advisable for the sake of brevity, of avoiding repetitions, and taking advantage of the Ideas already formed and established in the minds of men, -- if, for all these reasons. It were not more convenient to presuppose, in this instance, a knowledge of the ordinary law of nature, and on that ground to undertake the task of applying it to sovereign states, -- it would, instead of speaking of such application, be more accurate to say, that, as the law of nature, properly so called, is the natural law of individuals and founded on the nature of man, so the natural law of nations is the natural law of political societies, and founded on the nature of those societies. But as the result of either mode is ultimately the same, I have, in preference, adopted the more compendious one. As the law of nature has already been treated of in an ample and satisfactory manner, the shortest way is simply to make a rational application of it to nations. 13 . A nation here means a sovereign state, an independent political society. 14 . In the VIIIth part of his Law of Nature, and in his Law of Nations.