Suarez, FRANCISCO, a philosopher and divine of the Roman Catholic Church, was born at Granada on 5th January 1548. As a youth he was so backward that he had considerable difficulty in gaining admission to the order of the Jesuits. But his mind ripened rapidly and developed in some respects unusually high qualities. During the course of his career he taught theology at Segovia,
Valladolid, Rome, Alcala, Salamanca, and Coimbra. His theology was a modification of that of Molina (q.v.); he held that in the case of the elect there is a peculiar grace granted, specially adapted to their several individual natures. In formal scholastic philosophy he steered a middle course between realism and nominalism. The most notable of his books were what may be termed the earliest foreshadowing of the modern doctrine of international law (Tractatus de Legibus ac Deo Legislatore) and a treatise condemning the extravagant pretensions to kingship put forward by James I. of England. This latter (Defensio Catholicae Fidei) was written in 1613 at the command of the pope. Suarez died at Lisbon on 25th September 1617. His works were published in 23 vols. at Mainz and Lyons in 1630 et seq., and in 29 vols. at Paris in 1859. There is a Life of him by Deschamps (Perpignan, 1671), and another by Werner (2 vols. Ratisbon, 1861).