It is necessary, more especially now that the utilitarian theory is dominant, to enter a protest according to the turn the argument may take, but in the end nothing more can be said than was said by Cicero in the century before our Lord:-- "Est enim unum jus, quo devincta est hominum societas, et quod lex constituit una; quæ lex est recta ratio imperandi atque prohibendi: quam qui ignorat is est injustus, sive est illa scripta uspiam, sive nusquam. Quod si justitia est obtemperatio scriptis legibus institutisque populorum, et si, ut iidem dicunt utilitate omnia metienda sunt, negliget leges, easque perrumpit, si poterit, is, qui sibi eam rem fructuosam putabit fore. Ita fit, ut nulla sit omnino justitia; si neque naturâ est, eaque propter utilitatem constituitur, utilitate alia convellitur."--_De Legibus_, i. 15. It is only upon this construction that the Law of Nations can be said to exist, as "there is no superordinate authority to enforce it." It is accordingly asserted that the law of nations is not really law. But is not this only when it is regarded from the point of view of "organised constraint?"[13] If it is regarded as a divine ordinance, or even as under the divine sanction, then it is law in a much higher degree than simple internal or municipal law, for it more immediately and directly depends upon this sanction; and hence nations may more confidently appeal to heaven for the redress of wrong _here below_ than individuals--seeing that, as Bossuet somewhere says, God rewards and chastises nations in this world, since it is not according to His divine dispensation to reward them corporately in the next. [13] "Utiles esse autem opiniones has quis neget, quum intelligat quam multa firmentur jure jurando, quantæ salutis sint f[oe]derum religiones? quam multos divini supplicii metus a scelere revocaverit? quamque sancta sit societas civium inter ipsos diis immortalibus interpositis tum judicibus tum testibus?"--Cicero, _De Legibus_, ii. 7. More recently, however, the extraordinary successes and subversions which we have witnessed during this last year, have brought the _Pall Mall Gazette_ face to face with problems pressing for immediate and anxious settlement; and in a series of articles it has discussed the question of the law of nations with much depth and earnestness. I there observe phrases which I can hardly distinguish from those I have just employed. Combating Mr Mill's view, the writer says:--