ABSTRACT
For a long time, Grotius was given credit for a triple paternity. He was seen as the father of modern natural law, of private law theory, and of international law. Especially Barbeyrac and Pufendorf helped to spread Grotius's fame. One suitable metaphor might be that of the bridge, suggesting that Grotius was an indispensable arch linking medieval and modern Europe. At the beginning of the eighteenth century, Christian Thomasius enthusiastically praised Grotius as the founder of natural law: 'Grotius was the first to try to resuscitate and purify this most useful science, which had become completely dirtied and corrupted by scholastic filthiness, and was at its last gasp.' Grotius faced two intellectual challenges. While Grotius does not deny human selfishness, he adds another impulse, the 'desire for society', for peaceful and organized social life, a trend the Stoics referred to as 'sociableness'.
