There is, as it has been truly observed,[6] "an instinctive feeling that any speculation which affects this" (the speculation in question being the effect of the Darwinian theory on conscience), "must also affect, sooner or later, the practical principles and conduct of men in their daily lives. This naturally comes much closer to us than any question as to the comparative nearness of our kinship to the gorilla or the orang can be expected to do. _No great modification of opinion takes place with respect to the moral faculties, which does not ultimately and in some degree modify the ethical practice and political working of the society in which it comes to prevail._" [6] _Pall Mall Gazette_, April 12, 1871; article, "Mr Darwin on Conscience." There is perhaps no question which lies more at the root of political constitutions, and which must more directly determine the conduct of states in their relations to each other, than the question whether or not, or in what sense, there was such a thing as natural law, _i.e._ a law antecedent to the formation of individual political societies, and which is common to and binding on them all. It may be worth while, therefore, to examine whether a stricter discrimination may not be made between things which are sometimes confounded, viz.:--The Law of Nations and International Law, natural law and the state of nature; and even if the attempt at discrimination should fail in exactitude, it may yet, by opening out fresh views, contribute light to minds of greater precision, who may thus be enabled to hit upon the exact truth. This view was partially exposed in an article which was inserted in the _Tablet_, September 28, 1861,[7] entitled "International Law and the Law of Nations," and, all things considered, I do not think that I can better consult the interests of my readers, than by reproducing an extract from it here, as a convenient basis of operation from which to advance into a somewhat unexplored country:-- "It has been the fashion since Bentham's[8] time, to substitute the phrase 'International Law' for the 'Law of Nations,' as if they were convertible terms. The substitution, however, covers a distinction sufficiently important.