bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Cosmopolitan Justice, Rights and Global Climate Change
Authors: Caney Simon
Published: July 2016

The paper has the following structure. In Section I, I introduce some important methodological preliminaries by asking: How should one reason about global environmental justice in general and global climate change in particular? Section II introduces the key normative argument; it argues that global climate change damages some fundamental human interests and results in a state of affairs in which the rights of many are unprotected: as such it is unjust. Section III addresses the complexities that arise from the fact that some of the ill effects of global climate change will fall on the members of future generations. Section IV shows that some prevailing approaches are unable to deal satisfactorily with the challenges posed by global climate change. If the argument of this paper is correct, it follows that those who contribute to global climate change through high emissions are guilty of human rights violations and they should be condemned as such.
Basic Liberties and Global Justice
Authors: Brock Gillian
Published: July 2016

My primary goals in this article are to show: first, that we can identify and justify which basic freedoms are important ones to protect in the global context; second, that we can monitor whether we are making progress with respect to whether more or fewer people are enjoying the important freedoms; third, that we can identify some key institutions that play a central role in fortifying those freedoms; fourth, that we can help build or fortify local capacity with respect to protecting basic freedoms; fifth, that external support and building international institutions can play an important role in securing local capacity to protect basic liberties. The emphasis is on trying to construct local capacity to protect basic freedoms. However external support has a key role to play. I argue that protecting press freedom and building institutions of international justice play crucial roles in securing local capacity to protect basic liberties. We have obligations to support those institutions that would facilitate progress with respect to protection of basic liberties. So, for instance, we have a range of responsibilities to support press freedom in all countries, along with international efforts to bring to justice violators of basic liberties.
Ronald Dworkin and the External Sceptic
Authors: Smith Dale
Published: July 2016

Ronald Dworkin has repeatedly claimed that the debate between moral objectivists and anti-objectivists (which I shall call “the meta-ethical debate”) has no implications for legal practice or theory. He has offered two main arguments to support this claim. The first is that while assertions about the truth or falsity of moral objectivism may be intelligible, they are irrelevant to legal practice and theory. The second is more radical, namely, that no assertion can be given an intelligible meta-ethical reading. In this article, I contend that neither argument is sound. The first argument overlooks the variety of ways in which the meta-ethical debate could impact upon legal practice or theory. It also rests upon an uncharitable interpretation of that debate. As for the second argument, Dworkin is correct in claiming that statements seemingly about the truth or falsity of moral objectivism can instead be interpreted as moral statements, but he is wrong to claim that this is the only intelligible reading they can be given.
Implications of Sen’s Concept of Commitment for the Economic Understanding of the Corporation
Authors: Lee Ian B.
Published: July 2016

In a classic paper, Amartya Sen proposed that human reasons for action be conceptualized in terms of three distinct forms of motivation: self-interest, sympathy and commitment. This article explores the implications of the concept of commitment for the economic understanding of the corporation. It argues that commitment can help to explain the deliberative features of corporate governance - features that the traditional economic approach inadequately explains or passes over entirely.
Rights, Duties and Conditioning Welfare
Authors: Paz-Fuchs Amir
Published: July 2016

Somewhere between welfare to work policy and the jurisprudential analysis of rights and duties lies the third way motto of ‘no rights without responsibilities’. This paper shows how this proclamation offers no less than a new construction of one’s rights insofar as theydependon the obligations that he or she owes society. Investigating this new formulation through the established perspectives of the Interest (or Benefit) Theory and the Choice (or Will) theory sheds light on the jurisprudential background of this move, and its possible consequences. The paper then moves to describe the concrete impact that this theoretical reconstruction has on provisions embedded in welfare to work programs, and suggests that this may serve a pilot for a more comprehensive, and thus problematic, social policy. In the final section of the paper, the doctrine of ’unconstitutional conditions’ is revisited and improved in a way that, if accepted, may bar governments from diluting rights of disadvantaged groups and endangering them into becoming ‘illusory’.
Global Poverty, Human Rights and Correlative Duties
Authors: Montero Julio
Published: July 2016

