KINDS OF LAW: CLASSIFICATION. All law may he divided into two classes; substantive law and adjective or remedial I.1W. Substantive law de lines the normal relations of social life; adjective or remedial law defines and deals with abnormal conditions. with violations of the legal order. Substantive law is divided and subdivided accord ing to the character of the relations with which it has to do. Public law is concerned with the State and With government, and with relations to which the State is a party; pri vate law, with private persons and the rela tions between them. Public law is subdivided. as has already been noted, into international,.e.onsti tutional, and administrative law. Private law' classifies persons (natural and artificial or juris tic) according to their legal capacity. and it deals with things as the objects of private right. The principal groups of private relations are property, family, and succession. In the field of property law we distinguish the law' of things. the law of debts or obligations (contracts and quasi-contracts), and the law of monopolies (copyrights, patents, etc.). Family law includes the relations of husband and wife, parent and child, guardian and ward. (The law of master and servant belonged in the law of the house hold; with changed social relations it has passed into the law of contractual obligations.) The law of succession has to 410 With What, may be called a normal disturbance of property rela tiorfs; it provides for the continuance and read justment of the property relation,: to which a de ceased person was a party. When this readjust ment is effected in accordance with the will of the decedent, we speak of testamentary su••es sion; when it is effected by the law in the ab sence of any validly expressed will of his, speak of intestate succession: in so far as it is effected IT the law in spite of his will, we speak of necessary succession (law of statutory shares). In the civil law the distinction between immov ables and movables is confined to the law of things. In the English law the distinction he tween real and personal property runs through the law of family as far as property relations are concerned) and the law of snecesshin, and divides each into distinct parts or branches, Adjective or remedial law, which deals with abnormal conditions, provides for the ment of the normal order, when this is possible; for the indemnifieation of the persons \•im have suffered injury; and for the punishment, in per son or in purse. of the individuals by whose fault the normal order has been disturbed. Remedial law includes not merely the proeesses of punish ment and redress—administrative procedure, criminal and civil procedure—but also the body of rules which define and classify offense's and provide penalties. It thus includes the law of
crimes and the law of torts (q.v.). Some writers treat the law of crones and that of torts as sub stantive law. placing the former in public, the latter ill private law; but these branches of the law do not deal with normal relations. nor does criminal law deal merely ‘Yith violations of the polifieal order; it provides sanctions ex tend over every part of the private law. Inter national law has its remedial as well as its sub stantive side; it consists of the law of peace and the law of War.
\Vidh• tho• distinctioh between substantive and remedial law is both logical and convenient, it is formal rather than essential. Substantive and remedial law attain the same end in different ways. Social relations are ordered by fixing the limits of permissible action; and these may be fixed as well as by stating wliat 110 one may do and by punishing the doer as by stating what one may do and protecting the doer. Ilistorically the former method is the older; rights are felt before they are formulated, and they are gradu ally defined by the successive repulse of differ ent invasions. Even in modern law there are rights that are recognized in remedial law, but have not yet obtained substantive expression. For example. the individual has a right over his own person \yliieU is analogous to (although by no means identical with) ownership of a thing; and this right, although recognized in the pro hibition and punishment of homicide, assault, illegal imprisonment, etc., is nowhere defined in substantive law.
GRAD•s ur Law. In every State we find legal rules of greater or more general authority and legal rubs of inferior or more restricted author ity. Where law-making power is delegated to (or has never oven wholly taken from) the exeen live. it is customary to speak of the rules laid down by the executive as orders, regulations, or rules. Municipalities have also a restricted power of legislation; and the acts of their legis lative bodies are commonly termed ordinances. Where a limited power of making rules is granted to a private association, we call its rules by-buys. Within their respective fields, executive orders, ardillalleeS, and by-law's, although not commonly termed laws, are as truly laws as the acts of a national or State legislature.
The lumber of classes or grades of law is in creased in federal States by the coexistence of law'-making power in the nation and in its com ponent parts. If in considering the different grades of law which exist in the United States we include unwritten law-, we obtain the follow ing series: