Putting Nature and Nations Asunder 175Spinoza, however, was exceptional in his agreement with Hobbes’s rejec-
tion of natural sociability. Nor were his writings infl uential on later writers
on international law. Th e true leading fi gure in the naturalist tradition was
neither Hobbes nor Spinoza but the German historian and lawyer Samuel
Pufendorf. He was from Saxony and, like his contemporary Rachel, was
the son of a Lutheran minister. Initially destined for the ministry himself,
he studied theology at the University of Leipzig but soon abandoned it for
law. He read widely, including the works of both Grotius and Hobbes. His
fi rst major employment was in Copenhagen as a tutor to the family of the
Swedish ambassador. Diffi cult po liti cal relations between Sweden and Den-
mark led to his being imprisoned for some eight months (with the rest of the
ambassadorial staff )— and thereby provided with valuable time for intellec-
tual meditation. It was time well spent, its fruit being a natural- law treatise,
Elements of Universal Jurisprudence, published in 1660. Th is led to his being
appointed by the book’s dedicatee, Karl Ludwig (the Elector of the Rhenish
Palatinate), to a professorship of international law at the University of Hei-
delberg in that same year— said to be the fi rst such academic chair to be
created. Interestingly, the post was in the faculty of philosophy rather than
of law. Th e formal title of the professorship— of the “Law of nature and
nations”— was somewhat ironic, with its clear echo of the Grotian dualistic
thesis. Pufendorf ’s tenure in Heidelberg, however, was not long. He went on
to hold a similarly designated chair at the University of Lund in Sweden in
1670– 77. It was during that period (in 1672) that he published his principal
work, Th e Law of Nature and Nations— one of history’s foremost master-
pieces of natural law. Five years later, he went on to become historiographer
royal for the Swedish government.
Pufendorf revealed his allegiance to the naturalist school in his
insistence— notwithstanding the title of his book— that there was no such
thing as “a peculiar and positive law of nations, distinct from natural law.”
Th e old Roman-law conception of ius gentium, he explained correctly, was not
a law between states— that is, was not truly international law at all— but
merely a civil law between individuals. Nor, in his opinion, could the cus-
tomary practices of states have the eff ect of creating rules of law. Th erefore, an
analysis of state practice could reveal nothing meaningful about international
law. “[T]hey are assuredly wasting their eff orts who collect what the nations
in common with one another habitually practice,” he pronounced.