Does the fact that my actions cause someone to lack access to the objects of her human rights make me a human rights violator? Is behaving in such a way that we deprive someone of access to the objects of her human rights even when we could have avoided behaving in such a way, sufficient to maintain that we have violated her human rights? When an affluent country pursues domestic policies that will foreseeably cause massive deprivation abroad in order to improve its already prosperous economy, has this country violated the human rights of the very poor just by doing so? If international organizations such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organization pursue policies that lead to an increase in the global poverty rate, are such organizations human rights violators? Can an individual undertaking certain actions in the market place that render insecure the access of the worst-off to the objects of their human rights be blamed for violating their rights?In this article I discuss the thesis that claims that whenever we cause, or contribute to the cause of, someone else’s lack of access to the objects of her human rights, we are human rights violators. I contend that this thesis, which seems to underpin the arguments of many cosmopolitan authors taking part of the global justice debate, is mistaken. In order to achieve this end, I analyze several alternative formulations of the causal thesis. My conclusion is that before it can be said that an agent has violated someone else's human rights, it has to be proven that this agent has caused, or contributed to the cause of, a state of affairs where someone lacks access to the object of some of her human rights, by infringing a duty not to do so. Furthermore, I maintain that this must be a perfect, as opposed to an imperfect, duty.
Beguiled By Metaphors: The “Living Tree” and Originalist Constitutional Interpretation in Canada
Authors: Miller Bradley W.
Published: July 2016

Constitutional interpretation in Canada is dominated by the metaphor of the “living tree”. Living tree constitutional interpretation is usually defined in terms of its incompatibility with what is understood in Canada to be the central commitment of originalist interpretation: that the constitution is, in some sense, “frozen at the moment of adoption. But the tenets of originalism that are used as a definitional contrast are not widely held by originalist constitutional scholars today, and are in fact expressly rejected in the new originalist theories that have been developed principally (but not exclusively) in the United States over the past 20 years. There has not been a meaningful engagement in Canada with contemporary schools of originalist interpretation. The originalism rejected by the Supreme Court of Canada in 1985 (and periodically reaffirmed thereafter), is not the new originalism, and a rejection of this new family of interpretive theories does not necessarily follow from the fact of the Supreme Court of Canada’s rejection of original intent originalism. Unfortunately, the Canadian courts have continued to affirm living tree constitutional doctrine and denounce originalism without providing much of an account of what they are accepting or rejecting. This paper is a prefatory study to an engagement with new originalist scholarship. I attempt a statement of the current commitments in Canadian living constitutional doctrine (pausing to engage with theoretical arguments that have been made in its defence) and, in passing, note the Supreme Court’s attitudes towards originalism. My purpose is to determine what the central commitments of living tree constitutional doctrine are, as a preliminary step towards a later study to determine the extent to which Canadian doctrine is truly incompatible with orginalist interpretation. I explore what I observe to be the four central commitments to living tree constitutionalism in Canada: (1) the doctrine of progressive interpretation; (2) the use of a purposive methodology in progressive interpretation; (3) the absence of any necessary role for the original intent or meaning of framers in interpreting the constitution; and (4) the presence of other constraints on judicial interpretation.
Justification under Authority
Authors: Gardner John
Published: July 2016

In a recent paper in the Yale Law Journal, Malcolm Thorburn argued that to enjoy a justificatory defence in the criminal law is to have a normative power (more precisely, a measure of authority) that is exercised in the circumstances which give rise to the justification. He also argued that where such powers are conferred on private citizens, those citizens should be understood as acting as public officials pro tempore when they exercise them. In this extended reply, I resist both propositions and reply to some of the criticisms that Thorburn makes of my own rival views. I also take the opportunity to explore, philosophically, some of the criminal law relating to consent, self-defence and arrest, and to discuss the connections between the debate over the nature of criminal-law justifications and the debate over the nature of law.
The Third Form of Justice
Authors: Perry Ronen
Published: July 2016

IzhakEnglard, a prominent tort scholar and a former justice of the Supreme Court of Israel, has dedicated the last few years to an unprecedented research project, aimed to “retrace the long and complex history of the Aristotelian conceptual distinction between distributive and corrective justice from antiquity to the present day.” Modern legal theorists are well versed in the Aristotelian concepts. But although these concepts have engaged “the most brilliant philosophical, legal, and theological minds for generations,” the millennial treatment of the Aristotelian distinction has been disregarded in recent times. Englard’s recently published book brings the cumulative knowledge to the attention of contemporary thinkers, offering an opportunity to enhance and deepen ongoing jurisprudential discourse.

Englard has structured the book chronologically (with a single exception), on the grounds that a topical arrangement would be impractical due to its complexity. Nonetheless, one can break down his sequential analysis of discrete manuscripts and extract fascinating inter-temporal debates on concrete questions that have occupied the minds of Western thinkers for centuries. This Critical Notice focuses on one of the main themes that run throughout the book, and may be of the greatest importance to contemporary legal theorists, namely the place of retributive (punitive, vindictive) justice within the Aristotelian framework. Following a short presentation of the Aristotelian text, this Critical Notice utilizes Englard’s painstaking study to systematically evaluate four possible attitudes to the place of retributive justice vis-à-vis the Aristotelian forms: (1) retribution is part of corrective justice (the Thomist position); (2) retribution pertains to distributive justice (the Scotist position); (3) retribution combines both forms of justice; (4) retribution is a third form of justice.
Jefferson’s “Laws of Nature”: Newtonian Influence and the Dual Valence of Jurisprudence and Science
Authors: Mendenhall Allen
Published: July 2016

