Attention has only recently been called (by O. Gierke, in the work already
mentioned, Heft vii. of his _Untersuchungen zur deutschen Staats- und
Rechtsgeschichte_, Breslau, 1880) to the Westphalian, Johannes Althusius
(Althusen or Althaus) as a legal philosopher worthy of notice. He was born,
1557, in the Grafschaft Witgenstein; was a teacher of law in Herborn and
Siegen from 1586, and Syndic in Emden from 1604 to his death in 1638. His
chief legal work was the _Dicaeologica_, 1617 (a recasting of a treatise
on Roman law which appeared in 1586), and his chief political work the
_Politica_, 1603 (altered and enlarged 1610, and reprinted, in addition,
three times before his death and thrice subsequently). Down to the
beginning of the eighteenth century he was esteemed or opposed as chief
among the _Monarchomachi_, so called by the Scotchman, Barclay (_De Regno
et Regali Potestate_, 1600); since that time he has fallen into undeserved
oblivion. The sovereign power (_majestas_) of the people is untransferable
and indivisible, the authority vested in the chosen wielder of the
administrative power is revocable, and the king is merely the chief
functionary; individuals are subjects, it is true, but the community
retains its sovereignty and has its rights represented over against the
chief magistrate by a college of ephors. If the prince violates the
compact, the ephors are authorized and bound to depose the tyrant, and to
banish or execute him. There is but one normal state-form; monarchy and
polyarchy are mere differences in administrative forms. Mention should
finally be made of his valuation of the social groups which mediate between
the individual and the state: the body politic is based on the narrower
associations of the family, the corporation, the commune, and the province.

While with Bodin the historical, and with Gentilis the _a priori_ method of
treatment predominates, Hugo Grotius[1] combines both standpoints. He bases
his system on the traditional distinction of two kinds of law. The origin
of positive law is historical, by voluntary enactment; natural law is