OF THE LAW OF NATURE, THE LAW OF NATIONS,
AND THE CIVIL LAW

1 The law of nature is that which she has taught all animals; a
law not peculiar to the human race, but shared by all living
creatures, whether denizens of the air, the dry land, or the sea.
Hence comes the union of male and female, which we call
marriage; hence the procreation and rearing of children, for
this is a law by the knowledge of which we see even the lower
animals are distinguished. The civil law of Rome, and the law
of all nations, differ from each other thus. The laws of every
people governed by statutes and customs are partly peculiar
to itself, partly common to all mankind. Those rules which a
state enacts for its own members are peculiar to itself, and
are called civil law: those rules prescribed by natural reason
for all men are observed by all peoples alike, and are called
the law of nations. Thus the laws of the Roman people are
partly peculiar to itself, partly common to all nations; a dis-
tinction of which we shall take notice as occasion offers.
2 Civil law takes its name from the state wherein it binds; for
instance, the civil law of Athens, it being quite correct to speak
thus of the enactments of Solon or Draco. So too we call the
law of the Roman people the civil law of the Romans, or the
law of the Quirites; the law, that is to say, which they observe,
the Romans being called Quirites after Quirinus. Whenever
we speak, however, of civil law, without any qualification, we
mean our own; exactly as, when `the poet' is spoken of, without
addition or qualification, the Greeks understand the great Homer,
and we understand Vergil. But the law of nations is common
to the whole human race; for nations have settled certain things