Jefferson appears to have conceived of natural law rather differently from his predecessors - namely, Saint Thomas Aquinas, Richard Hooker, Hugo Grotius, Samuel von Pufendorf, John Locke, and, among others, William Blackstone. This particular pedigree looked to divine decree or moral order to anchor natural law philosophy. But Jefferson’s various writings, most notably the Declaration and Notes on the State of Virginia, champion the thinking of a natural historian, a man who celebrated reason and scientific method, who extolled fact over fancy, material over the immaterial, observation over superstition, and experiment over divine revelation. They reveal, in other words, an Enlightenment homme du monde, a veritable encyclopedia of knowledge, able to discourse on any number of topics and to confront, as it were, his overseas counterparts, George Louis Leclerc and Comte de Buffon. Jefferson’s jurisprudence pivots on the dual valence of law and science. Jurisprudes have mostly ignored the sometime symbiotic relationship of law and science, just as they have downplayed or altogether ignored Jefferson’s unique contributions to legal philosophy. How does Jefferson’s natural philosophy conceptualize law? Science is all about studying objects and predicting their behaviors. If law is more than bills or statutes or glorified pieces of paper - if it is intangible but somehow immanent - how does one collect or observe it in nature? What is its ontology? Its epistemology? How do we discover it? How do we experiment with it? In what way is it, as Jefferson apparently believed, innate to humankind? This article will consider all of these questions while arguing for the inclusion of Jefferson into what I call the “natural law canon” of jurisprudence. I submit that Jefferson’s ideas about nature are tied to his ideas about reason and that his scientific approach to jurisprudence was not only innovative but nearly unprecedented. I have divided the article into two sections, the first dealing with Jefferson as a counteractive force to the positivist jurisprudence of Jeremy Bentham and John Austin, and the second dealing with such issues of materiality, reason, and experiment that make Jefferson’s jurisprudence truly distinctive. I am less concerned with tracing snippets of Jefferson’s writing back to Newton’s precise works or quotes than I am with demonstrating how Jefferson’s jurisprudence appropriates science, what makes that appropriation unique, and why that appropriation matters to a 21st century audience. These concerns alone should merit Jefferson’s inclusion in jurisprudence textbooks.
Weinrib on Unjust Enrichment
Authors: Saprai Prince
Published: July 2016

The article is a critique of Ernest Weinrib’s attempts to explain the structure of unjust enrichment law according to his theory of corrective justice. The plausibility of Weinrib’s account of unjust enrichment is of critical importance to his claim that corrective justice is a theory of private law in general. Ultimately, I argue that Weinrib’s efforts to accommodate unjust enrichment within his conception of corrective justice fail. This is in large part due to the fact that Weinrib sets himself the uphill task of both explaining unjust enrichment from its own internal perspective where the structure of liability is strict and not based on fault and justifying it in terms of his interpretation of corrective justice which is rooted in wrongdoing. The dilemma between structure and justification runs throughout Weinrib’s early and recent writings on unjust enrichment, and I argue that there is now a need to confront it.
The Limits of Judicial Fidelity to Law: The Coxford Lecture
Authors: Goldsworthy Jeffrey
Published: July 2016

This lecture asks whether judges might sometimes be morally justified in covert law-breaking in the interests of justice, the rule of law or good governance. Many historical examples of this phenomenon, are provided, drawn mainly from the British legal tradition, but also from Australia, Canada, India and the United States. Judicial noble lies are distinguished from fig-leaves and wishful thinking, and the relative importance of logic and pragmatism in legal reasoning is discussed. After examining arguments for and against judicial subterfuge, it is concluded that in modern liberal democracies subterfuge is justified only to avoid extreme injustices or violations of the rule of law.
Aquinas and the Ontological Flexibility of Law
Authors: Schaeffer Matthew
Published: July 2016

When Saint Thomas Aquinas makes claims such as “that which is not just seems to be no law at all” it is a bit difficult to discern what he means. Some think that Aquinas is defending what is now called the Strong Natural Law Thesis: for all X, X is a law only if X is just. Others think that Aquinas is defending what is now called the Weak Natural Law Thesis: for all X, X is a non-defective law only if X is just. In this paper, focusing on Aquinas’s metaphysics, I argue that both of these interpretations are mistaken. Aquinas is primarily defending what we can call The Metaphysical Natural Law Thesis: since being and goodness are convertible, legal validity (i.e., the existence or being of a law) comes in degrees—and this entails that the justice of a law literally increases the amount of being a law possesses, while the injustice of a law literally decreases the amount of being a law possesses. On this interpretation, then, the injustice of a law entails an ontological attenuation of the law without entailing an ontological annihilation of the law.
Force and Freedom: Can They Co-exist?
Authors: Fisher Talia
Published: July 2016

