Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from The Principles of International Law
International Law may be regarded as a living organism, which grows with the growth of experience and is shaped in the last resort by the ideas and aspirations current among civilized mankind. He who would accurately describe its present condition must sketch the outlines of its past history and gauge the strength of the forces which are even now acting upon it. He must understand the processes whereby it reached the shape in which we see it and forecast the changes which will accompany its future growth. The perfect publicist must take all philosophy, all history and all diplomacy to be his province. He must weigh in the balance of absolute impartiality the actions of statesmen and the decisions of judges. He must be familiar in equal degree with the rough amenities of camps and the stately etiquette of courts. I lay no claim to the possession of these exalted qualifications. I have but attempted to trace the development of International Law in such a way as to show on the one hand its relation to a few great ethical principles and on the other its dependence upon the hard facts of history. The severest critic cannot be more sensible than I am of the deficiencies of my work. They are due partly to the greatness of the task compared with the powers of the doer, and partly to untoward circumstances of change and unrest which hampered its progress from beginning to end.
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