Jus gentium methodo scientifica pertractatum / by Christian Wolff ...

Preface
vi
Eminent publicists, European and American, who have been consulted
as to the usefulness of the plan to republish the Classics, have
ct and have pledged their personal co-operation.
endorsed en
the proje
The works to be included in the series have not only been approved
but
b
even suggested by them, so that the undertaking is international
in scope, in selection, and in execution.
The underlying principie of selection has been to reissue those
works which can be said to have contributed either to the origin or to
thegrowth of International Law, and the terco classic has been used in
the broad rather than in the narrow sense. The masterpieces of
Grotius will naturally be the central point in the series, but the works
of his leading predecessors and successors will likewise be included. In
general, the text of each author will be reproduced photographically,
so as to lay the source before the reader without the mistakes which
creep into a newly printed text. In the case of the early authors the
photographed text will be accompanied by a revised text whenever
that course seems desirable. An introduction will be prefixed to each
work, giving the necessary biographical details and stating the importance
of the text and its place in International Law; lists of errata in
the original will be added, and notes deemed necessary to clear up
doubts and ambiguities or to correct mistakes in the text will be
supplied. Variations in successive editions of the text published in the
author's lifetime will be noted, but little or nothing in the nature of
historical commentary will be furnished.
Each work will be accompanied by an English version made
expressly for the series by a competent translator.
It is hoped that the series will enable specialists as well as general
readers to trace International Law from its faint and unconscious
beginnings to its present ample proportions and to forecast with some
degree of certainty its future development into that la which Mirabeau
tells us will one day rule the world.
WASHINGTON,
May1,1931.
JAMES BROWN SCOTT,
General Editor.