Page:Diplomacy and the Study of International Relations (1919).djvu/145

answer, first', he says, 'concerning the nature of the sea, as supposed impossibly occupable or acquirable; Is this so thought because the sea is not so solid, as is the land, that men may trade thereon, as upon land? or that it is continually flowing to and fro? Surely, that lacke of solidity for man his trading thereon by foot, shall not hinder the solid possession of it, farre lesse the occupation and acquiring, if we will give to the sea, that which the Iurisconsults indulgently grant to the land, which also cannot be denied.'^[1] He quotes Paulus to the effect that it is not necessary for him who would 'possesse himself in any part of the land, to goe about and tread over the same; but it is sufficient to enter-in upon any thereof, with a mind to possesse all the rest thereof, even to the due marches'. 'And what', he asks, 'can stay this to be done on sea, as well as on land? And thus farre concerning the solidity.'^[2]

'As for the flowing condition of the sea,' admit that it be liquid, fluid, unstable in the particles thereof, yet in the whole body it is not so, for does it not keep the prescribed bounds strictly enough concerning its chief place and limits? And here it is fitting to answer 'a scoffe cast in by the Author of Mare liberum, concerning the possibility also of marches and limits for the division of the seas: Mundum dividunt (saith the foresaid Authour of Mare liberum) non ullis limitibus, aut natura, aut manu positis, sed imaginaria quadam linea: quod st recipitur, et Geometrae terras, et Astronomi caelum nobis eripient^[3]; that is, they divide the world, not by any marches,

to-day and ought for all time to remain in the same condition as when they were first brought forth by nature.' 'Flumen populus occupare potuit, ut inclusum finibus suis, mare non potuit.'

1. pp. 218–19.
2. pp. 219–20.
3. Grotius's words, ch. v, in the concluding clause, according to the text of 1633, are: 'quod si recipitur et dimensio talis ad possidendum valet, iamdudum nobis Geometrae terras, Astronomi etiam caelum eriperent'. See The Freedom of the Seas by Grotius, translated by Magoffin (New York, 1916), p. 39.