LAUREL. An English gold coin worth twenty shillings, or about five dollars, coined in 1619 by James I., so-called because the head of the king was wreathed with laurel, and not crowned as on English coins.
LAW. That which is laid down; that which is established. A rule or method of action, or order of sequences.
The rules and methods by which society compels or restrains the action of its mem bers.
The aggregate of those rules and princi ples of conduct which the governing power in a community recognizes as those which it will enforce or sanction, and according to which it will regulate, limit, or protect the conduct of its members.
The aggregate of rules set by men as politically superior or sovereign, to men as politically subject. Aust. Jur., Campbell's ed. 86.
A rule of civil conduct prescribed by the supreme power in the state, commanding what is right and prohibiting what •s wrong. 1 Bla. Corn. 44.
A rule of civil conduct prescribed by the supreme power in a state. 1 Steph. Com. 25.
The general body of rules which are ad dressed by the rulers of a political com munity to the members of that society, and which are generally obeyed. Markby, Ele ments of Law 3.
A general rule of • human action, taking cognizance of external acts only, enforced by a definite authority, which authority is human, and among human authorities is that which is paramount in a political socie ty. More briefly, a general rule of external human action enforced by a sovereign politi cal authority. Holland, ,Jur. 4th, ed. 36.
All other rules for the guidance of, human action are called laws merely by analogy ; and any propositions which are not rules for human action are called laws by metaphor only. Id.
A rule or enactment promulgated by the legislative authority of a state ; a long established local custom which has the force of such an enactment. Swift v. Tyson, 16 Pet. (U. S.) 18, 10 L. Ed. 865.
"Law is a statement of the circumstances in which the public force will be brought to bear upon men through the courts." Ameri can Banana Co. v. Fruit Co., 213 U. S. 356, 29 Sup. • Ct. 511, 53 L. Ed. 826, 16 Ann. Cas. 1047, per Holmes, J.
"On the whole the, safest definition of law in the lawyer's sense seems to be a rule of conduct binding on members of a common wealth as such." Sir F. Pollock in First Book of Jurispr. 29.
Perhaps a few terms whose use requires equal pre cision serve in so many diverse meanings as the term law. In its root It signifies that which is laid
down ; that which is established. "In the largest sense," says (Esprit des Lois, b. 1, ch. 1), "laws are the necessary relations which arise from the nature of things ; and, in this sense, all beings have their laws, God has his laws, the mate rial universe has its laws, intelligences superior to man have their laws, animals have their laws, man has his laws. In this sense, the idea of a command proceeding from a superior to an inferior is not nec essarily involved in the term law. It is frequent ly thus used to denote simply a statement of a con stant relation of phenomena. The laws of science, thus, are but generalized statements 'of observed facts." "It is a perversion of language," says Pal ey, "to assign any law as the efficient operative cause of anything. A law presupposes an agent : this is only the mode according to which an agent proceeds," It has been said that "the' one idea that is com mon to all meanings of the word law is that of or der or regularity in the happening of events. Start ing from this, the meanings divide into two groups which may be distinguished as law in the scien tific and in the jural sense." Terry, L, I. This author continues that "the former seems to contain no elements in addition to the one above mentioned. A scientific law can be expressed as s mere formula," but law in the jural sense involves the further ideas that the regularity manifested is the result of an act or omission of a rational being, produced by an attempt to conform his conduct to some standard or ideal more or less clearly con ceived. The result of this process is the evolution in any community of individuals of common prin ciples of action, which as soon as reason takes cog nizance of them become laws in the most general, jural sense of the word. With the advance of civil ization new elements come into being: (1) The idea of force is added to that of order and is applied to compel obedience, or, going one step further, to change, modify, or add to these rules of action. (2) The primitive law becomes differentiated from other bodies of rules with which it ie at first con founded, so that in the end what is termed law in the stricter sense may conflict with other recognized principles of action which are termed laws in the more general sense, as the natural or the moral law. Id.