enjoining one class of actions and forbidding others.1 And he elsewhere says, it directs every one how to act on all occasions.2 Demosthenes also more rhetorically described the law as designed to ascertain what was just, honourable, and expedient, and as the invention of Heaven. Cicero, admitting that municipal law often deviated improperly from natural law, said that it was, or ought to be, a certain eternal principle, which governed the entire universe, wisely commanding what was right and prohibiting what was wrong.1

Definitions of law in Justinian's Institutes and later foreign writers.-Justinian's Institutes contain no definition of law beyond this, that justice is the constant and perpetual disposition to render every man his due; that jurisprudence is the science of what is just and unjust; and that the precepts of the law are to live honourably, to hurt no one, and to give every man his due. Paul and Ulpian said law was the art of the just and good. Scarcely one of the succeeding writers is satisfied with the definitions of his predecessors.7

1 Arist. De Civ. cap. 14, sec. 2. Eth. b. v. ch. i. § 11, 12. 2 Rhet. ad Alex. ch. i.

3 DEMOSTHENES-" The design and object of the laws is to ascertain what is just, honourable, and expedient, and when that is discovered, it is proclaimed as a general ordinance, equal and impartial to all. This is the origin of law, which for various reasons all are under an obligation to obey, but especially because all law is the invention of Heaven, the resolution of wise men, the correction of every offence, and the general compact of the state: to live in conformity with which is the duty of every individual in society."Orat. c. Aristog. Professor Christian says this definition of Demosthenes' is perfect, and prefers it to Blackstone's.-1 Bl. Com. 442 n. 4 Cic. De Leg. b. 1, 2.

5 Just. Inst. b. i. tit. 1.

6 Dig. i. 1, De Just. et Jur. 11 f. Paul. Dig. i. pr. f. Ulp.

7

AQUINAS- "Law is a certain rule and measure, according to which any agent is led to act or restrained from acting."'

SUAREZ "Law is a certain measure of moral acts, so that when in conformity with it they are morally right, when discordant from it they are wrong."-Suarez, De Leg.

MONTESQUIEU-“Laws are the necessary relations resulting from the nature of things."-De l'Espr. b. i.

BECCARIA "Laws are the conditions under which men naturally independent unite themselves in society."-On Crimes, ch. 1.

GROTIUS" Law is a rule of moral actions obliging us to that which is good and commendable."-De Jure, b. i. ch. 1.

VOL. I.

C

Definitions of law by English writers.-The definitions of some of the leading ancient and foreign writers on this

PUFFENDORFF "Law is the injunction of him who has a power over those to whom he prescribes."-B. i. ch. 6, § 1.

BARBEYRAC "Law is the will of a superior sufficiently notified, by which he directs all actions of a certain kind, so that in regard to such actions he either imposes on them a necessity of doing or not doing certain things, or leaves them at liberty to act or not act as they shall judge proper."-Notes to Grotius, b. i. ch. 1, § 9.

BURLAMAQUI's definition is substantially the same as that of Barbeyrac.

KANT" Civil law is distinguished from moral, inasmuch as the former legislates only with respect to external actions, and provides for the freedom of all by limiting and defining that of individuals. Strict law may be represented as the possibility of a general and reciprocal restraint, harmonising according to universal laws with the liberty of all.”

The Scotch writers define law as follows:

STAIR (1681)-"Law is the dictate of reason, determining every rational being to that which is congruous and convenient for the nature and conditions thereof, and this will extend to the determination of the indifferency of all rational beings. Liberty is the natural faculty to do that which every man pleaseth, unless he be hindered by law or force."-Stair, 1, 2, 1.

MACKENZIE " Law is the science which teaches us to do justice, and justice is a constant and perpetual will and inclination to give every man what is due to him."—Inst. tit. 1.

ERSKINE " Law is the command of a sovereign containing a common rule of life for his subjects, and obliging them to obedience." -Ersk. Inst. 1, 1, 2. Pr. 1, 1, 1 (1754.)

MCDOUALL" Law is the rule of voluntary actions of rational beings, prescribing what ought to be done or forborne. "—Instit. 1, 1, 1 (1751).

French authors thus define law :

"Law is a rule established by an authority, which one is bound to obey."-1 Duranton, Droit Fr. § 29. Rogron, Codes Fr. Introd. i. "Law is the rule of those human actions which have for their principle the free exercise of the intelligence and the will.”—1 Toullier, Droit Civ. Fr. 2.

"Laws are nothing else but the rules of human conduct, and this conduct is nothing else but the steps which a man makes towards his end, and his end is to know and love God.”—Domat, Droit Civ. ch. 1. American authors thus define law :

KENT adopts the definition of Blackstone with a slight omission, for he defines municipal law as "a rule of civil conduct prescribed by the supreme power of a state."-1 Kent Com. 446.

