250 HISTORY OF LAW 



administered pure equity cannot be doubted. The anomaly of the 

 situation was in his pretending that he was discovering and adminis- 

 tering jus gentium. 



From the conception of a jus gentium it was easy to make the 

 philosophical deduction of a natural law, that is, a collection of 

 Natural l aws an d principles which did prevail among men living 

 Law. together in a natural state free from the technical re- 



straints of the Roman law. And again, it was an easy step to assume 

 for the natural law some moral obligation, and that all laws, even the 

 laws of Rome, ought to conform to it as nearly as possible. 



In this development of the theoretical conception of a law of 

 nature from the practical assumption of a jus gentium, the Roman 

 Stoic Philo- jurist seems to have been guided or at least assisted 

 sophy. by the prevalent Stoic philosophy which originated in 



Greece with Zeno about B. c. 308, and was the favorite philosophy 

 of men of learning and culture prior to the general acceptance of 

 the Christian religion. The fundamental conception of the Stoic 

 seems to have been that underlying all facts and occurrences is 

 some reasonable explanation, and that by accommodating himself to 

 the natural order of things the human being best adjusts himself 

 to his surroundings, and most easily obtains the desirable condition 

 of contentment and satisfaction. That there should be some such 

 reasonable order and connection at the foundation of social phe- 

 nomena, serving as a basis for jurisprudence so far as discoverable, 

 is an assumption which does not appear to us in modern times as 

 extravagant; and while the Stoic philosophy as a matter of fact 

 explains nothing, it does represent a view which great numbers of 

 intelligent people still take as to their relations with nature and 

 their fellows. 



When the theory of a natural law as a basis for a system of juris- 

 prudence passed from the phase of explanation to that of obligations, 

 Conse- it started upon a career that has been accompanied 



quences of w jth many illogical and harmful views. To say that the 

 tion of Na- positive law ought to conform to some so-called natural 

 tural Law. standard is revolutionary, for the simple reason that 

 there is no means of ascertaining any such standard. What is 

 naturally right must necessarily vary with the conceptions enter- 

 tained by each school or faction or individual. And to say that a law 

 or principle of law is wrong and should not be obeyed or recognized 

 because it does not conform to some such assumed standard is to 

 introduce the same kind of confusion between law and morality 

 which existed before there was any differentiation of jurisprudence 

 from religion. As a philosophical assumption the law of nature is 

 harmless, for any school or collection of individuals may agree as they 

 see fit upon an explanation of social phenomena, though it is a little 



