not merely of senseless repetitions of the same useless or indifferent acts, but of repetitions for such a length of time, and so uniform as to indicate, as their cause, a conviction in the people that such are the rules of right and obligation, and therefore of compulsory or coercive law. The other class or description of legal rights and obligations among nations, arising from the third source, is distinguished by the qualities of being particular or special, arising from the union of the wills or joint consent of two or more nations, from agreement, compact, convention, or treaty. There thus, we find, exist, not three, but only two descriptions, constituent parts, or branches of international law, of which the boundaries, like the colours in the rainbow, may run into each other, but are sufficiently distinguishable namely, general common law, mostly essential, or permanent, arising from the physical, material, and mental relations of nations as located on the surface of this earth, and affecting each other by their uni-lateral acts without any previous agreement; and particular international law, arising from the union of the wills of nations, as expressed in compacts, conventions, or treaties, and generally or usually called conventional, or jus pactitium. And these two component parts or branches of international law we shall now consider separately.

CHAPTER IV.

FIRST COMPONENT PART OR BRANCH OF PUBLIC INTERNATIONAL LAW, USUALLY CALLED COMMON AND

CONSUETUDINARY.

CHAPTER IV.

FIRST COMPONENT PART OR BRANCH OF PUBLIC INTERNATIONAL LAW, USUALLY CALLED COMMON AND CONSUETUDINARY.

SECTION I.

The Foundation.

IN further considering the basis of the common consuetudinary law of nations, its distinctive character, and the evidence by which it is supported, we shall begin with briefly recapitulating what we formerly observed on this subject, in tracing the scientific sources of international law generally, so far as regards this branch; and we shall then answer, and we trust refute, the objections which have been stated of late years by some Continental lawyers, to the validity and binding nature of common consuetudinary international law, including a reference to its records.

As in the internal private law of nations, the legal obligations of individuals to each other are not limited to those arising from agreements, or contracts, although numerous and of great importance, so in international law, all the legal obligations of nations, in relation to each other, do not arise from treaties. On the contrary,