Force and Freedom, a new book by Professor Arthur Ripstein, offers a comprehensive and highly sophisticated articulation of Kant’s legal and political philosophy. While Kant’s thinking on metaphysics and ethics has received paramount attention in the academic discourse, his contribution to legal and political theory has been somewhat marginalized. One reason for Kant’s exclusion from the central canon of political and legal philosophy is the abstract and very complicated nature of Kantian writing on law and political power, most particularly in the Doctrine of Right. Another reason is the difficulties many writers have encountered in their attempts to reconcile Kant’s political and legal writing with his moral philosophy. Against this background, the novelty and importance of Force and Freedom cannot be overstated.
On the Topic of the Divergence between Legal and Moral Obligations in Common Law
Authors: Al-Tawil Tareq
Published: July 2016

If common law is to run parallel to the morality of promissory obligation, it must require the breaching seller to keep his promise, not simply to pay off the buyer. However, in the event of promise-breaking, common law orders the defendant to compensate the claimant for the loss that flows from the breach of the duty to perform. The following questions then arise: why does English law not order the defendant to do the very thing that the substantive duty requires him to do? Why does it not adopt specific performance as the primary remedy? Is it because English law runs against the morality of promise? The answer is ‘no’. A number of justifications have been put forward to explain the common law’s reluctance to award specific performance despite its undoubted acceptance as the appropriate moral response to promise-breaking. This article will explain each and show which is more persuasive.
Taxation with Representation: Or, the Libertarian Dilemma
Authors: Epstein Richard A.
Published: July 2016

Without question, the libertarian vision that envisions the use of state power to control force and fraud as a proper governmental function is one piece of any comprehensive political theory. But the hard-line libertarian goes astray in finding this the sole function of government or in thinking that the maintenance of order is possible without the imposition of taxes. Rather, the case for taxation rests on the familiar view that state coercion is sometimes necessary to overcome coordination problems. The justification for a minimal system of taxation therefore is that it provides more in benefits for the individuals taxed than they lose in revenue. Stressing the benefit shows the mistake in Nozick’s famous observation that taxation is “on a par” with forced labor. And the proper understanding of the logic of taxation shows the defects in the series of steps in demoktesis-or “ownership of the people, by the people, and for the people”-that Nozick offers to show how difficult it is to draw any clear line between taxation and slavery.
Doing the Full Monty: Will Publicizing Tax Information Increase Compliance?
Authors: Kornhauser Marjorie E.
Published: July 2016

Publicity of information is a fundamental principle of American democracy. Not only is it instrumental in increasing compliance with the laws, a necessity of any government, but also it is an essential element of the right to know-which itself is an aspect of the first amendment right to free speech. Unfortunately, publicity often conflicts with another fundamental right-the right to privacy. In regards to taxes, citizens essentially have two rights to know: a right to know what the tax laws are, and a right to know that these laws are being administered fairly. Publicity in the tax context traditionally means making tax return information public records in an attempt to ensure the fair administration of the tax laws. This type of publicity, however, generates intense hostility because taxpayers perceive it as a huge invasion of their privacy.

After examining the pros and cons of traditional publicity of tax information, this Essay suggests that tax publicity be reconceived more broadly. Redefined in the dictionary sense of simply the transmission of information, tax publicity can include a wide array of communications, varying as to content and audience, which can better achieve publicity’s underlying goals with minimal invasions of privacy. A large portion of publicity in this broad sense can be-and should be-educational.

The Essay outlines four publicity proposals to stimulate discussion. Three use the expanded definition of publicity and focus on individual taxpayers: an annual tax statement, a short booklet to accompany the 1040, called Know Your Taxes, and an annual W-4. These essentially educational programs should deliver tax information to taxpayers more effectively than currently occurs. The fourth, more controversial, proposal suggests partial publicity-in the traditional sense. It attempts, however, to minimize the customary objections to publicizing tax return information by reducing invasions of privacy.

All the proposals will cost money, but probably less than the costs of enforcing compliance only through increased audits and litigation. They may also have psychic and political costs. Although recent studies show that more informed taxpayers are often more compliant, some of the information may trigger negative attitudes which would decrease compliance and/or create pressure for lower taxes.

