Three important objections have been made to this celebrated work,--one, that the author defers in it, too little, to principle, too much, to authority;--another, that the work is written in a very desultory manner, with small attention to order, or classification;--a third, that his authorities are often feeble, and sometimes whimsical. "Grotius," says Condillac, "was able to think for himself; but he constantly labours to support his conclusions by the authority of others. Upon many occasions; even in support of the most obvious and indisputable propositions, he introduces a long string of quotations from the Mosaic law, from the Gospels, from the fathers of the church, from the casuists, and not unfrequently, even in the very same paragraph, from Ovid, and Aristophanes." This strange mixture is subject of many witticisms of Voltaire. But let us hear what is urged in the defence of Grotius, by a gentleman, of whose praise the ablest of writers may be proud: "Few writers," says Sir James Mackintosh, in his Discourse on the Study of the Law of Nature and Nations, "were more celebrated than Grotius in his own days, and in the age which succeeded. It has, however, been the fashion of the last half century to depreciate his work, as a shapeless compilation, in which reason lies buried under a mass of authorities and quotations. This fashion originated among French wits and declaimers, and it has been, I know not for what reason, adopted, though with far greater moderation and decency, by some respectable writers among ourselves. As to those, who first used this language, the most candid supposition that we can make with respect to them is, that they never read the work; for, if they had not been deterred from the perusal of it by such a formidable display of Greek characters, they must soon have discovered that Grotius never quotes, on any subject, till he has first appealed to some principles; and often, in my humble opinion, though, not always, to the soundest and most rational principles. [Sidenote: His treatise de Jure Belli et Pacis.]