APPENDIX TO PARI FIRST. 17 



men, of whom tliey are composed. When, therefore, we would apply to 

 nations the duties which the law of nature prescribes to individual 

 man, and the rights it confers on him in order to enable him to fulfill 

 his duties, since those rights and those duties can be no other than 

 what are consistent with the nature of their subjects, they must, in 

 their application, necessarily undergo a change .suitable to the new sub- 

 jects to which they are applied. Thus, we see that the law of nations 

 does not, in every particular, remain the same as the law of nature, 

 regulating the actions of individuals. Why may it not, therefore, be 

 separately treated of as a law peculiar to nations? 



[From "Des Droits et ties Devoirs des Nations Neutres en Temps de Guerre Mari- 

 time," par L. B. Hautefeuille, 1848, vol. I, pages 46, 12 et aeq. Translation.] 



He (God) has given to nations and to those who govern them a law 

 which they are to observe towards each other, an unwritten law, it is 

 true, but a law which He has taken care to engrave in indelible char- 

 acters in the heart of every man, a law which causes every human 

 being to distinguish what is true from what is false, what is just from 

 what is unjust, and what is beautiful from what is not beautiful. It is 

 the divine or natural law: it constitutes what I shall call primitive 

 law. 



This law is the only basis and the only source of international law. 

 By going back to it, and by carefully studying it, we may succeed in 

 retracing the rights of nations with accuracy. Every other way leads 

 infallibly to error, to grave, nay, deplorable error, since its immediate 

 result is to blind nations and their rulers, to lead them to misunder- 

 stand their duties, to violate them, and too often to shed torrents of hu- 

 man blood in order to uphold unjust pretensions. The divine law is not 

 written, it has never been formulated in any human language, it has 

 never been promulgated by any legislator; in fact, this has never been 

 possible, because such legislator, being man and belonging to a nation, 

 was from that very fact without any authority over other nations, and 

 had no power to dictate laws to them. 



This lack of a positive text has led some publicists to deny the 

 existence of the natural law, and to reject its application. They have 

 based their action in so doing more particularly upon the different way 

 in which each individual interprets that law, according as his organiza- 

 tion is more or less perfect, more or less powerful, if I may thus express 

 myself; hence, it results that this law is different for each individual 

 and for each nation, that is to say, that it does not exist. One of these 

 writers, in support of his denial of the natural law, lays down the prin- 

 ciple that man brings nothing with him into this world except feelings 

 of pain or pleasure, and inclinations that seek to be satisfied, which can 

 never be entitled to the name of laws, since they vary according to the 

 organization of each individual, because they are by no means the same 

 among all nations and in all climates. 1 



These opinions would perhaps have some appearance of reason if the 

 natural law were represented as a written system of legislation or as a 

 complete code similar to those which govern human society and the 

 members who compose it. Then it might be said with Moser: "What 



1 What is natural in man is his feelings of pain or pleasure, his ineliuations ; but to 

 callthese feelings and ineliuations laws, is to introduce a false and dangerous view 

 and to put language in contradiction with itself, for laws must be made for the very 

 purpose of repressing these inclinations. * * * (Jeremy lientham, False Manner 

 of Koasoniug iu Matters of Legislation.) 

 14749 2 



