Years War in 1648, may be added as another instance of how Grotius had brought in a new epoch in international affairs, for it contained principles which he had been the first to bring into the thought of the world. Nevertheless, the immediate influence of Grotius' book was not so great as the lasting service he rendered in laying the foundation of a new science of International Law, on which succeeding generations slowly built up and strengthened the sense of morality between nations. There is still very much to be added; and new problems and new conditions require new plans and new designs. But the foundation was well laid and can never be shifted.
The book was criticized by some who declared that it was just a shapeless collection of quotations, and that the argument was lost under the mass of extracts from other authorities. It is true that its arrangement and style were rather heavy and clumsy, and there is much in the book that may appear to us, three hundred years afterwards, as rather crude, but attack has come for the most part from those who are quite unable to understand the high ideal toward which Grotius was reaching out. A prominent English international jurist, Sir James Mackintosh, has declared that this great work "is perhaps the most complete that the world has yet owed, at so early a stage in the progress of any science, to the genius and learning of one man."
Now, I must give you some account of the life of
