The Renaissance. The Renaissance was, in the per-
son of the French thinker, Jean Bodin, to announce
the return to a Stoic natural law. In his picture of
universal law, Jean Bodin resumed the bipartite divi-
sion of common law: natural law, human law. Natural
law is called so because it is innate, ever since the
origin of mankind, and that is why it is always equitable
and just. Bodin extrapolates from the De inventione
(2, 53, 161), but refuses to accept Ulpian's idea of a
law common to man and animals. Opposing human
law to natural law, he depicts natural law as instituted
by men in conformity with nature and in view of their
needs. He includes in natural law the law of peoples
(in Gaius' sense) and the civil law belonging properly
to each nation, but dispenses with natural law for this
purpose when it is a question of defining the art of
law. In Bodin's Republic, the natural faculties of indi-
viduals are recognized as equivalent to laws (natural
laws). Positive law has no other aim than to assure the
individual the legitimate prerogatives which he holds
by virtue of his nature, by the needs and aspirations
of his being. All this does not, however, prevent the
State from being the true sovereign, and the will of
the Prince from being its voice. Absolutism is not in
any case complete for this sovereignty is exercised only
with regard to the positive law. Above the State and
binding it is natural law; the danger is thus conjured
away.
