1.1.1 to 1.1.8

FIRST COMMENTARY. I. CONCERNING CIVIL AND NATURAL LAW. (1) All peoples who are ruled by laws and customs partly make use of their own laws, and partly have recourse to those which are common to all men; for what every people establishes as law for itself is peculiar to itself, and is called the Civil Law, as being that peculiar to the State; and what natural reason establishes among all men and is observed by all peoples alike, is called the Law of Nations, as being the law which all nations employ. Therefore the Roman people partly make use of their own law, and partly avail themselves of that common to all men, which matters we shall explain separately in their proper place. [1] (2) The Civil Law of the Roman people consists of statutes, plebiscites, Decrees of the Senate, Constitutions of the Emperors, the Edicts of those who have the right to promulgate them, and the opinions of jurists. [1] With the Romans the Jus Gentium and the Jus Naturale were practically synonymous. The greater number of ancient authorities made two divisions of jurisprudence, the Law of Nations and the Civil Law; some added another, the Jus Privatum ,or Familiæ ,that is to say, private law. The precepts of morality, as in most human enactments, form the basis of this most comprehensive system of jurisprudence which all civilized peoples are presumed to acknowledge. By what we designate the Law of Nature, the Roman jurists understood the rules by which all living beings were governed: "Quod natura omnia animalia docuit ." The Law of Nations was known to them as Jus Feciale . No lawyer of ancient or modern times has given such a lucid, comprehensive, and eloquent description of the Law of Nature as Cicero. In glowing language, eminently worthy of the distinguished scholar and jurist, he sets forth its constant and universal blessings; a law which summons all to the performance of their duties, and deters the hesitating from the commission of fraud; from whose observance even those highest in authority are not exempt; whose application is universal; whose precepts are eternal and immutable; which cannot be disregarded or abrogated with impunity; of which God is the originator, the interpreter, the proposer; and he who refuses to obey it flees from himself, and rejects the claims of humanity, by this very act rendering himself liable to the severest penalties, even if he be able to escape others which have been prescribed.