JEAN

See also:

• JEAN BARBEYRAC (1674–1744)

BARBEYRAC (1674–1744)  , French jurist, the nephew of Charles Barbeyrac, a distinguished physician of Montpellier, was born at Beziers in Lower Languedoc on the 15th of March 1674 . He removed with his family into Switzerland after the revocation of the edict of Nantes, and there studied jurisprudence . After spending some tithe at Geneva and Frankfort-on-Main, he became professor of belles-lettres in the French school of Berlin . Thence, in 1711, he was called to the professorship of history and civil law at Lausanne, and finally settled as professor of public law at Groningen . He died on the 3rd of March 1744 . His fame rests chiefly on the preface and notes to his translation of Pufendorf's treatise De Jure Naturae et Gentium . In fundamental principles he follows almost entirely_Locke and Pufendorf; but he works out with great skill the theory of moral obligation, referring it to the command or will of God . He indicates the distinction, developed more fully by Thomasius and Kant, between the legal and the moral qualities of action . The principles of international law he reduces to those of the law of nature, and combats, in so doing, many of the positions taken up by Grotius . He rejects the notion that sovereignty in any way resembles property, and makes even marriage a matter of civil contract . Barbeyrac also translated Grotius's De Jure Belli et Pacis, Cumberland's De Legibus Naturae, and Pufendorf's smaller treatise De Officio Hominis et Civis . Among his own productions are a treatise, De la morale des peres, a history of ancient treaties contained in the Supplement au grand corps diplomatique, and the curious Traite du jeu (1709), in which he defends the morality of games of chance .