CHAPTER 3.
Of a Lam and its Parts
Of a Lam and its Parts
A Law may be defined as an assemblage of signs declarative of a volition conceived or adopted by the sovereign in a state, concerning the conduct to be observed in a certain case by a certain person or class of persons, who in the case in question are or are supposed to be subject to his power: such volition trusting for its accomplishment to the expectation of certain events which it is intended such declaration should upon occasion be a means of bringing to pass, and the prospect of which it is intended should act as a motive upon those whose conduct is in question . . . .
The latitude here given to the import of the word law is it must be confessed rather greater than what seems to be given to it in common: the definition being such as is applicable to various objects which are not commonly characterized by that name.
Taking this definition for the standard it matters not whether the expression of will in question, so as it have but the authority of the sovereign to back it, were his by immediate conception or only by adoption: whether it be of the most public or of the most private or even domestic nature: whether the sovereign from whom it derives its force be an individual or a body: whether it be issued . . . on account of some positive act or event which is understood to warrant it (as is the case with an order of the judicial kind made in the course of a cause); or without the assignment of any such special ground:
or whether it be susceptible of an indefinite duration or whether it be sua natura temporary and undurable: as is most commonly the case with such expressions of will the uttering of which is looked upon as a measure of administration: whether it be a command or a countermand: whether it be expressed in the way of statute, or of customary law. Under the term law then if this definition be admitted of, we must include a judicial order, a military or any other kind of executive order, or even the most trivial and momentary order of the domestic kind, so it be pot illegal: that is, so as the issuing of it be not forbidden by some other law....