f degradation, to apply the
law of the particular State from which the foreign litigant came. The
expedient to which they resorted was that of selecting the rules of
law common to Rome and to the different Italian communities in which
the immigrants were born. In other words, they set themselves to form
a system answering to the primitive and literal meaning of Jus
Gentium, that is, Law common to all Nations. Jus Gentium was, in fact,
the sum of the common ingredients in the customs of the old Italian
tribes, for they were _all the nations_ whom the Romans had the means
of observing, and who sent successive swarms of immigrants to Roman
soil. Whenever a particular usage was seen to be practised by a large
number of separate races in common it was set down as part of the Law
common to all Nations, or Jus Gentium. Thus, although the conveyance
of property was certainly accompanied by very different forms in the
different commonwealths surrounding Rome, the actual transfer,
tradition, or delivery of the article intended to be conveyed was a
part of the ceremonial in all of them. It was, for instance, a part,
though a subordinate part, in the Mancipation or conveyance peculiar
to Rome. Tradition, therefore, being in all probability the only
common ingredient in the modes of conveyance which the jurisconsults
had the means of observing, was set down as an institution Juris
Gentium, or rule of the Law common to all Nations. A vast number of
other observances were scrutinised with the same result. Some common
characteristic was discovered in all of them, which had a common
object, and this characteristic was classed in the Jus Gentium. The
Jus Gentium was accordingly a collection of rules and principles,
determined by observation to be common to the institutions which
prevailed among the various Italian tribes.

The circumstances of the origin of the Jus Gentium are probably a
sufficient safeguard against the mistake of supposing that the Roman
lawyers had any special respect for it. It was the fruit in part of
their disdain for all foreign law, and in part of their disinclination
to give the foreigner the advantage of their own indigenous Jus
Civile. It is true that we, at the present day, should probably take a
very different view of the Jus Gentium, if we were performing the
operation which was effected by the Roman jurisconsults. We should
attach some vague superiority or precedence to the element which we
had thus discer