JURISPRUDENCE (ante) is a part of practical philosophy, co-ordinate with ethics, politics, political economy, etc. The term is used in two senses: first, as a body of positive,law, regulating the relations of individuals and communities, and enforced by tribunals; which may be called practical jurisprudence. This includes all law, local, national, and international, and the methods and procedure of the tribunals which enforce the law. In its second, but more scientific sense, jurisprudence, which in this connection may be called theoretic or speculative jurisprudence, is an inquiry into the cause of law, an investigation of the principles which have influenced communities, in all times, in the enactment of law. This theoretical jurisprudence is usually defined as the science of law; but it is a science which is far from exact, and in which, till recently, our knowledge had made but little progress since antiquity. The Institutes define it as " the knowledge of things human and divine, and the science of the just and the unjust." Part of this definition was borrowed from the Stoics. The second clause of it, which makes justice the basis and principle of law, was accepted as a competent definition through the middle ages by the continental writers upon the civil law; as also in England, where, though the common law had been growing up, the law-writers were men familiar with the civil and canon law. Grotius returns to the same theory in his
division of jurisprudence into divine and human; his human law (jus humanum) he sub divides into voluntary law and necessary law. Adam Smith made some contributions to the study of jurisprudence, and Jeremy Bentham and Austin rendered valuable service in the classification of legal rights and remedies. The principle which they sought to establish as the basis of law was "the greatest good of the greatest number." A theory deemed more promising by some has been put forward by sir Henry Maine, who has treated the subject in the historical method. From the date we possess in regard to early institutions, he concludes that law is a matter of growth. the result of the needs of the community in which it originated. There may be Hank in each of these theories; and probably difficulty would be found in compacting the whole truth into any single brief theory.