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Secondary Literature - Johann Gottlieb Heineccius, A Methodical System of Universal Law: Or, the Laws of Nature and Nations [1738]

Edition used:

A Methodical System of Universal Law: Or, the Laws of Nature and Nations, with Supplements and a Discourse by George Turnbull. Translated from the Latin by George Turnbull, edited with an Introduction by Thomas Albert and Peter Schröder (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2008).

About Liberty Fund:

Liberty Fund, Inc. is a private, educational foundation established to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals.


Secondary Literature

This section includes all secondary literature cited in the editors’ introduction and in the editors’ notes on the original text.

  • Ahnert, Thomas. “Enthusiasm and Enlightenment: Faith and Philosophy in the Thought of Christian Thomasius.” Modern Intellectual History 2 (2005): 153–77.
  • ——. “Pleasure, Pain, and Punishment in the Early Enlightenment: German and Scottish Debates.” Jahrbuch für Recht und Ethik 12 (2004): 173–87.
  • ——. Religion and the Origins of the German Enlightenment: Faith and the Reform of Learning in the Thought of Christian Thomasius. Rochester, N.Y.: University of Rochester Press, 2006.
  • Bergfeld, Christoph. “Johann Gottlieb Heineccius und die Grundlagen seines Natur- und Völkerrechts.” In Johann Gottlieb Heineccius, Grundlagen des Natur- und Völkerrechts, 507–32. Translated by Peter Mortzfeld and edited by Christoph Bergfeld. Frankfurt am Main: Insel, 1994.
  • Dufour, Alfred. “Die école romande du droit naturel—ihre deutschen Wurzeln.” In Humanismus und Naturrecht in Brandenburg-Preussen, 133–43. Edited by H. Thieme. Berlin: De Gruyter, 1979.
  • Fukuda, Arihiro. Sovereignty and the Sword: Harrington, Hobbes, and Mixed Government in the English Civil Wars. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997.
  • Haakonssen, Knud. Natural Law and Moral Philosophy: From Grotius to the Scottish Enlightenment. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996.
  • Hochstrasser, Tim. “Conscience and Reason: The Natural Law Theory of Jean Barbeyrac.” Historical Journal 36 (1993): 289–308.
  • ——. Natural Law Theories in the Early Enlightenment. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
  • Liljegren, S. B. James Harrington’s Oceana. Heidelberg: C. Winter, 1924.
  • Luig, Klaus. “Gli elementa iuris civilis di J. G. Heineccius come modello per le ‘Institutiones de derecho romano’ de Andrés Bello.” In Andrés Bello y el derecho latinoamericano, 259–74. Caracas: La Casa de Bello, 1981.
  • ——. “Zur Verbreitung des Naturrechts in Europa.” Tijdschrift voor Rechtsgeschiedenis 60 (1972): 539–57.
  • Norton, David Fate. “George Turnbull and the Furniture of the Mind.” Journal of the History of Ideas 35 (1975): 701–16.
  • Othmer, Sieglinde. Berlin und die Verbreitung des Naturrechts in Europa: Kultur- und sozialgeschichtliche Studien zu Jean Barbeyracs Pufendorf-Übersetzungen und eine Analyse seiner Leserschaft. Berlin: De Gruyter, 1970.
  • Pocock, J. G. A. “Enthusiasm: The Anti-Self of Enlightenment.” In Enthusiasm and Enlightenment in Europe, 1650–1850, 7–28. Edited by A. J. La Vopa and L. Klein. San Marino, Calif.: Huntington Library, 1998.
  • Reibstein, Ernst. “Johann Gottlieb Heineccius als Kritiker des grotianischen Systems.” Zeitschrift für öffentliches Recht und Völkerrecht 24 (1964): 236–64.
  • Schröder, Peter. “Natural Law and Enlightenment in Comparative Perspective: Differences and Similarities between the French and the Scottish Case.” In Early Modern Natural Law Theories: Contexts and Strategies in the Early Enlightenment, 297–317. Edited by Tim Hochstrasser and Peter Schröder. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2003.
  • Stewart, M. A. “George Turnbull and Educational Reform.” In Aberdeen and the Enlightenment, 95–103. Edited by J. J. Carter and J. H. Pittock. Aberdeen: Aberdeen University Press, 1987.
  • Sullivan, J. P. The Satyricon of Petronius: A Literary Study. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1968.
  • Tuck, Richard. Natural Rights Theories: Their Origin and Development. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979.
  • ——. The Rights of War and Peace: Political Thought and the International Order from Grotius to Kant. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999.

This book is set in Adobe Garamond, a modern adaptation by Robert Slimbach of the typeface originally cut around 1540 by the French typographer and printer Claude Garamond. The Garamond face, with its small lowercase height and restrained contrast between thick and thin strokes, is a classic “old-style” face and has long been one of the most influential and widely used typefaces.

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[† ] [I do not see how this conclusion follows. But not to enter into so trite a dispute, it is sufficient to observe here, That by the confession of our Author, Grotius, Pufendorff, and every writer on the law of nature, these states, kingdoms or republics, which are constituted by pact, and with what is called by the civilians lex commissoria, (a peremptory condition, that in case the king act otherwise, the subjects shall not be obliged) have the power of judging when their pact is satisfied, and of taking care it be fulfilled. In such states, the sovereign and the people hold their respective rights by the same express tenure or charter. But no pact being valid that is contrary to the law of nature, the law of nature really lays this restriction upon every pact about government, that the good of the people, or the governed, shall be the supreme law, and that nothing shall be imposed upon subjects repugnant to their good, as much, as if that restriction had been expresly made in the pact, by a commissory clause. All immoral things are impossible things in the language of the doctors of laws and civilians. And therefore a pact by a people, giving power to a prince to act contrary to their happiness, or to prefer whatever he may fancy to be his private interest, to their good, is a pact originally and in itself invalid. A pact by a people, giving a prince power to rule over them, otherwise than agreeably to the law of nature, that is, the law of justice and benevolence, or in one word, the law of love, and binding themselves to obey his commands, whatever they be, is a pact a people cannot make; it is an impossible pact, because an immoral one; and therefore it can never be obligatory, but to make it is a crime; and to stand to it, is to continue, nay, to increase the guilt. It is a mutual agreement between prince and people, to put the arbitrary will of a prince in the place of the law of nature, the law of God. And if such a pact can be valid, why hath our Author so often pronounced all immoral pacts invalid? But if such a pact cannot be valid, then every pact about government, and all consent to government, express, tacite, or presumed, hath, in consequence of the immutability and eternal obligation of the law of nature, this condition contained unalterably and essentially in it, “Provided the government be agreeable to the law of nature, the law of justice and benevolence.” There is therefore, in all pacts about government, in all consent to government, this commissory article naturally and necessarily included, inasmuch, as it cannot be left out, but must be understood to be there by the law of nature itself, whether it be mentioned or not, its truth, existence, or obligation, being of the law of nature, and therefore universal and indispensable.]