men united together,” it is plain that, if there be such a thing as the “law of nature, which men as individuals are bound to obey, that law is also obligatory on the “societies” made up of men thus “united.”
Hobbes divides the law of nature into that of man and that of States, saying, “The maxims of each of these laws are precisely the same; but as States, once established, assume personal properties, that which is termed the natural law when we speak of the duties of individuals is called the law of nations when applied to whole nations or States.” The Emperor Justinian said, “The law of nations is common to the whole human race.”
Grotius draws the distinction between the law of nature and the law of nations thus: “When several persons at different times and in various places maintain the same thing as certain, such coincidence of sentiment must be attributed to some general cause. Now, in the questions before us, that cause must necessarily be one or the other of these two—either a just consequence drawn from natural principles, or a universal consent; the former discovers to us the law of nature, and the latter the law of nations.”
Vattel defines the “necessary law of nations” to be the “application of the law of nature to nations.” He says: “It is ‘necessary,’ because nations are absolutely bound to observe it. This law contains the precepts prescribed by the law of nature to States, on whom that law is not less obligatory than on individuals; since States are composed of men, their resolutions are taken by men, and the law of nations is binding on all men, under whatever relation they act. This is the law which Grotius, and those who follow him, call the Internal Law of Nations, on account of its being obligatory on nations in the point of conscience.”
Vattel says again: “Nations being composed of men naturally free and independent, and who before the establishment of
