even in support of the most obvious and indisputable propositions, he introduces a long string of quotations from the Mosaic law, from the Gospels, from the fathers of the church, from the casuists, and not unfrequently, even in the very same paragraph, from Ovid, and Aristophanes.”  This strange mixture is subject of many witticisms of Voltaire.  But let us hear what is urged in the defence of Grotius, by a gentleman, of whose praise the ablest of writers may be proud: 

“Few writers,” says Sir James Mackintosh, in his Discourse on the Study of the Law of Nature and Nations, “were more celebrated than Grotius in his own days, and in the age which succeeded.  It has, however, been the fashion of the last half century to depreciate his work, as a shapeless compilation, in which reason lies buried under a mass of authorities and quotations.  This fashion originated among French wits and declaimers, and it has been, I know not for what reason, adopted, though with far greater moderation and decency, by some respectable writers among ourselves.  As to those, who first used this language, the most candid supposition that we can make with respect to them is, that they never read the work; for, if they had not been deterred from the perusal of it by such a formidable display of Greek characters, they must soon have discovered that Grotius never quotes, on any subject, till he has first appealed to some principles; and often, in my humble opinion, though, not always, to the soundest and most rational principles.

    [Sidenote:  His treatise de Jure Belli et Pacis.]

“But another sort of answer is due to some of those, who have criticised Grotius; and that answer might be given in the words of Grotius himself.  He was not of such a stupid and servile cast of mind as to quote the opinions of poets or orators, of historians and philosophers, as those of judges, from whose decision there was no appeal.  He quotes them, as he tells us himself, as witnesses, whose conspiring testimony, mightily strengthened and confirmed by their discordance on almost every other subject, is a conclusive proof of the unanimity of the whole human race on the great rules of duty, and the fundamental principles of morals.  Of such matters, poets and orators are the most unexceptionable of all witnesses; for they address themselves to the general feelings and sympathies of mankind; they are neither warped by system, nor perverted by sophistry; they can attain none of their objects; they can neither please nor persuade, if they dwell on moral sentiments not in unison with those of their readers.  No system of moral philosophy can surely disregard the general feelings of human nature, and the according judgment of all ages and nations.  But, where are these feelings and that judgment recorded and preserved?  In those very writings which Grotius is gravely blamed for having quoted.  The usages and law of nations, the events of history, the opinions