[PUFENDORF, Samuel]. Of the Law of Nature and Nations. Eight Books. Written in Latin. Done into English, by Basil Kennet. London: Printed for R. Sare, R. Bonwicke, T. Goodwyn, F. Walthoe, M. Wotton, et al, 1717.
THIRD EDITION. Leather-bound, hardcover, folio (37cm x 24cm x 5.5cm), pp. [24], 212, 242, 221-324, 325-390, 453-577, 1-531 [i.e. 131], [21] index. Irregular pagination. English text in double columns. Bound in contemporary panelled calf, initial and terminal blanks present, printed footnotes, rear index. Condition: GOOD. Collated complete. Binding tight and secure. Slight rubbing to extremities. Interior largely well-preserved, some light toning, a few unobtrusive marks, the endleaves with old inking and ragged fore edge, armorial bookplate to front pastedown.
Notes: Third edition in English, first published as De jure Naturae et Gentium libri octo in 1672. The legal theorist, historian and theologian Samuel von Pufendorf (1632-1694) was the first professor of the Law of Nature and of Nations in a German university at Heidelberg. In his works on political science "he attempted to strike a middle path between the rationalism of Grotius and the voluntarism of Hobbes. He envisaged the state of nature as a war of all against all, from which men would wish to save themselves by joining in a society whose laws were imposed by the ruler's will. But he also argued that such laws must conform to natural law, whose duties he maintained, unlike Grotius, were imposed on man by God's will. In preference to Grotius's a posteriori method, he adopted a sociological form of inquiry into man's condition in society" (The New Palgrave III, p. 1074).
