wires en route. Sherman's XV. corps, too, made vigorous demonstrations at Haines's Bluff, and in the confusion and uncertainty Pemberton was at a loss.
On the 30th of April McClernand and the XIII. corps crossed the Mississippi 6 m. below Grand Gulf, followed by McPherson. The nearest Confederate brigades, attempting to oppose the advance at Port Gibson, were driven back. Grant had now deliberately placed himself in the middle of the enemy, and although his engineers had opened up a water-line for the barges carrying his supplies from Milliken's Bend to New Carthage, his long line of supply curving round the enemy's flank was very exposed. But his resolute purpose outweighed all text-book strategy. Having crossed the Mississippi, he collected wheeled transport for five days' rations, and on Sherman's arrival cut loose from his base altogether (May 7th). Free to move, he aimed north from the Big Black river, so as to interpose between the Confederate forces at Vicksburg and those at Jackson. A fight took place at Raymond on the 12th of May, and Jackson was captured just in time to forestall the arrival of reinforcements for Pemberton under General Joseph E. Johnston. The latter, being in supreme command of the Confederates, ordered Pemberton to come out of Vicksburg and attack Grant. But Pemberton did not do so until it was too late. On May 16th Grant, with all his forces well in hand, defeated him in the battle of Champion Hill with a loss of nearly 4000 men, and sharply pursuing him drove him into Vicksburg. By the 19th of May Vicksburg and Pemberton's army in it was invested by land and water. Grant promptly assaulted his works, but was repulsed with loss (May 19th); the assault was repeated on the 22nd of May with the same result, and Grant found himself compelled to resort to a blockade. Reinforcements were hurried up from all quarters, Johnston's force (east of Jackson), was held off by a covering corps under Blair (afterwards under Sherman), and though another unsuccessful assault was made on the 25th of June, resistance was almost at an end. On the 4th of July, the day after, far away in Pennsylvania, the great battle of Gettysburg had closed with Lee's defeat, the garrison of Vicksburg, 37,000 strong, surrendered.
VICO, GIOVANNI BATTISTA (1668–1744). Italian jurist and philosopher, was born at Naples on the 23rd of June 1668.
At the university he made rapid progress, especially in jurisprudence,
though preferring the study of history, literature,
juridical science and philosophy. Being appointed tutor to
the nephews of the bishop of Ischia, G. B. Rocca, he accompanied
them to the castle of Vatolla, near Cilento, in the province
of Salerno. There he passed nine studious years, chiefly devoted
to classical reading, Plato and Tacitus being his favourite
authors, because “the former described the ideal man, and the
latter man as he really is.” On his return to Naples he found
himself out of touch with the prevailing Cartesianism, and lived
quietly until in 1697 he gained the professorship of rhetoric at
the university, with a scanty stipend of 100 scudi. On this
he supported a growing family and gave himself to untiring
study. Two authors exercised a weighty influence on his
mind—Francis Bacon and Grotius. He was no follower of
their ideas, indeed often opposed to them; but he derived
from Bacon an increasing stimulus towards the investigation
of certain great problems of history and philosophy, while
Grotius proved valuable in his study of philosophic jurisprudence. In 1708 he published his De ratione studiorum, in 1710
De antiquissima Italorum sapientia, in 1720 De universi juris
uno principio et fine uno, and in 1721 De constantia jurisprudentis.
On the strength of these works he offered himself as
a candidate for the university chair of jurisprudence, but
as he had no personal or family influence was not elected.
With calm courage he returned to his poverty and his favourite
studies, and in 1725 published the first edition of the work
that forms the basis of his renown, Principii d'una scienza
nuova. In 1730 he produced a second edition of the Scienza
nuova, so much altered in style and with so many substantial
additions that it was practically a new work. In 1735 Charles
III. of Naples marked his recognition of Vico's merits by
appointing him historiographer-royal, with a yearly stipend of
100 ducats. Soon after his mind began to give way, but during
frequent intervals of lucidity he made new corrections in his
great work, of which a third edition appeared in 1744, prefaced
by a letter of dedication to Cardinal Trojano Acquaviva. He
died on the 20th of January of the same year. Fate seemed
bent on persecuting him to the last. A fierce quarrel arose
over his burial between the brotherhood of St Stephen, to
which he had belonged, and the university professors, who
desired to escort his corpse to the grave. Finally the canons
of the cathedral, together with the professors, buried the body
in the church of the Gerolimini.
