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JOURNAL OF THE PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 
the middle ages, might be divided into three periods ; 1 st, from 
Grotius to Thomasius ; 2nd, until Kant ; 3rd, from Kant to the 
present time. 
1. Grotius (1583-1645) deduced law from the rational nature 
of man showing itself in the disinterested desire for society, and 
prompting to a dissatisfaction with the natural condition of man- 
kind and the formation of a legal order of society by contract and 
stated law to be that which is recognized by the reason as in 
harmony with the social nature of man. 
Hobbes (1588-1679) considered man as a purely sensual material 
being, prompted by selfishness to abandon the natural condition of 
war and insecurity, and create a State-power superior to all, and 
absolute, and looked upon power as the source of law. 
Spinoza (1632-1677) by Pantheistic doctrine attained similar 
results. 
Pufendorf (1632-1694) considered man as rendered social by 
egotism, and deduced law from the duties of this interested 
sociableness. 
Selden, the two Cocceji, Alberti, Seckendorf, and others, opposed 
the entire naturalistic tendency, and wished to make law dependent 
in stricter or more moderate manner on religion. 
2. Thomasius (1655-1728) distinguished law and morality 
through the right of enforcing the so-called perfect legal duties, and 
the want of such right in the case of the so-called imperfect moral 
duties ; and pursued with this distinction chiefly the object of 
making the province of morals and religion independent of the 
State-power. 
Leibnitz (1646-1716) referred law, like the true and good, to the 
eternal moral order established by God, and pointed out as its aim 
the rendering perfect human society. 
Wolf (1679-1754) applied the principle of perfection in a 
more worldly fashion. 
In opposition to Montesquieu (1689-1755), who pointed out 
the relativeness of legal relations, and their dependence on the 
course of historical developement, Rousseau (1712-1778) set up, in 
the place of the princely absolutism of Hobbes, the absolutism of 
the democracy created by social contract, governed by delegates 
whose votes show the common will {volonte generate) to be dis- 
tinguished from the will of all (volonte de tous) y and which is 
uncontrolled, and can do no wrong. 
