§21. Hence, as some of you asked me last year to repeat the course on natural law, and to communicate to them in writing in individual points what I had previously taught to others orally about the confirmation of Pufendorf’s hypotheses, and about my observations on the little book by Pufendorf On the Duty of Man and Citizen, I then took the opportunity and began to work on the present Institutes of Divine Jurisprudence. My aim was twofold: first, after presenting the general principles of jurisprudence, to explain the controversies over Pufendorf’s hypotheses, according to the method which I thought most suitable for you, and to defend these hypotheses as if they were my own, and to show clearly in chapters on the single natural law the connection of the conclusions with the hypotheses and first practical principles, according to Pufendorf’s opinion and rarely according to my own, and so to give you some introduction to reading the well-developed and learned work by this illustrious man Of the Law of
[print edition page 14]
Nature and Nations and profiting from it, so that his adversaries and their writings can no longer cause you difficulties. Second, the aim is to show more distinctly the differences between universal positive law and natural law, and to illustrate the precepts of the former, insofar as their interpretation pertains to jurisprudence, concerning the doctrine on marriage and the chapter on punishments.
§22. Above all, it seemed necessary to me to reason consistently and to quote no authors, especially no modern authors, in the text, not even the great Pufendorf himself. For I knew well how preconceived opinions have the habit of becoming an obstacle in the acquisition of truth, and among these opinions none does more harm than the prejudice in favor of established authority. I therefore thought that it would be very useful for you if I abolished this prejudice to make sure that you did not ignore the arguments of Pufendorf’s adversaries just because Pufendorf’s authority had already inclined you toward his opinion; alternatively, if these [arguments of the adversaries] should prove attractive, you might block the well-argued responses and reasons based on human nature. Moreover, I wanted to stimulate your industry and persuade you to read Pufendorf’s work carefully, in the belief that if I did not quote passages, you yourself would read it with all the more care and would compare it with my Institutes. And since I often had to depart from the common opinion of great men, or from the opinion of a particular man of great authority, and it was yet my intention to inquire into unadorned truth, without regard to persons, and to struggle with opinions, not people, I did not want to detract from the reverence owed to the people with whom I disagree by referring to them.
§23. As far as other methods of teaching are concerned, I know that much is said in schools concerning the synthetic and the analytic methods, but these debates are otiose rather than useful. I believe there is only one good method, that is, to progress from the easier to the more difficult, from the known to the unknown, and that everything else depends on each individual’s judgment. It is correct to say that method must be a matter of individual judgment. And since all our erudition consists of the science
[print edition page 15]
of demonstrating true propositions and showing the connection between them and since the truth of propositions presupposes knowledge of the terms, it seems impossible to deny that the most natural method is the so-called mathematical one, which progresses from definitions to axioms and develops observations from them. Pufendorf arranged his Elementa according to that method. But each proposition has only two terms, and it would therefore be tedious if the definitions of all terms are listed in a continuous series, and it seems that the connection between the different propositions could not be shown very clearly if many axioms were presented successively. I believed, therefore, that I would best be able to avoid these two disadvantages if I mixed definitions and axioms and prefaced the individual propositions with definitions of the subject and the predicate, or added these definitions immediately after the proposition, and if I clearly linked the axioms themselves by starting from some first principle and deriving everything else from that by way of conclusions.
§24. I have divided these Institutes into three books. In the first of them I have presented a definition of divine jurisprudence and the doctrine of the first practical principle, as well as the first principle of natural law and universal divine positive law. To that I have added a proof that the duty of man toward God is not part of divine jurisprudence. In the second book I list the precepts of natural law that concern humans living in any kind of society. In the third, however, I list those precepts of natural law which direct the duties of man with respect to particular societies, that is, conjugal, paternal, domestic, civil, those based on treaties, and the society of nations. The beginnings of the chapters will show their connection with each other, and in the second and third books I mostly followed the order adopted by Pufendorf in his book On the Duty of Man and Citizen. I say mostly, for a look at these will easily show what I have changed here and there.
§25. Since I had Pufendorf’s work and the other writings published in his defense in mind throughout the Institutes, you will not be surprised at finding that often entire points have been borrowed from him and have not been changed by a single word. For my project, which I have explained
[print edition page 16]
to you, required me to do so. But there are in these Institutes some arguments of my own, which I continually mixed with the ideas of others. Thus, inevitably the incomparable man himself was linked to me without his intending to be. I do not know whether he will accept this with equanimity. He may rather desire his possessions to be clearly separated from mine. Yet he will not need to do so, since I am prepared, without the intervention of a judge, to divide my Institutes so that I leave to him only what is well said, even if it is mine, because his writings and hypotheses led me to investigate them. Those arguments, however, that are found to be incoherent and improper I shall take upon myself.
§26. Yet I will happily admit that I have sometimes borrowed the ideas of other learned men to whom must be rendered what is due to them, and I must indicate to you those authors whom you should add to the reading of my Institutes. For book 2, chapters 6, 7, and 8, I carefully examined Uffelmann’s Treatise on the Obligation of Man, which is the result of an oration that was held not many years ago in the Academia Julia;21 from this I transferred to chapter 6, “On the Duty of Persons Forming an Agreement,” §64, some arguments criticizing Pufendorf’s opinion on the lack of obligation in an agreement with highwaymen. In the following passages, however, I have showed how easy it is to defend Pufendorf’s opinion. But in chapter 7, “On the Duty of Man Concerning Speech,” and similarly in chapter 8, “On the Duty of Those Taking an Oath,” I have adopted many arguments from the said book by Uffelmann, though I reserved the freedom of presenting them differently and disagreeing with them. In the final chapter of the same book, “On the Interpretation of Divine and Human Will,” I also found most helpful the very accurate discussion of the interpretation of obscure law which was publicly presented under the most learned Rebhahn as praeses at the Academy in Strasbourg in 1671.22 In book 3, in the second chapter on the duties in marriage, an
[print edition page 17]
occasion for more profound meditation was often provided by the studies of Lambert Velthuysen on natural modesty and human dignity and on the principles of justice and propriety. These treatises are to be found in his works, published in 1680 in Rotterdam.23