itself to the conscience of the Nations which they represent. No human society has ever long subsisted, or ever can long subsist, without being bound together by good laws, much less the Society of Nations. It has been the signal merit of the Statesmen of Europe, who have had charge of the international interests of their respective States during the last half century, that they have agreed to modify the customary Law of Nations from time to time so as to adapt it to the enlightened demands of an advancing civilisation. The consequence has been, that, however indeterminate in a certain sense are the rules of that Law, it is a Law of the Living, and not of the Dead, and whilst there will always be much question about the details of its application its flexibility as customary law will always preserve it from becoming obsolete. Meanwhile, those who by genius and study are capable of mastering its principles, and of applying them with discernment to the maintenance of a sound public opinion, where questions of Right and Wrong are at issue between Independent States, are in substance although not in form the true law-givers of Nations in this respect. They can however claim no supreme authority for themselves, but must rest satisfied with commending their views of international obligation to the reason of Statesmen, and to the conscience of mankind at large.'[1]
About three hundred years before these words were written, thirty-one years before the great work of Grotius was published, and in a year intermediate between the first and the more important of the books on War written by Gentilis, Grotius’s precursor, the essential foundations of a true Law of Nations were made clear by one of the greatest and most representative of Englishmen–Richard Hooker. There is a law, he said, which concerns men as individuals. There is, secondly, a law
- ↑ Travers Twiss, The Law of Nations … in Time of Peace, new ed., 1884, pp. xlii-xliii.
