LAW has been variously defined. Blackstone says it means the rules of human action or conduct. This definition is too wide, for it is confined only to such rules as courts, supported by proper authority, will enforce. The law of nature consists of those laws which are common to all mankind, and are supposed to be, as nearly as can be con jectured, independent of the accidents of time and place. The civil or municipal law of i a nation is what is commonly understood by the term law, when applied to a particular country. The civil law" is also sometimes used par excellence to denote the old Roman law as embodied in the Institutes of Justinian, the code, and other parts of what is commonly called the Corpus Juris (Mill& Many of the leading doctrines of that law have been adopted by modern nations. England is the civilized country which has adopted the least from that code of law, while Scotland follows the continental nations in adopting the Roman or civil law to a large extent, and on ninny subjects in adopting it entirely. The law of nations is subdivided into public international law (q.v.) and private international law, or the comitas gentiu2n. Law is often used in England as contradistinguished from equity, but this is chiefly due to the accidental circumstance that there is a subdivision of courts into courts of law and equity, according to the nature of the remedy given. See JURISPRUDENCE, INTERNATIONAL LAW, CrinNomtv. Law is also often in popular parlance distinguished from justice, the latter being sup posed to be perfect in its nature, or as near the standard of perfection as can be sup posed; whereas there are numberless cases of injury, hardship, and oppression which, owing to human infirmity, no system of human laws can adequately redress; and this is often adduced as confirmation of the doctrine of future rewards and punishments. Law is also sometimes subdivided into criminal law, constitutional law, etc., according to the particular subject-matter.
LAW (ante). This is a word in extensive use in regard to divine and human law, as well as to that which has received the name of natural law. There are differences of opinion as to what should always be considered divine law, and volumes have been written embracing subjects related to it, as well as those which relate to human laws, in connection with the question of the validity, and therefore the reality, of human laws unless founded upon divine law. The ()rigid of the word law is Anglo-Saxon, log, from lecyan, to lay, and signifies to found, to lay down, to establish, or to ordain. Therefore there are philosophers who maintain that laws, strictly considered, are.those only which have been laid down. or that they are commands relating to rules of action, and that they must proceed from authority. They maintain that it is not sufficient that there should be uniformity of phenomena for such uniformity to be called by the name of law; consequently the ordinary phenomena of nature are regarded by such thinkers as invariable phenomena so tilt- as experience goes, but which may cease at any imminent. This is, however, a rather exceptional view, most philosophers, even of the religious school, regarding the invariableness of natural phenomena as warranting the conclusion that such invariableness has been established or ordained by the Creator, and although it be admitted that these phenomena may cease reany moment, they would only cease by the abrogation of the natural law, which may be held as only unwritten divine law.
Ab an illustration of a natural law, there may be instanced the invariableness of the phenomena of chemical combination, the constituents of all bodies entering into their formation in definite proportions or multiples of such proportions. When sulphuric acid, water. and carbonate of lime are placed together, there is produced a definite quan• thy of hydrated sulphate of lime, and the liberation of a certain quantity of carbonic acid gas, depending upon the proportion of the original materials. The hydrated sul phate of lime will also have definite quantities of sulphuric acid, calcium, and water, and the carbonic acid gas will have invariable relative quantities of carbon and oxygen. The invariableness with which bodies move through space under definite circumstances has resulted hi the recognition of certain laws called laws of motion, and which have as their basis the law of gravitation. Connected with these are the laws of hydrostat ics and of cohesion. A. great number of facts have been discovered relating to the phenomena of magnetic and electrical attraction, which, from their invariableness, have been called magnetic and electrical laws. Some philosophers maintain that these laws are inherent properties of matter, others that they are dependent upon external power, but both schools regard them as laws, and as having equal importance in whichever light they Arc viewed. Advancing from the laws which belong to what is commonly called inanimate matter to those which belong to living matter, it is held by some phi msophers that those which regulate eArcmieaf phenomena also govern vital phenomena. and that vitality is the result of the action of the general laws of analysis and synthesis of all matter, and that all organized beings are the result of natural or physical law, which physical law is inherent in matter itself. Another class of philosophers do not go so far as to deny the agency of divine power in the formation of the organic world, but nevertheless maintain that whatever divine power has been manifested was iu the beginning, in the establishment of certain properties pertaining to matter which are termed laws; that creation was accomplished in this way and no other; and that the Creator has not worked by any process of continuous design or action. Again there are other philosophers who maintain that because there are evidences of design in creation it would be unreasonable to believe that God has, left the development of living beings to be accomplished by the meeting of unalterable law with accidentally distrib uted matter. They therefore regard the phenomena of chemical affinity and of vitality as taking• place in accordance with separate laws, and that when ascending from ordi nary vital action to that of sensation still different laws are involved; and in again ascending from the mere phenomena of sensation to that of thought, still other and higher laws, and such as are beyond the sphere of exact scientific determination, or per haps of investigation,. are involved.