474. The foregoing explanation of the character of Hercules provides the uniform origins of all the ancient nations. Contained, as they are, in their entirety in the fabulous history of the Greeks, and interpreted here in the light of certain Roman history, they fill out the fragmented history of the Egyptians and clarify the utterly obscure history of the East. [An understanding of] these origins must precede [that of] universal history, which begins with the monarchy of Ninus; it must precede [that of] philosophy, in order that, by meditating upon Providence, philosophy should reason about men, fathers and princes; and it must precede [that of] the jurisprudence of the natural law of the gentes ordained by Providence. Hence [it will be seen that] the whole of history, the parts of philosophy that we have discussed, and the jurisprudence of the natural law of the gentes, as given in the systems of Grotius, Selden and Pufendorf, have hitherto been treated without such origins, while the Stoics with their fate and the Epicureans with their chance have actively damaged [our understanding of] them. This explains why, at the outset, we despaired of finding this Science, wherein we have demonstrated that Providence ordained this world of nations, either from the philosophers or the philologists.

475. Thus, to conclude with the example with which our reasoning began: first came the auspices, which men believed were necessary to distinguish who had ownership of common land in the first world under the divine kingdoms; next came the Herculean consignment of the bond in the heroic kingdoms; finally came the consignment of the estates themselves in the human kingdoms.