A Methodical System of Universal Law - Natural Law and Enlightenment Classics by Johann Gottlieb Heineccius Paperback

Book Synopsis

George Turnbull's eighteenth-century translation of A Methodical System of Universal Law was his major effort to convey continental natural law to Britain, thus making Heineccius's natural jurisprudence more accessible to English-speaking audiences. Turnbull includes extensive comments on Heineccius's text and also presents his own philosophical work, A Discourse upon the Nature and Origin of Moral and Civil Laws.

Johann Gottlieb Heineccius (1681-1741) studied theology at Leipzig and later law at the newly founded (1694) University of Halle, where he became a pupil of Christian Thomasius.

Thomas Ahnert is a Lecturer in History at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland.

Peter Schröder is Senior Lecturer in the History Department at University College, London.

Review Quotes

Dutch scholar Heineccius (1681-1741) drew on the established and thriving theories of modern natural law of his time, as part of his distinctive system of natural jurisprudence, set out most fully in this 1738 tome. Turnbull's translation of the Latin into English was printed in 1741 and 1763, making the treatise influential among scholars in England and Scotland. Ahnert (history, classics, and archeology; U. of Edinburgh) and Schröder (history, U. College, London) present the 1741 edition with an introduction, copious footnotes, and an index.

Reference & Research Book News
May 2008