Page 289 - Latent Defect or Excessive Price?Exploring Early Modern Legal Approach to Remedying Defects in Goods Exchanged for Money - Bruijn

CHAPTER SIX
legal principles without which a peaceful society will never be realised:13
'\[prolegomena § 8\] The safeguarding of society which corresponds to the human intellect is the appropriate source of the law which is properly called by such name'.14
This concept of law has direct influence on how Grotius perceives the law about latent defects:
\[2.12.9\] It pertains to pre-contractual behaviour that he who enters into some contract with another must declare the defects known to himself of the thing that is the object of the sale. This is not only wont to be ordained by civil laws but conforms to acts of nature, since among contracting parties there is a closer society than that which is common to mankind.'15
Grotius' remark that not only the civil law, but also the natural law ordains certain rules, opens the way for disregarding the civil law when its provisions do not comply with natural law, something he admits in his De iure belli ac pacis. Having discussed Roman contract law, Grotius states that though 'all \[previously stated principles of natural law, NdB\] conform to the Roman laws, their origins lie not in those, but in natural equity'.16 In other words, Roman law as an example of civil law is only to be upheld as long as it answers to the rules derived from natural law.
Heineccius (1681-1741) presents another example of how Roman law was interpreted and modified by natural law reasoning. In his Praelectiones in Hugonem Grotium, the German jurist writes that the rule 'not to do to another, what you do not want yourself to be done to'17 was one of the foundations of natural law. The following natural law precepts towards one's fellow human being resulted from this premise:
'1) that I abstain from his goods, 2) that I restitute, if I damage him, 3) that I keep to the agreement I made with him, 4) that I will neither bring or do any injury to him'.18
13 Already noted by Heineccius, Praelectiones, to Grotius' IBP, proemium, § 8, p. 8: '... Ex hoc primo argumento colligit Grotius principium iuris naturae et gentium esse socialitatem. Itaque ea in re convenit Grotius cum Hobbesio et Pufendorffio. Omnes enim hic auctores ius naturae et gentium derivant ex principio socialitatis; Gordley states that this step had already been taken by Spanisch scholastics, though he gives no exact references. See his Origins, p. 222. In the chapter on Castilian aw I treated Suárez' view on the matter, who even denies that a natural law can exist without a superior divine law. See 3.2.2.
14 Grotius, IBP, prolegomena 8, p. 9-10: 'societatis custodia humano intellectui conveniens fons est eius iuris, quod proprie tali nomine appellatur...'.
15 Grotius, IBP, 2.12.9, p. 344: '... Ad praecedanos actus pertinet, quod is qui cum aliquo contrahit vitia sibi nota rei de qua agitur significare debet: quod non civilibus tantum legibus constitui solet, sed naturae quoque actus congruit. Nam inter contrahentes propior quadam est societatis quam quae communis est hominum'.
16 Grotius, IBP, 2.12.13, p. 347: 'quae omnia Romanis quidem congruunt legibus, sed non ex illis primitus, sed ex aequitate naturali veniunt'.
17 Heineccius, Praelectiones, to Grotius' IBP, 2.12.12, p. 293: 'Si res sine culpa contrahentium vitiosa adpareat, id damnum contrahentes sibi invicem resarcire debet....Nam 1. quum in contractu requiratur aequalitas....Non autem aequalis est, si vitiosa. 2. Regula iusti est: quod tibi non vis fieri, alteri ne feceris \[Heineccius' emphasis\]'; the adage is positively formulated in the New Testament (Matt. 7:12; Luke 6:31).
18 Heineccius, Praelectiones, to Grotius' IBP, proemium, 2, § 8, p. 8: '1) ut abstinere debeam ab eius rebus, 2) ut si damnum ei fecerim, restituam, 3) ut pactum quod cum eo inii, servem, 4) ut eum feram,
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