To start with this title is to suggest perhaps wherein lies the cause of dispute in the long discussions that have ranged round the meaning and significance of the Jus Gentium; for it is a mistranslation to give law as the English equivalent of the Latin jus. The English translators of the Summa arey not always consistent in their equivalents for the phrase, for in ia.2ez, q. 95, art. 4, in the answer to the first objection (p. 62) the expression Taw of nations’ is given, while in 2a.2ce, q. 57, art. 3 (p. 108), it is ‘the right of nations.’ It is this last that is undoubtedly the truer rendering.

The origin of the phrase, however, will help us to understand what exactly jus gentium signifies and perhaps solve it. It seems to be beyond dispute that the term began to be in use in the latter days of the Republic of Rome when the city had begun its conquests of Italy and was holding under its sway peoples for whom it did not legislate, and yet whose quarrels it had to adjust. A special judge had to be given them, the Praetor Peregrinus, whose function it was to settle their disputes, as the Praetor Urbanus settled those of the citizens of Rome. It was found in practice that these foreigners had very many institutions in common, so that gradually a code was evolved which was based upon no positive legislation of any particular city or tribe, but was the mere putting into order of what was found already to have obtained amongst these non-Roman subject peoples.