3
Juristic Literature: Development of International
Understandings as 'Law'
This is a subject of great importance for the student of history. It shows a growth of principles and an accumulation of precedents that have resulted from the clash of interests, the sway of reason, and grinding necessity. Historically viewed, it resolves itself very largely into a study of compacts and of conventional morality.
1 (a). Wheaton (Henry), History of the Law of Nations in Europe and America; from the earliest times to the Treaty of Washington, 1842 (New York, 1845), pp. xiv + 797.
This work was originally written and published in French as a Mémoire in answer to a prize question, submitted for the year 1839, by the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences of the Institute of France: 'Quels sont les progrès qu'a fait le droit des gens en Europe depuis la Paix de Westphalie?' In rendering the work into English, the author made considerable extensions and additions, especially in the introductory part which treats of the history of the European law of nations before the Peace of Westphalia.[1]
- ↑ Only one edition of the work in English was published, and the volume is now rare. Several editions were published in French—the date of the fourth being 1865 (Leipzig, 1865, 2 vols., pp. x + 403, and pp. vi + 410). A useful article on Wheaton's History was written by Nassau Senior for the Edinburgh Review, April 1843, reprinted in his Historical and Philosophical Essays (1865), i. 138–275. It contains some notes of dissent from Wheaton.
