now more popularly centered upon him, and especially did his native country hasten to make tardy amends for the oblivion into which one of the purest glories of its history had been allowed to fall. 5 This newly aroused interest, however, should by no means be permitted to be local, for Suarez should be universally recognized as one of the truly great founders of international law, second perhaps only to the great Grotius, if indeed to him. In fact, there is little or nothing new in Grotius's general treatment of his subject; his system is fundamentally identical with the ideas outlined by Suarez. It is true that Grotius advanced far beyond all his predecessors in the detailed elaboration of his principles, but the fact nevertheless remains that "Suarez has put on record with a master's hand the existence of a necessary human society transcending the boundaries of states, the indispensableness of rules for that society, the insufficiency of reason to provide with demonstrative force all the rules required, and the right of human society to supply the deficiency by custom enforced as law, such custom being suitable to nature."' And therefore "it is rather remarkable," as Ward notes, "that in his survey of the writers who preceded him, he [Grotius] makes no mention of Suarez, the clearest of all those who had attempted to discuss the law of nature, and the difference between it and the Law of Nations,"" although it is true that Grotius elsewheres recognizes in him one of the greatest theologians and a profound philosopher. Francisco Suarez was born at Granada on January 5, 1548, not quite a year and a half after the death of that other scholastic glory of Spain, Franciscus de Victoria. In 1564 he entered the Society of Jesus at Salamanca, where he studied philosophy and theology from 1565 to 1570. Ordained to the priesthood in 1572, he taught successively and most successfully at Avila, Segovia, Valladolid, Rome (1580-1585), Alcalá (1585-1592), Salamanca (1592-1597), and finally Coimbra (1597-1616). He died on September 25, 1617, but in the short space of twenty-three years (1590-1613), he wrote and published twelve extensive and important works on theological and 4 Cf. Thomas Alfred Walker, "A History of the Law of Nations" (Cambridge, 1899), Vol. I, p. 330. 5 Cf. ibid., p. 156. 6 John Westlake, "Chapters on the Principles of International Law" (Cambridge, 1894), pp. 27-28. 7 Ward, op. cit., Vol. II, p. 614. 8 Hugo Grotius, Ep. 154, J. Cordesio. philosophical questions, as well as composed seven other works published posthumously, the last at late as 1859. Although there is much of interest from the point of view of international law in the other works of Suarez, such as his De bello" which constitutes Disputation XIII of the posthumous treatise De charitate, his complete legal system is to be found in the De legibus ac Deo legislatore, published in 1612 (five years before the author's death) at Coimbra, where he held the chair of theology in the university. The work is divided into ten books, of which only the first appears in this volume, and, as the publishers say, for the first time in Spanish. It is presumed that the other nine books are to follow. An idea of the comprehensiveness of the entire work may be gleaned from the following titles of the ten books: Book Book I-On law in general, its nature, causes and effects. Book Book VIII-On favorable human law, or that which grants privilege. Book The translation of the book appearing in the present volume was begun on January 17, 1918; the printing was begun on April 1, 1918, and the volume issued from the press the latter part of September of the same year. The rapidity of preparation and execution may possibly account in some measure for such minor defects as will be noted below, but on the whole the book leaves little to be desired. A brief but interesting preface from the facile pen of Don Rafael Conde y Luque, Associate of the Institut de Droit International, Rector and Professor of International Law at the Universidad Central de España, is followed by some important remarks and bio-bibliographical notes of the translator. In his remarks the translator indicates two possible systems of translation: first, a free translation of the idea in good stylistic vernacular, and second, as literal a translation as is consistent with 9 This work and relevant portions of the De legibus will appear in text and English translation in the Classics of International Law. grammatical correctness of vernacular. After weighing the advantages and disadvantages of both systems, he inclines-and we think very wisely so-to the second method as the ideal for works of a "rigorously scientific character," such as the present work, although not for works of a purely literary character. He tells us that he has already tested the second method in his translation of Franciscus de Victoria, but that Suarez presents additional difficulties because of his more obscure style and the highly technical language which accompanies his profound reasoning. Consequently, it may be necessary for the reader to go over some passages two or three times before securing a proper understanding. "I have undertaken," he says, "to write for savants and students, surely not for the curious; and so I have preferred to hide my shortcomings behind the rough scholastic forms of the great master to running the risk of having the reader distrust the fidelity of my translation, which is desirable in this class of works above all other embellishments and above first clearness, that is, the clearness of the first reading or at first sight." The edition translated is that printed at Naples in 1872, although it might have been wiser to have selected as the basis of translation the last edition known to have come under the scrutiny of the author, with the correction of only the manifest errors. The motive of the translator, however, may have been to select a good modern edition fairly accessible to