etimes rather encumbers than adorns his work, and which is not always
necessary to the illustration of his subject. Yet, even in making that
concession, I should rather yield to the taste of others than speak from
my own feelings. I own that such richness and splendour of literature
have a powerful charm for me. They fill my mind with an endless variety
of delightful recollections and associations. They relieve the
understanding in its progress through a vast science, by calling up the
memory of great men and of interesting events. By this means we see the
truths of morality clothed with all the eloquence (not that could be
produced by the powers of one man, but) that could be bestowed on them
by the collective genius of the world. Even Virtue and Wisdom themselves
acquire new majesty in my eyes, when I thus see all the great masters of
thinking and writing called together, as it were, from all times and
countries, to do them homage, and to appear in their train.

But this is no place for discussions of taste, and I am very ready to
own that mine may be corrupted. The work of Grotius is liable to a more
serious objection, though I do not recollect that it has ever been made.
His method is inconvenient and unscientific. He has inverted the natural
order. That natural order undoubtedly dictates, that we should first
search for the original principles of the science in human nature; then
apply them to the regulation of the conduct of individuals, and lastly,
employ them for the decision of those difficult and complicated
questions that arise with respect to the intercourse of nations. But
Grotius has chosen the reverse of this method. He begins with the
consideration of the states of peace and war, and he examines original
principles only occasionally and incidentally as they grow out of the
questions which he is called upon to decide. It is a necessary
consequence of this disorderly method, which exhibits the elements of
the science in the form of scattered digressions, that he seldom employs
sufficient discussion on these fundamental truths, and never in the
place where such a discussion would be most instructive to the reader.

This defect in the plan of Grotius was perceived, and supplied, by
Puffendorff, who restored natural law to that superiority which belonged
to it, and with great propriety treated the law of nations as only one
main branch of the parent stock. Without the genius of his master, and
with very infer