Vico has been generally described as a solitary soul, out of harmony with the spirit of his time and often directly opposed to it. Yet a closer inquiry into the social conditions of Vico's time, and of the studies then flourishing, shows him to have been thoroughly in touch with them.
Owing to the historical past of Naples, and its social and economic condition at the end of the 17th century, the only study that really flourished there was that of law; and this soon penetrated from the courts to the university, and was raised to the level of a science. A great school of jurisprudence was thus formed, including many men of vast learning and great ability, although little known outside their immediate surroundings. Three men, however, obtained a wider recognition. By his exposition of the political history of the kingdom, based on a study of its laws and institutions and of the legal conflicts between the state and the court of Rome, Pietro Giannone was the initiator of what has been since known as civil history. Giovan Vincenzo Gravina wrote a history of Roman law, specially distinguished for its accuracy and elegance. Vico raised the problem to a higher plane, by tracing the origin of law in the human mind and explaining the historical changes of the one by those of the other. Thus he made the original discovery of certain ideas which constitute the modern psychologico-historic method. This problem he proceeded to develop in various works, until in his Scienza nuova he arrived at a more complete solution, which may be formulated as follows: If the principle of justice and law be one, eternal and immutable, why should there be so many different codes of legislation? These differences are not caused by difference of nationality only, but are to be noted in the history of the same people, even in that of the Romans. This problem is touched upon in his Orations or Inaugural Addresses (Orazioni o Prolusioni) and in his Minor Works (Scritti minori). Finally he applied himself to its solution in his Universal Law (Diritto universale), which is divided into two books. The first of these, De uno et universi juris principio et fine uno, was subdivided into two parts; so likewise was the second, with the respective titles of De constantia philologiae and De constantia jurisprudentis.
The following is the general idea derived from these researches. Vico held God to be the ruler of the world of nations, but ruling, not as the providence of the middle ages by means of continued miracles, but as He rules nature, by means of natural laws. If, therefore, the physicist seeks to discover the laws of nature by study of natural phenomena, so the philosopher must seek the laws of historical change by the investigation of human events and of the human mind. According to Vico, law emanates from the conscience of mankind, in whom God has infused a sentiment of justice and is therefore in close and continual relation with the human mind, and participates in its changes. This sentiment of justice is at first confused, uncertain and almost instinctive—is, as it were, a divine and religious inspiration instilled by Heaven into the primitive tribes of the earth. It is an unconscious, universal sentiment, not the personal, conscious and rational sentiment of the superior few. Hence the law to which it gives birth is enwrapped in religious forms which are likewise visible and palpable, inasmuch as primitive man is incapable of abstract, philosophical ideas. This law is not the individual work of any philosophical legislator, for no man was, or could be, a philosopher at that time. It is first displayed in the shape of natural and necessary usages consecrated by religion. The names of leading legislators, which we so often find recorded in the history of primitive peoples, are symbols and myths, merely serving to mark an historic period or epoch by some definite and personal denomination. For nations, or rather tribes, were then distinguished by personal names only. The first obscure and confused conception of law gradually becomes clearer and better defined. Its visible and religious forms then give way to abstract formulae, which in their turn are slowly replaced by the rational manifestation of the philosophic principles of law that gains the victory in the final stage of development, designated by Vico as that of civil and human law. This is the period of individual and philosophic legislators. Thus Roman law has passed through three great periods—the divine, the heroic and the human—which are likewise the three chief periods of the history of Rome, with which it is intimately and intrinsically connected. Nevertheless, on careful examination of these three successive stages, it will easily be seen that, in spite of the apparent difference between them, all have a common foundation, source and purpose. The human and civil
