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to prevent the repudiation by this monarch of his IjIw-
ful wife in order that he might marry another. The
pope intervened to secure the release of Richard I of
England from the prison of the Duke of Austria and
the emperor. By his interposition in 1193 he pro-
cured the Uberty of the three daughters of King Tan-
cred of Sicily, who had been unjustly carried off and
retained captive by Emperor Henry VI. So in the
case of the infant son of the King of Aragon. In 1214
Simon de Montfort was compiled to surrender his
Srisoner on the application of the prince's mother, [any other instances of equal importance show the reverence of peoples and sovereigns for the pope and for the fearless and impartial way in which his author- ity was exercised. The same author, from whom these instances have been quoted, speaks of the Councils of the Church. He says they were "composed of dele- gates from every nation of Christianit^y, and under this appearance Europe may fairly be said to deserve the appellation which has sometimes been bestowed upon it of a Republic of States." He points out that the two Councils of Lyons give an idea of '* an almost per- fect Coiui; of Parliament of Christendom, in which the affairs of sovereigns were discussed, and sovereigns themselves proceeded against, under all the forms of a regular trial and sentence" (Ward, "Law of Nations", II, 55, 59).
The influence of the structure of the Roman State, with the emperor as the supreme ruler in temporal matters, educated the minds of the northern peoples, especially the Germans, who, on the fall of the Empire, gradually took possession of its former ter- ritory, ^ter the acceptance of Christianity as the state religion in the reign of Constantine, it was not difficidt for even the most ignorant of men to grasp an idea of the dual powers ruling hxmian life — that of the sovereign with supreme jurisdiction in temporal mat- ters, and that of the pope, the primate of all the bish- ops, the successor of St. Peter, the Head of the Church, the visible representative of the moral power of God on earth. While, in his human capacity, the pope in any given era may have been affected by the prevailing habit of thought of that era, and as a man nas been subject to the limitations of our common nature, it may be safely said of the papacy that no institution ha^ had so profound an effect upon the evolution of the laws of justice and right in the con- duct of nations, and that without such a power of moral influence modern civilization would not have attained a higher plane than that of Imperial Rome. The sense of duty and obligation, which is a cardinal principle of Christianity, has been enforced among princes and peoples, so that even in our day the va- rious nations, although to a great extent separated from the Catholic Faith, still recognize that the pope, as the head of the most venerable and most numerous body of professed Christians, embodies the moral power of Christianity and must be respected accord- mgly. As has been said by Hereenrother, "the perfection of international law depends upon two con- ditions: (1) the degree in which the notion of a com- mon humanity is developed among nations; (2) the closeness of the connexion by which they feel them- selves imited. Christendom and the Church have had a powerful influence upon both these conditions. Af- ter the fall of the Roman Empire it created amongst new States common interests and an international law, which, founded upon the principles and laws of ike Church, was administered by her and her Head as an international tribunal under the protection of the penalty of the Church's ban" (Church and State, 369). In giving an address at the conference held under the auspices of the Civic Federation in W^ashing- ton on 18 Jan., 1910, EKhu Root, former Secretary of State of the United States, said: "Since the Con- gress of Vienna in 1815, in which the powers of Europe tor the first time undertook to deal with subjects of gen-
eral interest to them, as distinct from specific situiu
tions which were the results of war, up to three years
ago there had been over one himdred and twenty con-
gresses or conferences of representatives of a consider-
able part, practically the wnole of the civilized powers
of the earth, and those conferences or congresses have
accomplished a great variety of things. They have
established an international postal union; they have
agreed upon and put into force rules for the protection
of industrial property, patents, copyrights, and trade-
marks; they have estaolished rules for sanitation or
control, and, to some degree, the prevention of dis-
ease, under which each country binds itself to so legis-
late and so enforce its laws as to prevent its being a
nuisance to the other countries with whom it is in
conference. They have united iri measures for the
abolition of the slave trade, for the abohtion of priva-
teering, for the establishment of agreement upon rules
of the private international law, so that private rights
depending upon the laws of different countries may be
recognized and dealt with under uniform rules; itxey
have in a series of conferences held at Geneva estab-
lished rules for the enforcement of hmnane principles
for the conduct of war, and by rules adopted at The
HaguC; for the enforcement of humane rules in the
conduct of war by sea; they have established for the
greater part of the world uniform weights and meas-
ures; they have agreed upon rules designed for the
prevention of the white slave trade; they have, by a
series of conferences, a^ed in Europe upon a num-
ber, as yet a comparatively small number^of provi-
sions for the protection of labour; they have agreed
upon rules for telegraphic communication, rules for the
protection of ocean cables, rules for the government of
wireless telegraphy."
It will be seen from the foregoing sketch that all these beneficent results have followed from the devel- opment of the Christian idea of the brotherhood of mankind. International laws like all other systems, will be found to be but an endeavour to bring mto the affairs of life the eternal principles of right at all times taught by the Christian Church. For the actual status of Uie Holy See concerning conflicts and wars be- tween Christian nations, peace, peace conferences, and international arbitration, see Papacy; Peace; Wab,
Hebqenrother, Catholic Church and Christian Stale (Lon- doQ, 1876); Jauget, Did. ApoloaUique de la foi caiholique (Paris, 1889), 8. V. Alexandre VIi Ward, Lata of Nationa (Lon- don, 1795); Kent, Commentanea (1884); Mannino, Interna- tional Law (London. 1875); Davis, The Elements of Interna- tional Law (New York, 1908); Wheaton, International LotPt ed. Attat (1904): Lawrence, International Law (1885): American and Enqliah Encyclop. of Law (IdOO); Perrin, Uordre iniema- tional (Paris, 1888); Pradier-Fod^I:, Traiti de droit intemor iional (Paris, 1885); The Peacemaker of the Nations in The Month (May, 1869); Speech of Lord Stanley of Alderlet in the House of Lords (25 July, 1887); letter (1870) of Urquhart to Pius IX in Acta Cone. VcUicani; in Coll. Lacensie, VII; Haxxs, The Peace Conference at The Ilaque (New York, 1900), and cri- tique of same by Shahan in Cath.Vniv. Bulletin, VII (1901 ) , 1-22.
Walter George Smith. Law, Moral. See Ethics; Law, Natural. Law, Mosaic. See Mosaic Legislation.
Law, Natural. — ^I. Its Essence. — In English this term is frequently employed as equivalent to the laws of nature, meaning the order which governs the activ- ities of the material universe. Amon^ the Roman jurists natural law designated those mstincts and emotions common to man and the lower animals, such as the instinct of self-preservation and love of offspring. In its strictly ethical application — the sense in which this article treats it — the natural law is the rule of conduct which is prescribed to us by the Creator in the constitution of the nature with which He has endowed us.
According to St. Thomas, the natural law is "nothing else than the rational creature's participation in the eternal law" (I-II, Q. xciv). The eternal law is God's wisdom, inasmuch as it is the directive norm
