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Law has been variously defined by various individuals from different point of view and hence there could
not be and is not any unanimity of opinion regarding the real nature of law &definition.
Morris : To azoologist a horse suggest the genus Mammalian Quadruped ,to a traveler a means of
transportation , to an average man the sports of a king ,to a certain nation an article of food
Lord Lloyd : Since much juristic ink has flowed in an endeavour to provide a universally acceptable
definition of law ,but with little sign of attaining that objective
R.Wolheim : Much of confusion in defining law has been due to different types of purpose sought to be
achieved
Various schools of law have defined law from different angles
Based on 1.Nature 2. Sources 3.Effect on society 4.Terms of ends or purpose of law .
Law is a social science and grows and develops with growth and development of society .A
definition which does not cover various aspects of law is bound to be imperfect .New developments in
society create new problems and law is required to deal with those problems.Thus the definition and scope
of law must continue to change .The result is that a definition of law given at a particular time cannot
remain valid for alltimes to come.A satisfactory definition today may be found narrow tomorrow.
Prof.Keeton : To attempt to establish a single satisfactory definition of law is to seek to confine
jurisprudence with in a straight jacket from which it is continually striving to escape.
Prof.Hart : Few questions concerning human society have been asked with persistence and answered by
serious thinkers in so many diverse , strained and even paradoxical way as the question What is law .
Pollock : No tolerably prepared candidates in an English or American law school will hesitate to define an
estate in fee simple ; on the other hand , the greater a lawyers opportunities for knowledge have been and
the more time he has given to the study of legal principles the greater will be his hesitation in the face of the
apparently simple question What is law .
Justinian : Law is the king of all mortal and immortal affairs , which ought to be the hief , the ruler , and
the leader of the noble and the base and thus the standard of what is just and unjust , the commander to
animals naturally social of what they should do , the forbidder of what they should do
Ulpian : The art or science of what is equitable and good
Cicaro : The highest reason implanted in nature .
Pindar : Every law is gift of god and decision of sages
AgainThis law top which all men yield obedience for many reasons and especially because every law is a
discovery and gift of god and at the same time a decision of wise men , a rightening of transgression , both
volutary and involuntary and the common covenant of a state , in accordance with which it beseeches all
men in the state to lead their lives
Chysiphus : The comman law which is the right reason , moving through all things , and identical with
zeus , the supreme administrator of the universe
Capito : A Lex is a general command of the people or the plebs on question by magistrate.
Anaximenes : Law is a definite proposition , in pursuance of a common agreement of a state intimating
how everything should be done .
Hobbes : Law is a speech of him who by rights commands somewhat to be done or omitted
Again Law in general is not counsel but command ; nor a command of any man to any man but only of
him whose command is addressed to one formerly obliged to obey him .And as for civil law it addeth only
the name of the highest person commanding which is persona civitatis the highest person of common
wealth.
Black Stone : Law in its most general and comprehensive sense signifies a rule of action and is applied
indiscriminately to all kinds of actions,whether animate/inanimate , ,raional /irrational .Thus we say the laws
of gravitation , or optics/mechanics,as well as the law of nature and of nations.
Hooker : Any kind of rule or canon whereby actions are framed .That which reason in such sort definite to
be good that it must be done
Again Of law therecan be no less acknowledged than that her seat in the bosom of God , her voice the
harmony of the world , all things in heaven and earth does her homage , the very least as feeling her care
and the greatest as not exempted from her power ;both angels and men and creatures of what condition so
ever ; though each in different sort and manner ,yet all with uniform consent , admiring her as mother of
their peace and joy
Kant : The sum total of the conditions under which the personal wishes of one man can be combined with
personal wishes of another man in accordance with general law of freedom
Hegel : The abstract expression of the general will existing in and for itself.
Sir Henry Maine : The law has come down to us in close association with two notions , the notion of
order and notions of force .
Savigny : The rule where by the invisible borderline is fixed within which the being and the activity of
each individual obtains a secure and free space.
Vindgradoff: Aset of rules imposed and enforced by a society with regard to the distribution and exercise
of powers over persons and things.
Austin : Law is the aggregates of rules set by men as politically superior or sovereign to men as politically
subject.
Kelsen : Law as the depschologised command .Though Kelson defines law in terms of command he uses
that term differently from Austin .The sovereign of Austin does not come into the picture of Kelson
Definition of law.
Pound: A social institution to satisfy social wants.
Duguit : It is essentially and exclusively a social fact .The foundation of law is in the essential
requirements of the community life .It can exist only when men live together .The sovereign is not above the
law bound by it.Law should be based on social realities.Duguit exclude the notion of right from law .
Thering : The form of the guarantee of the conditions of life of society,assured by state is power of
constraint .Law is treated only as a means of social control.It is coercive in character .Obedience to law is
secured by the state through external compulsion .
Ehrlich : Includes in his definition of law all the norms which governs the social life within a given
society.
Justice Holmes : Law is a statement of the circumstances in which the public force will be brought to bear
upon men through courts
Again The prophecies of what the court will do in fact and nothing more pretentious are what I mean by
law .
Gray : The law of the state or of any organized body of men is composed of the rules which the court that
is judicial organ of that body lay down for the determination of legal rights &duties
Lord Moulton : Law is the crystalised common sense of the community
Bentham : Law or the law taken indefinitely is an abstract or collective term ,which when it means
anything ,can mean neither more nor less than the sum total of a number of individual laws taken together.
Salmond: The body of principles recognized and applied by state in administration of justice .
Cardzo : Aprinciple of rule of conduct so established as to justify a prediction with reasonable certainity
that will be enforced by the courts if its authority is challenged is a principle or rule of law .
Holland : More briefly law is a general rule of eternal human action enforced by a sovereign political
authority .All other rules fro the guidance of human actions are laws merely by analogy and propositions
which are not rules for human action are laws by metaphor only.
Prof.M.J.Sethna : Law in its widest sense a means and involves a uniformity of behaviour , constancy of
happenings or a course of events ,rules of action ,whether in the phenomena .,of nature or in the ways of
rational human beings.In synthetic sense civil law is all that body of principles ,decisions and enactments
made , passed or approved by the legally constituited authorities or agencies in a state , for regulating rights,
duties and liabilities and enforced through machinery of the judicial process, securing obedience to the
sovereign authority in the state .
Paton : The term law may be defined from the point of view of theologian ,the historian ,the sociologist ,the
philosopher, the political scientist or the lawyer .
Law may be described in terms of a legal order tacitly or formally accepted bya acommunity and it
consists of body of rules which that community considers essential to its welfare and which it is willing to
enforce by the creation of specific mechanism for securing compliance.Amature system of law normally
sets up that legal order known as the state ,but we cannot say a priori that without the state no law can
exist.
Law defined 1st nature ,reson ,religion ,ethics
2nd-source in customs ,precedent,legislation
3rd life of society-effect on
4th-method of formal expression/authoritative application
5th defined by ends it seeks to achieve.