 

 Doctors of Law." If, therefore, we put aside the conventional law or 

 treaty law of nations, it will be seen that modern international law is 

 founded on the Roman law and on the Canon law, which latter was 

 carried over all Europe by the Roman Church ; for even in England up 

 to the time of Edward III. the Lord Chancellor was always an ecclesi- 

 astic. In commenting on this point. Sir Henry Maine observes^ that ''^it 

 " is astonishing how small a proportion the additions made to inter- 

 " national law since Grotius's day bear to the ingredients which have 

 " been simply taken from the most ancient stratum of the Roman 

 " Jus Gentium.''' This Jus Gentium is the law of nature applicable to 

 all himian beings, and therefore to nations collectively, and is elo- 

 quently said by Cicero- to be "That law which was neither a thing con- 

 •' trived by the genius of man, nor established by any decree of the 

 " people ; but a certain eternal principle, which governs the entire 

 "' universe, wisely commanding what is right and prohibiting what is 

 " wrong .... Therefore, the true and supreme law, whose commands and 

 " prohibitions are equally authoritative, is the right reason of the 

 " Sovereign Jupiter." 



These things being so, it is somewhat flippant for the London 

 Times to characterize the citation of the Bull of 1493, in the Venezuela 

 dispute, as "comical" or "absurd." It was good law pro tanto, for 

 where else was there, at that time, a court so competent, by learning or 

 tradition, to decide questions which, in their essence, depended on the 

 Roman or Canon law as the Court of Rome ? Nor could there, a priori, 

 bo conceived one more likely to be impartial ; for the Pope had no 

 sailors through whom he could discover and claim for himself new 

 lauds. Flings at the private character of Alex^ander Vi. are only pre- 

 texts for avoiding argument. We have to do with him in this paper 



