pared with the tributes which are
constantly offered to the overshadowing claims of the Law of Nature.
It was not to anything resembling philanthropy, but to their sense of
simplicity and harmony--of what they significantly termed
"elegance"--that the Roman jurisconsults freely surrendered
themselves. The coincidence of their labours with those which a more
precise philosophy would have counselled has been part of the good
fortune of mankind.

Turning to the modern history of the law of nature, we find it easier
to convince ourselves of the vastness of its influence than to
pronounce confidently whether that influence has been exerted for good
or for evil. The doctrines and institutions which may be attributed to
it are the material of some of the most violent controversies debated
in our time, as will be seen when it is stated that the theory of
Natural Law is the source of almost all the special ideas as to law,
politics, and society which France during the last hundred years has
been the instrument of diffusing over the western world. The part
played by jurists in French history, and the sphere of jural
conceptions in French thought, have always been remarkably large. It
was not indeed in France, but in Italy, that the juridical science of
modern Europe took its rise, but of the schools founded by emissaries
of the Italian universities in all parts of the continent, and
attempted (though vainly) to be set up in our island, that established
in France produced the greatest effect on the fortunes of the country.
The lawyers of France immediately formed a strict alliance with the
kings of the house of Capet, and it was as much through their
assertions of royal prerogative, and through their interpretations of
the rules of feudal succession, as by the power of the sword, that the
French monarchy at last grew together out of the agglomeration of
provinces and dependencies. The enormous advantage which their
understanding with the lawyers conferred on the French kings in the
prosecution of their struggle with the great feudatories, the
aristocracy, and the church, can only be appreciated if we take into
account the ideas which prevailed in Europe far down into the middle
ages. There was, in the first place, a great enthusiasm for
generalisation and a curious admiration for all general propositions,
and consequently, in the field of law, an involuntary reverence for
every general formula which seemed to embrace and sum up a