Regardless of whether taxpayer reactions to the increased information are positive or negative, the greater publicity proposed in the Essay could have salutary effects, especially if it occurred in the context of a rational debate by elected officials about tax policy (instead of the current inflammatory rhetorical sound bites). On the one hand, if taxpayers respond positively to publicity, compliance will increase. If they act negatively, and their hostility to taxes increase, at least the publicity will arm them with more precise information that will allow them to focus their objections to the income tax and thereby lobby more effectively for real tax reform.
Professor Raz, the Rule of Law, and the Tobacco Act
Authors: Froese Devrin
Published: July 2016

In 2000, the BC government sued 14 "tobacco manufacturers" pursuant to the Tobacco Damages and Health Care Costs Recovery Act. The Tobacco Companies challenged the constitutionality of the legislation, alleging amongst other things that the Tobacco Act violated the rule of law. In this paper, I begin by showing that the Supreme Court of Canada adopts a formal approach to the rule of law devoid of much substantive content. This, I argue, is in line with the views of Joseph Raz. I then argue that the Tobacco Companies' reliance on Raz's views for support in its claim that the Tobacco Act violates the rule of law is misguided. Far from invalidating the Tobacco Act, Raz's view can be understood to license it. In the last section of the paper, I show that a formal approach to the rule of law such as Raz's does not confine Charter interpretation.
Normative Weighing and Legal Guidance of Conduct
Authors: Gur Noam
Published: July 2016

Contemporary legal philosophers commonly understand the normative force of law in terms of practical reason. They sharply disagree, however, on how exactly it translates into practical reason. Notably, some have argued that the directives of an authority that meets certain prerequisites of legitimacy generate reasons for action that exclude some otherwise applicable reasons, while others have insisted that such directives can only give rise to reasons that compete with opposing ones in terms of their weight (an approach I will call the weighing model). Does the weighing model provide a normative framework within which law could adequately facilitate correct decision-making? At first glance, the answer appears to be ‘yes’: there seems to be nothing about law-following values—such as coordination reasons, the desirability of social order, deferential expertise, etc.—which prevents them from being factored into our decision-making in terms of normative weight that tips the balance in favor of compliance with law inasmuch as it is worthwhile to comply with it. This impression, however, turns out to be incorrect when, drawing on a body of empirical work in psychology, I observe that many of the practical difficulties law typically addresses are difficulties that have part of their root in biases to which we are systematically susceptible in the settings of our daily activity. I argue that the frequent presence of those biases in contexts of activity which law regulates, and the pivotal role law has in counteracting them, emphatically militate against the weighing model and call for its rejection.
Lawful Murder: Unnecessary Killing in the Law of War
Authors: Walker Samuel G.
Published: July 2016

The international law of war limits the use of violence, largely through protections afforded to civilians. However, the law provides no principled limit on the taking ofcombatantlife — soldiers may be killed even if to do so would contribute absolutely no military advantage. This permissive approach to unnecessary killing has deep historical roots in the philosophy of the law of war. Three justifications for unnecessary killing have been advanced: a robust notion of sovereignty that views the soldier as a disposable molecule of a greater being; the idea that soldiers are ‘guilty’ and deserve what befalls them in war; and a pragmatic approach holding that limits on gratuitous violence are both impossible to implement in practice as well as harmful. None of these arguments are persuasive in light of the contemporary consensus that there is a human right to life that ought to be respected at all times, even in war. A rule of “combatant proportionality” should therefore be formally incorporated into the law of war.
A Rights-Based View of the Idea/ Expression Dichotomy in Copyright Law
Authors: Drassinower Abraham
Published: July 2016

The paper offers a rights-based, Kantian interpretation of the idea/expression dichotomy in the law of copyright. It demonstrates that the idea/expression dichotomy normatively structures the relation between the parties to a copyright action in terms of their equal rights to authorship. To the extent that the defendant has not copied the plaintiff’s expression but has instead expressed an idea anew, the defendant has exercised her own authorship. The limits of the plaintiff’s right (i.e. the law’s refusal to copyright ideas) are therefore the contours of a public domain that, as a matter of equality, the plaintiff himself must be held to recognize. The public domain is not externally imposed upon but internally constitutive of authorial right. Thus the paper shows that a Kantian understanding of the fundamentals of copyright questions the perceived opposition between authorial right and public domain that informs much of contemporary copyright discourse. In so doing, the paper establishes the largely neglected possibility of a rights-based defense of the public domain.
Kazimierz Brandys's Warsaw Diaries
Authors: Tighe Carl
Published: July 2016

An older friend of mine, a man of outstanding intelligence and great novelistic talent, asked me a rather curious question: ‘Did you notice that out there in the street everybody is acting abnormally? The salesman is pretending to sell, the bricklayer is building imaginary homes, newspapers don't have any news, the children's traffic warden is waving his lollipop like crazy, but there isn't really any traffic […].’ This friend of mine remembered the pre-war years, but I later realised that even people who had never seen anything other than the People's Republic of Poland had the same kind of feeling.
II. The Whig Exclusionists: Pamphlet Literature in the Exclusion Campaign, 1679–81
Authors: Furley O. W.
Published: July 2016