DAGGE" Law in the genus is that faculty whereby some lawful superior prescribes rules of action, which those in subjection are obliged to perform under certain penalties express or implied." Crim. L. vol. i. p. 2.

subject vary much, and if we turn to the law of England as treated by English writers, we find that definitions were almost entirely dispensed with till the time of Blackstone. Glanville, Fleta, and Britton avoid a definition; and all that Bracton says is, that law is a just statute, ordering what is right and honest, and prohibiting the contrary.1 Fortescue alludes to law as a holy sanction commanding whatever is honourable, and forbidding the contrary; 2 and again" as the bond of right by which a man is constrained to do or to suffer what is just."3 Coke, the least methodical of all great writers, nowhere defines law; nor does he give any other division of law than that of common law, statute law, and custom. And as he believed that the Star Chamber kept all England quiet, he must obviously have been satisfied with the ancient definitions. It is to be regretted that Bacon's imperial mind was not more closely applied to a definition of the law. He says, however, that the end and scope which laws ought to regard, and to which they should direct their commands and sanctions, is nothing else than that citizens may live happily.5 In the tract" 'On the Use of the Law," which is believed not to be Bacon's, the use of the law is said to consist in three things: "first to secure men's persons from death and violence; second, to dispose of the property in their goods and lands; and third, for preservation of their good name from shame and infamy." It is still more unfortunate that Hale gives. no definition, though, as will be afterwards stated, he gives an analysis or division of its subjects. Hobbes defines law to be the command of the sovereign power addressed to the subjects, declaring what every one of them may do, and what they must forbear to do.7

"6

1 B. i. ch. 3.

2 De Laud. ch. 3.

De Nat. p. i. ch. 30.

4 Co. Lit. 110 b. 115 b. 5 Bac. De Augm., Aph. 5. This indeed was only repeating the reasons of Minos: Strabo, b. x. 6 Bac. W. (Spedding.)

7 HOBBES touches on the subject in several places: "Law was brought into the world for nothing else but to limit the natural liberty of particular men in such manner as they might not hurt, but assist one another, and join together against a common enemy.' -Commonw. p. ii. ch. xxvi. "In all kinds of actions by the laws pretermitted men have the liberty of doing what their own reasons shall suggest for the most profitable to themselves."-Ibid. ch. xxi. "Civil law is to every subject those rules which the comn.onwealth

Definition of law by Blackstone, Paley, Bentham, Austin. -Blackstone describes the total laws of one nation or community whencesoever derived as the municipal law of that nation. "I call it," he says, "municipal law, in compliance with common speech: for though strictly that expression denotes the particular customs of one single municipium, or free town, yet it may with sufficient propriety be applied to any one state or nation which is governed by the same laws and customs. And municipal law, thus understood, is properly defined to be a rule of civil conduct, prescribed by the supreme power in a state, commanding what is right and prohibiting what is wrong.'

Paley does not expressly define what he means by municipal law, except in so far as he assumes it to be the same thing as the law of the land, and that again is something that is consistent with the will of God, the will of God being discoverable from the Scriptures and the light of nature, or the calculation of the consequences of particular acts on our individual happiness.2 But possibly the key to his notion is found in his definition of civil liberty, which, he says, is "the not being restrained by any law but what conduces in a greater degree to the public welfare." "3

Bentham defines law thus: "A law is a discourse conceived mostly in general, and always in determinate words, expressive of the will of some person or persons, to whom, hath commanded him by word, writing, or other sufficient sign of the will to make use of for the distinction of right and wrong, that is to say, of what is contrary, and what is not contrary to the rule." ---Ibid. ch. xxvi.; see also Ibid. pt. iii. ch. xlii. "Law is the command of him or them that have sovereign power given to those that be his or their subjects, publicly and plainly declaring what every one of them may do, and what they must forbear to do."-Dialog. Law. and Phil. "Civil laws are nothing else but the commands of him who hath the chief authority in the city for direction of the future actions of the citizens."-Domin. ch. vi.

CUMBERLAND, again repeating Minos, said the good of the whole was the standard and aim of all laws.-De Leg.

SIR H. FINCH says law is an art of well ordering civil society.— On Law.

SHEPPARD Law is a rule for the governing of civil society to give to every man that which doth belong to him.--Epitome, 683.

1 1 Bl. Com. 65.

2 Paley, Mor. Phil. b. ii. ch. iv. ; b. iii. p. i. ch. iv.

3 Paley, Mor. Phil. b. vi. ch. v.

on the occasion and in relation to the subject in question, whether by habit or express engagement, the members of the community to which it is addressed are disposed to pay obedience." 1

Austin defines law to be "a command which obliges a person or persons to a course of conduct, or a command which obliges a person generally to acts or forbearances of a class. And a command implies a sanction, that is, a power to inflict evil or pain on the party who disobeys.'

Summary of the current definitions of law. It thus appears that the prevailing definition of law amongst English writers, and one which does not, not withstanding the variety of phraseology, substantially differ from those adopted by Aristotle, Cicero, and leading writers of other nations, is this, that law is "a rule of civil conduct prescribed and enforced by the state"-to which some add the words "commanding what is right and prohibiting what is wrong." The latter words have been objected to as assuming either that what the state commands must always be right, or that, if its commands should be wrong, then they cannot be laws-both of which alternatives are untenable. The amendment of Blackstone's definition which was adopted by Kent, and substantially also by Austin, is thus the standard definition, namely, that "law is a rule of civil conduct prescribed and enforced by the state."

Doubts as to ancient and current definition of law. At this stage, where we have arrived at the standard definition of law that has been in vogue from the time of Aristotle and Justinian, and accepted by Hale, Blackstone, and Austin, it may be useful to reflect for a moment on some reasons for doubting, whether that definition was likely to have correctly fixed the true function and place of the law in the economy of the world. A correct definition of it could only be arrived at by a comparison of the law of one nation with that of others, as then known, and by a view of the details which usually make up the complex notion of law in each instance. Can it be said that at any epoch of the ancient world, even the most penetrating intellect had before it materials fit for a wise conclusion? The 1 Chrestom. sect. 8.

2 Austin, Juris. vol. i. pp. 91, 98 (3rd ed.).