Chapter III — Other Kinds of Law
§ 14 Law in General — A Rule of Action
Having considered in the foregoing chapter the nature of civil law exclusively, we now proceed to examine certain other kinds of law which need to be distinguished from this and from each other. In its widest and vaguest sense the term law includes any rule of action: that is to say, any standard or pattern to which actions (whether the acts of rational agents or the operations of nature) are or ought to be conformed. In the words of Hooker,36 “we term any kind of rule or canon whereby actions are framed a law.” So Blackstone says:37 “Law, in its most general and comprehensive sense, signifies a rule of action, and is applied indiscriminately to all kinds of action, whether animate or inanimate, rational or irrational. Thus we say, the laws of motion, of gravitation, of optics or mechanics, as well as the laws of nature and of nations.”
Of law in this sense there are many kinds, and the following are sufficiently important and distinct to deserve separate mention and examination: (1) Physical or Scientific law, (2) Natural or Moral law, (3) Imperative law, (4) Conventional law, (5) Customary law, (6) Practical law, (7) International law, (8) Civil law. Before proceeding to analyse and distinguish these, there are the following introductory observations to be made:—
(1) This list is not based on any logical scheme of division and classification, but is a mere simplex enumeratio of the chief forms of law.
(2) There is nothing to prevent the same rule from belonging to more than one of these classes.
(3) Any discussion as to the rightful claims of any of these classes of rules to be called law—any attempt to distinguish law properly so called from law improperly so called—would seem to be nothing more than a purposeless dispute about words. Our business is to recognise the fact that they are called law, and to distinguish accurately between the different classes of rules that are thus known by the same name.