The Exclusion Controversy of 1679–81 echoes many of the constitutional issues debated before and during the Civil War, just as it anticipates many of the arguments used to support the 1688 Revolution. If the attempt to exclude James, Duke of York, from the succession to the throne was abortive, it still provides an important key to contemporary opinion about the vital political problems of the century; and at this time when the structure, indeed the very existence of the early Whig and Tory parties is being questioned, the Exclusion Controversy can be shown in one respect at least to have had a markedly unifying effect on the former party, as demonstrated in its literature. The attempt at Exclusion was the supreme effort of Shaftesbury to rally the early Whig party, and it was accompanied by an intensive propaganda campaign, issuing forth a steady stream of pamphlets, most of which are still extant. Some of the best of these have been printed in Somer's Tracts, The Harleian Miscellany and State Tracts: A Collection of Treatises relating to the Government, Privately Printed in the Reign of Charles II, 1693; while others are now very rare, and single copies may be found only in the British Museum or Bodleian Library, or in such repositories as the City Guildhall Library, London. Together with the Tory replies, they form a list of nearly two hundred titles, not as vast a collection as the Civil War produced, but one to compare favourably with the volume of pamphlets occasioned by the Restoration and the Revolution.
I. Hereford Cathedral Dignitaries in The Twelfth Century
Authors: Brooke Z. N. , Brooke C. N. L.
Published: July 2016

The present article originated out of an attempt to re-edit the letters of Gilbert Foliot, whose career as abbot of Gloucester, bishop of Hereford, and bishop of London covered nearly half of the twelfth century (1139-87). The edition by J. A. Giles is thoroughly unsatisfactory: the text is un-trustworthy, there is no index, and no attempt has been made to date the letters or to arrange them in any coherent order. Nothing could be done at present about the text, since the necessary manuscripts could not be consulted; but it was possible to make an index and with its assistance to arrange the letters in some sort of order and assign to them approximate dates. The chief clues for dating are naturally the names of persons, usually ecclesiastics, mentioned in the letters, but it soon became evident that the only lists available of these ecclesiastics (other than bishops) are for the most part entirely unreliable, and that a complete revision of these lists is a necessary preliminary to any attempt at precise dating, not only of these letters, but also of twelfth-century documents in general. In the thirteenth century, when Patent and Close Rolls begin, there is more positive information, and still more when episcopal registers become available. Before that time, documents were rarely dated, and appointments and deaths of minor officials were not important enough to receive much notice from chroniclers. It is for this early period, when references have to be collected from a number of scattered sources and exact dates are rare, that revision is most needed, and to it we are confining our investigation.
II. The Barbary Corsairs in the Seventeenth Century
Authors: Clark G. N.
Published: July 2016

The seventeenth century was one of the twelve during which, in spite of what geographers might regard as probable and proper, the two sides of the Mediterranean were in the hands of two separate and inimical civilizations, different in religion, morals, law, economy and knowledge. That sea was nevertheless a busy highway. The Levant trade, the most important of all for the French and the Italians, was also important for the English and the Dutch; but North Africa, from the Atlantic coast of Morocco to the Libyan desert, Barbary par excellence, was outside the European system of international law and conduct. Even when they were nominally at peace the Christians and the Moslems never trusted one another or succeeded for long in abiding by the rules on which they agreed. Both sides tried to enforce such rules by collective and vicarious punishments, by reprisals and by other devices to which men resort when there is no law between them. Each side, often in spite of express treaty stipulations, made slaves of prisoners from the other: the Islamic society was based on slavery, and the Latin states also manned their war-galleys partly with their own criminals but largely with Moslems captured at sea. To the seafaring men of Europe captivity in Barbary was a danger worse than shipwreck.
III. The New Philosophy: Bruno to Descartes
Authors: Broad C. D.
Published: July 2016

I have been asked to speak to-day on the ‘new philosophy’ which arose and gradually triumphed in the period between the birth of Bruno in 1548 and the death of Descartes in 1650. I propose to put a fairly wide interpretation on the word ‘philosophy’, as did all the great thinkers of our period. And I propose to begin by giving a fairly full, though necessarily very imperfect, synopsis of the old philosophy against which the new doctrines reacted and which they superseded. What I shall describe with the name of the ‘old philosophy’ is the theory of the universe which St Thomas had elaborated on the basis of such knowledge of the works of Aristotle as was available to him.
I. Monastic Foundation Charters of the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries
Authors: Galbraith V. H.
Published: July 2016

