194 Reason and Its Rivals (ca. 1550– 1815)fi ft y- volume treatise on Deutsches Staatsrecht (German Constitutional Law)
in 1737– 54. Involvement in po liti cal rivalry in Württemberg led to a fi ve-
year imprisonment (in 1759– 64). Aft er his release came a further twenty-
four volumes of Neues deutsches Staatsrecht (New German Constitutional
Law), published between 1766 and 1782. For all of that labor, the sobriquet of
“Father of German Constitutional Law” seems a modest, but apt, reward.
Amid this torrent of writings by Moser were occasional works on interna-
tional law. In an early essay, written in 1739, he proposed the existence of a
law of nations that was based on “the positive experience of norms custom-
ary among civilized peoples.” His most substantial contribution to the
subject was a characteristically massive work, in ten volumes, in 1777– 80,
Versuch des neuesten europäischen Völker- rechts in Friedens- und Kriegs-
Zeiten (Essay on the New Eu ro pe an International Law in War time and
Peacetime). Moser’s work represented the very apogee of the pragmatist
method. He expressly disclaimed any intention of writing what he called a
“philosophical” law of nations. International law was largely based, in his
view, on the practices of states rather than on fundamental principles of jus-
tice. His method was therefore an inductive rather than a deductive one, with
greater attention paid to custom than to treaties. Moser frankly denied the
existence of a general international law. What passes for that, he contended,
is actually a customary law devised by the leading Eu ro pe an countries.
Moser’s stock would later stand high in at least some circles of interna-
tional law, as he came to be regarded as the founding father of the positivist
philosophy of international law. He hoped, however, that his work would
make a signifi cant impact upon his contemporaries; but in this he was dis-
appointed. Th e distinction of writing the fi rst international-law treatise to
reach a wide audience and infl uence practicing statesmen and judges fell
instead to an older contemporary: the Swiss writer Emmerich de Vattel.
Emmerich de Vattel
For an example of a fi gure poised at nearly the midpoint along the international-
law spectrum, the outstanding representative is Vattel. He was a native
of the canton of Neuchâtel, which was not then part of the Swiss federa-
tion but instead was under Prus sian rule. His father was an ennobled Prot-
estant minister, and his maternal grandfather a counsel for Neuchâtel at