George Turnbull’s eighteenth-century translation of A Methodical System of Universal Law was his major effort to convey continental natural law to Britain, thus making Heineccius’s natural jurisprudence more accessible to English-speaking audiences. Turnbull includes extensive comments on Heineccius’s text and also presents his own philosophical work, A Discourse upon the Nature and Origin of Moral and Civil Laws.

Johann Gottlieb Heineccius (1681–1741) studied theology at Leipzig and later law at the newly founded (1694) University of Halle, where he became a pupil of Christian Thomasius.

Thomas Ahnert is a Lecturer in History at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland.

Peter Schröder is Senior Lecturer in the History Department at University College, London.