192 Reason and Its Rivals (ca. 1550– 1815)the ranking of diplomats, as well as questions of immunities), and war- related
issues of all kinds (including topics such as captures of property, treatment of
neutrals, the law of contraband, safe- conducts, issues concerning prisoners
and ransom, surrenders, and the terms of peace treaties). Zouche frequently
declined to take a position himself when the authorities or pre ce dents were at
odds, as they oft en were. But for an identifi cation of relevant practical issues
and an outline of the varying positions of commentators at the time, his work
is invaluable.
Another major writer in the pragmatist tradition was a Dutch admiralty
judge named Cornelius van Bynkershoek, who wrote in the early part of the
eigh teenth century. Originally from Middelburg in the Netherlands, he
studied theology at the University of Franeker, in Friesland. He served as
president of the Council of Holland and also as a professor of law at the Uni-
versity of Leiden. For a time, he was editor of a satirical journal— an unusual
activity in a profession not renowned for a sense of humor. He wrote a short
work on freedom of the seas in 1702 and one on diplomatic law in 1721 but
is best known for a treatise on Questions of Public Law, published in 1737. It
was an unsystematic work, but it is of much interest in that it dealt with
many practical issues that were in lively dispute at the time. Bynkershoek
did not hesitate to make his own opinions known or to criticize acts and
decisions that he thought were wrong— although, in the interest of caution,
he withheld his own views when current or very recent controversies were in
question.
Bynkershoek had hardly any use for natural law, although he conceded to
Grotius and Pufendorf “the place of honor” in international legal writing.
His own concern was well nigh exclusively with the voluntary law of nations
instead. Practice, he pronounced “is the origin of the law of nations.” For
“the testimony of ancient poets and orators,” he had no use. Instead, he pre-
ferred to consult the opinions of “those who have associated with men and
had experience in aff airs of state, and have grown wise from practical ad-
ministration.” And he made it clear that he wanted his book to have “im-
mediate practical value.”
Reason was also important to Bynkershoek— more important, in fact,
than “the phraseology of treaties” as a means of discerning the law. But
reason, to Bynkershoek, meant sound thinking and robust common sense
in general, rather than systematic natural- law doctrine of the rationalist