The draughtsman of a foundation charter in the century after the Norman Conquest had the choice of two distinct diplomatic forms, each of which was a legacy from earlier times. He might cast it in the shape of a letter, authenticated by the seal of the donor, informing the superior lord or the relevant bishop of what had been done: or he might use the more ancient, solemn and pretentious form of the diploma, authenticated not by the seal but by the sign of the cross made by the hands of the witnesses. In either case he would be careful to include a list of witnesses who could prove the grant; and the most obvious difference between them would lie in this—that the letter referred to the act as already past (sciatis me dedisse…), while the diploma described the actual moment of gift (do—ortrado—deo et abbati…). To the latter an exact date was appropriate—hence the elaborate dating of the Anglo-Saxonlandbocs:for the letter, on the other hand, a date was superfluous, since the act was recorded as a thing of the past. Whichever form he chose, his purpose was the same, viz. to supply evidence for the remote future of a grant made verbally. There is no question about this so far as letters or writ charters are concerned: for not only are they often addressed to all men present andfuture, but they sometimes include preambles which leave us in no doubt as to the current conception of the written word.
VI. Lord Elgin in India, 1862–63
Authors: Morison J. L.
Published: July 2016

The Indian administration of the eighth Earl of Elgin is important and interesting for two reasons. It furnishes a perfect cross-section made in the government of India at the time when the old Company methods were being rapidly superseded by those of the new régime: and it reveals the judgments passed on that government by a widely experienced administrator of the day.
I. Peter Damiani and Humbert
Authors: Whitney J. P.
Published: July 2016

Dante, in his vision of Paradise, passes (Canto XXI) into the sphere of Saturn, over which the Thrones preside and where Love has an almost blinding splendour. The Thrones, in the Celestial Hierarchy described for the Middle Ages by the Pseudo-Dionysius, represented tranquillity, the peace which passes understanding, gained through contemplation of God and then interpreted to the world of men. There he sees the golden Jacob's Ladder of Contemplation, with many bright beings passing up and down, one of whom above the others reflected and revealed the brightness. The poet seeks to know why this special intensity and this nearness to humanity is given to one more than to others, and on asking finds that it is Peter Damiani, “Peter the Sinner” as he called himself in life and calls himself here. In his own age Peter was a striking and well-known character of many sides, but Dante's conception of him is strangely unlike that held by most of the modern writers. To some of them he seems the sternest of rigid reformers, to others the most eccentric of ascetics; to theologians he may be known as a learned and prolific writer who has found a secluded sanctuary in Migne's collection: to some historians he is a man who unaccountably influenced a curious age, to others he is the writer of an unblushing and unreadable account of clerical vice. But to Dante he stands for something very different; in the Seventh Sphere, the special home of contemplative saints, he is supreme. He is the type of the contemplative life which comes nearest to God and is therefore most useful to man. If we take this as the centre of Damiani's personality, all his activities and all his writings fall into their proper place. Instead of accidental denunciations of evils and corruptions, isolated comments on theological or clerical life, we have a coherent whole, a full expression of a well-ordered personality. If to most people he is merely an ascetic and a prophet of asceticism, he himself valued the ascetic life as a help to contemplation and as necessary to ensure its perfection.
IV. The Eclipse of Lord John Russell
Authors: Henderson G. B.
Published: July 2016

The seventh chapter of Mr Kingsley Martin's admirable work, The Triumph of Lard Palmerston, is headed: “The completion of the picture (October 1853-January 1854).” But the picture is not complete. Palmerston's culminating triumph was when Sebastopol fell in September 1855: for he was then established as the unquestioned leader of the motley throng of Whigs, Peelites, and Radicals, which was about to become the Liberal party. The rise of his star naturally produced the setting of Lord John Russell's. In the 'forties, Lord John was Prime Minister and Palmerston Foreign Secretary; in the 'sixties, the positions were reversed, and Lord John was not Prime Minister again until Palmerston's death. The story of the rise of Palmerston and the decline of Lord John is long and complicated: for the statesmen were seldom rivals, and the problem cannot be solved by biographical study. The events of one short period—the first six months of 1855—none the less stand out as decisive in their careers.
The Case of Saint William of York
Authors: Knowles Dom David
Published: July 2016

