country; the founders of the American Republic put a good deal of it into their constitution, and American judges will still refer to it without shame. What it really means is a standard by which the law here and now may be judged, a standard founded on the needs of human nature. That the standard becomes a different one, as the needs and possibilities of humanity develop, has not prevented the seeking after such a standard. It is perhaps only another way of putting the same thing to say that law has developed and is developing constantly by reference to the pursuit of ends more or less consciously arrived at by mankind. So far as these ends are common, and I take it that in the main, amid national and individual diversity and conflict they are common ends, law has been formed for their attainment. On the whole what men have asked law to do for them has been the same at any given stage in civilization. The eighteenth century asked for liberty, property, and happiness. We are putting a rather different meaning, or perhaps a different stress on the words, not only here but throughout the civilized world, and the main movements of legal change are in the same direction everywhere. One word about the two kinds of law known as Public and Private International law. The fact that the laws of different countries are different gives rise to problems whenever the Courts of one country have to deal with a set of facts where some foreign element is involved, for instance a citizen or an inhabitant of another country, or property which is in another country, or a contract or transaction which took place abroad. Now we have long got past the stage at which the Courts could simply disregard the foreign element, could say this man is a foreigner, therefore he has no rights; or this event took place abroad, and therefore we will treat it as if it had never happened. On the other hand it will not do for the Court to apply simply its own law. Grave injustice would be done, for instance, if a transaction made on the faith of law which will give a certain effect to it, were treated as made under another law which will give it a different effect or no effect at all. For this reason the Courts of every country have formed rules (sometimes called Private International Law; sometimes, and as some hold, more properly, called 'Conflict of Laws') by which they determine how far, where a foreign element is involved, the foreign law is to be carried out rather than the law which the Court applies in ordinary cases. These rules are not the same in every country, because differences of opinion are possible as to what justice requires. But the very existence of such rules shows that the Courts hold that the world of law is one, however much diversified, and that no one territorial law can blindly go on its way without taking account of its neighbours. International law in the more proper sense of the word, that is Public International Law, or the law which governs the relations between States, is a very different thing. Something of the kind was not unknown in the ancient world; the Greeks, for instance, had rules against the poisoning of wells, the proper treatment of envoys, and the making and keeping of treaties. But in its modern. form it dates just from the time when States were waking up to the consciousness of sovereignty, and when the horrors of the wars which followed the Reformation showed that even sovereign powers ought to conform to some rules of conduct. It has been the work in its origin of writers and teachers of law, and has been built up more recently by agreement between States. Unlike the law between man and man, which modern states enforce by organized compulsion, there is no standing organization whose business it is to see that it is kept. It is not true to say that for this reason it is not law at all, for in primitive times the recognized rules of private law were enforced not by State sanction but by the action of individuals, with the support of the opinions and at times the active help of their neighbours and friends. But a law which is defied with success and impunity is no law. The reality and strength of International Law has lain in the fact that its breach brought at least the risk of suffering, through the common disapprobation of civilized nations; its preservation and maintenance for the future must lie in a certainty of disaster, not greatly less than that which awaits the transgressor of private law. Books FOR REFERENCE Jethro Brown, The Austinian Theory of Law. Murray. Pollock and Maitland, History of English Law. Cambridge Vinogradoff, Common Sense in Law. Home University Library. Williams & Norgate. Vinogradoff, Roman Law in Mediaeval Europe. Harper's Library of Living Thought. VI THE COMMON ELEMENTS IN EUROPEAN LITERATURE AND ART FOR some hundred years past it has been common to lay great stress upon the importance of national characteristics in art. This has been very natural, for they represent one main aspect and justification of the revolt against the conception of the one permanent and immutable standard of perfection of the Neo-classicists of the Renaissance. Lessing and Herder, who were the critical protagonists of the new world, had indeed a knowledge and admiration of ancient art which was probably superior to that of the classicists, but they refused to admit that art was bound to follow the forms of antiquity, and maintained rather that its forms would necessarily change with the changing conditions of the world, and with the varying characteristics of different nationalities or races. From their time down to our own, then, this conception of art, as being coloured or affected strongly and continually by nationality, has become almost a commonplace of criticism, and it will not be denied that there is real importance in the conception. For though nothing is really art which is not distinctive and personal and unique, yet just so far as the personality of the artist is conditioned by his nationality, so far also will his artistic work reflect the characteristics of his nation or country. And yet, while this is true, it really needs very little consideration to see that when we consider a great work of art, we are very little concerned with the question of the nationality of the artist, but with something which is deeper and larger than his nationality. The great artist no doubt represents life under the forms or terms of his concrete experience, but it is life and the world itself which he represents. He is not greatly concerned with the merely superficial or passing aspects of human nature and the world, but with that which is essential and continuing under these terms. It may indeed be urged that there is some real and fundamental difference between the art of the East and that of the West, but as we have come to know eastern art better, we have become more doubtful even of this, and are rather impressed with the unity of the artistic expression even of East and West. I am far from wishing to say that nationality or race has no significance in art, but I think that we have been in danger of greatly exaggerating its importance. I am at least certain that we have very constantly made too much of the supposed differences in the literature and art of the different European countries, and that we must make clear to ourselves that European art and literature are really one. It is not unimportant to observe this at the present time, to consider whether literature and art are dividing or uniting forces. As far as we can understand, what indeed seems a little unintelligible, the Germans desire to impress upon Europe their culture or civilization, an attempt as absurd as it would be impossible, for German culture is, after all, only a part of the great European civilization, and the part cannot take the place of the whole. But on the other hand it is not less important for us to understand that what we desire to do is not to destroy those elements which Germany contributes to European civilization, but only that they should take their natural and appropriate place in that greater unity which is enriched and enlarged by the contribution of every separate |