the prospective readers of his translation. For the purpose of facilitating the proof of the translator's accuracy, the number of the page and column of the corresponding part of the original text is inserted in the upper left hand corner of each page of the present volume. As a test of the accuracy of the translation, the reviewer carefully checked up the first twenty pages, word for word, with the Latin text as published at Mainz in 1619, and is happy to state that he found the translation extremely smooth and intelligible and noticed no error of importance.10 Several omissions have been noticed throughout the book-for example, on pp. 2, 16, 17, 32 and 151-but this may be in keeping with a statement in the Preface, that "in 10 In the last line on p. 3, it might be more in keeping with the spirit of the syllogistic argument to have pero in place of y. On p. 15, in the quotation from Romans, ch. ii, v. 13, the translation for the word justificabuntur is missing. On the bottom of p. 16, there is a slightly twisted translation of a sentence which would appear in English somewhat as follows: "The rules of correct speech are wont to be called laws of grammar," etc. On p. 19, line 19, naturalmente should be moralmente. Eight lines farther on, y should be deleted. translating the language and dialogue, the text has been relieved of many paraphrases and redundancies which obscure the thought and embarrass the course of the argument." This procedure, however, has little to commend it, and is subject to very serious criticism. Because of the abundant citations found in Suarez, due to his erudition in matters juridical, patristic, historical, bibliographical, theological and philosophical, it had been the translator's original intention to give a bio-bibliographical account of each author cited and to run down references to the canon and civil law texts, as well as to explain scholastic phrases and terminology. But he soon learned that this would have required four or five additional volumes for the entire De legibus, and so the last half of the book contains very few notes of any kind. However, there still remains in the first part a valuable list of commentators on the various parts of the Corpus Iuris Canonici, besides good accounts of Plato, Aristotle, Clement of Alexandria, St. John Chrysostom, St. Augustine, Isidore of Seville, Peter Lombard, St. Thomas Aquinas, Cajetan, Alexander of Hales and Juan de Torquemada. Citations in the text are, as a rule, left in Latin, as most of the Latin works cited have not been translated, and many are not likely to be for some time to come. There does not seem to be any attempt at uniformity of abbreviation of citations. The Digest is sometimes cited as such, sometimes by the well-known ff., and there are three different addreviations for the Institutes. The various titles of the Corpus are likewise variously abbreviated. As suggested above, the hurriedness in printing the book was probably responsible in large measure for the numerous misprints and the great confusion in the orthography of Latin words which correspond to similar Spanish words.11 11 The most important misprints noted are the following: 1691-92 for 1601-02 and 1691-93 for 1601-03 (p. xliv), 1659 for 1859 (p. li), Crescomium for Cresconium, gestione for gestis (p. 23), Beviculus for Breviculus (p. 24), Caterias for Categorias, Toscorum for Stoicorum, Sylbug for Sylburg (p. 26), Heilberg for Heidelberg, Herbetus for Hervetus, Wutzburgo for Wurzburgo, Klolt for Klotz, Pentatenchi for Pentateuchi, virtutuum for virtutum (p. 27), Batone for Botone (p. 46), Liguano for Lignano, Aucarano for Ancarano (p. 47), Perisiense for Parisiense (p. 89), and Panarmitano for Panormitano (p. 182). The frequency with which Latin words are misspelled may be judged from the following list: ommnibus, Defenssio, inteligentia, mendatium, mayor, Accademicae, amititia, Lelius, juditia and comentaria. Several instances of incorrect division of Latin words at the ends of lines are to be found, e. g., quaes-tiones, appellationes. With regard to the typographical appearance, the book is, on the whole, very attractive. The frontispiece, however, does not seem to be commensurate with the standard demanded by the subject, the author, or the series. The summary at the beginning of each chapter is very useful, but its repetition in the Table of Contents or "Indice" not only seems needless, but is destructive of the very purpose of such a table by expanding into nine pages what could and should appear in two. Moreover, space could have been saved, which seems to be badly needed in the latter part of the book, where we find chapters beginning in the middle of pages (e.g., pp. 203, 207 and 279) instead of beginning new pages as in the first part of the book. All of these defects can easily be remedied in future volumes of the series. The publishers, the sponsor and the translator are to be earnestly congratulated on this auspicious beginning, and if the present volume may be taken as an augur for the future, they may rest assured of the success of their undertaking. The book should lend new zest to those who are interested in the scholastic jurists; those who are not yet interested in those pioneers of pioneers would surely be attracted by the inspiring preface, and "they would doubtless be surprised by the following declaration of an humble religious, submitting to the precept of blind obedience: 'Before all I can affirm, as I shall always affirm, that my one ambition, which I have endeavored to realize without flinching in the face of any labor or effort, has always been to know and to make known the truth and nothing but the truth. A partisan spirit has never inspired, and never will inspire, any of my opinions. I have never sought anything more than the truth, and I desire that those who read my books should seek it in their turn.' 12 HERBERT F. WRIGHT. 12 Francisco Suarez, De Verbo Incarnato, quoted in the Preface, p. xxiii. |