The complicated series of disputes which followed the York election of 1140–1 is familiar in broad outline to all students of the period. From a small beginning the strife came to involve almost every person of importance in England, and many on the Continent, and lasted, in its ramifications, for some twenty years. Yet the history of this controversy, though it could not fail to receive some notice in any detailed account of the times, has not hitherto been set out in full with complete accuracy. This failure has been due in part to the nature of the records, which are scattered among English chronicles, papal documents and Cistercian sources, and can only be fully used by one who has them all before his eyes simultaneously; many of those who have treated the episode obiter have failed thus to assemble them with completeness. In part also it has been due to gaps in the evidence at more than one crucial point, which have thrown all historians back upon conjecture. These gaps, in part, still exist, but it so happens that within the last few years a number of independent studies have reconstructed much of the narrative that was hitherto dark, and some important documents have come to light; it is therefore possible to arrive at something approaching to a clear view of the whole business.
Kiderlen-Wachter
Authors: Gooch G. P.
Published: July 2016

Among the actors on the political stage of post-Bismarckian Germany Kiderlen-Wächter occupies a place apart. His robust and rather gross personality stands out from the surrounding throng of shadowy figures, beloved by few, disliked by many, ignored by none. To this day the question is asked what he would have done had he been at the helm in 1914, and whether perchance he might have averted the rush of the avalanche. The Swabian Bismarck, as Naumann called him, impressed his contemporaries as the ablest German diplomatist of his generation with the possible exception of Marschall von Bieberstein. His admiring biographer and friend Dr Jaeckh declares that he came too late and went too soon.
The Jews in Fifteenth-Century Florence and Savonarola's Establishment of a Mons Pietatis
Authors: Salter F. R.
Published: July 2016

No aspect of fifteenth-century Florence can be completely without interest, although a bare minimum may seem to attach to a study of the Jews during this period and of their connexion with the city finances on the one hand and the establishment of a Mons Pietatis on the other. Yet the economic foundation on which the magnificent artistic and literary superstructure rested is clearly important, and that not only for the fortunes of the Medici and other ruling, or rival, families, Strozzi, Pazzi, Tornabuoni and the like, but also where it affects the daily lives of the popolo minuto, tailors, potters and fishermen, or those craftsmen who by their labours built the church of San Spirito and the Ospedale degli Innocenti. Nor can we disregard a chapter of history which closes with some of the most direct and the most practically effective of the sermons of Savonarola.
I. ‘Delenda est Carthago’
Authors: Adcock F. E.
Published: July 2016

The odious behaviour of the Romans in the events that led to the destruction of Carthage has earned the condemnation of historians who see in it, as they have a right to do, a moral issue. The unattractiveness of the Carthaginians, whose history has been written for us by their enemies, is no defence: the bad name does not justify this execution. But the problem remains why the Senate acted as it did, and the examination of it may throw light on Roman policy and the temper of the Roman mind in the middle years of the second century. We need not suppose that the Senate decided to destroy Carthage rather than listen any longer to Cato ending all hissententiaein the Curia with the words ‘ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam’. The motives that led Cato, who after Pydna had spoken up for the Rhodians and apparently had quoted with approval a plea of Scipio Africanus against the destruction of Carthage after Zama, to urge the destruction of Carthage axe part of the investigation. But the main question is why the Senate in the end adopted his policy, if policy it can be called.
IV. Experiment in Medicine
Authors: Dale Henry
Published: July 2016

I have been asked to speak about the history of the experimental method in medicine, with particular reference to the nineteenth century. This indication, though I do not propose to regard it as setting a limit, seems to have a special fitness, since it is to the nineteenth century, and especially to its latter half, that we must look for the effective beginning and astonishingly rapid development, the veritable outburst, indeed, of activity in the application of the experimental method to medicine, which opened the new era of medical progress in which we are living today. It is curious, perhaps, that this should have come so late in the history of science. For medicine had figured early in man's attempts to understand nature and his relation to it, and many departments of science which have long ago achieved recognition as independent bodies of knowledge originated as aspects of the physician's equipment—botany, for example, zoology and chemistry, as well as human anatomy and physiology, which still retain their attachment to the medical group of the scientific disciplines. From this point of view, then, it is not surprising to find two physicians, William Gilbert and William Harvey, as the leaders in this country of the scientific revolution which had begun in Europe in 1543 with the publication, within a few weeks of one another, of two books—one by Copernicus of Cracow,De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium, and the other by Vesalius of Padua,De Humani Corporis Fabrica. Both Gilbert and Harvey, we may be proud to remember, studied and first graduated in Medicine here, in Cambridge.
II. The Elections To The Convention Parliament Of 1689
Authors: Plumb J. H.
Published: July 2016

The election to the Convention Parliament of 1689 was one of the most important ever held, but singularly little attention has been paid to it. A detailed examination has revealed a number of factors which cast fresh light on the state of the country during the Interregnum and on the composition of the Convention Parliament. In this article I intend to restrict my attention to three aspects of the election: firstly, the effect of James II's preparations upon the composition of the House of Commons; secondly, the effect of the preparations of William III and his supporters; thirdly, the manner in which this election was fought in the various constituencies.