DEVELOPMENT OR EVOLUTION OF LAW

"The end of law is not to abolish or restrain, but to preserve and enlarge freedom. For in all the states of created beings capable of law, where there is no law, there is no freedom."

                                  -(John Locke)

INTRODUCTION-

The concept of law occupies a significant place of political theory. Law is closely associated with State that State without law is anarchic and law without State is meaningless.

Law not only prescribes the rules of behaviour for citizens in the State but also provides a social order without which no civilisation and economic development is possible. 

EVOLUTION OR DEVELOPMENT OF LAW-

Based on "the twelve conceptions of what law is" of Roscoe Pound, we can see the evolution or development of law as follows :—

•Firstly, law is considered as the idea of divinely ordained rule or set of rules for human action, as for example, the Mosaic law or Hammurapi's Code, handed him ready made by the Sun God, or Manu, dictated to the sages by Manu's son Bhrigu in Manu's presence and by his direction. 

•There is an idea of law as a tradition of the old customs which have proved acceptable to the gods and hence point the way in which man may walk with safety. Law is the traditional or recorded body of precepts in which the custom is preserved and expressed. Whenever we find a body of primitive law possessed as a class tradition by a political oligarchy it is likely to be thought of in this way, just as a body of like tradition in the custody of a priesthood is certain to be thought of as divinely revealed.

•Law is considered as the recorded wisdom of the wise men of old who had learned the safe course or the divinely approved course for human conduct. The Demosthenes reduced the law of Athens in writing in a primitive code based on traditional custom. 

•Roman jurists conceived law as a philosophically discovered system of principles which express the nature of things, to which therefore, man ought to conform his conduct. 

•Law is looked upon as a body of ascertainments and declarations of an eternal and immutable moral code by some other philosophers.

•There is an idea of law as a body of agreements of men in politically organised societies as to their relations with each other. In Athenian city states, such a theory of philosophical idea would support the political idea and the inherent moral obligation. of a promise would be invoked to show why men should keep the agreements made in their popular assemblies. 

•Law has been thought of as a reflection of the divine reason governing the universe, a reflection of that part which determines the 'ought' addressed by that reason to human beings as moral entities, in distinction from the 'must' which is addressed to the rest of creation. Such was the conception of Thomas Aquinas during the Medieval period. 

•Law has been conceived as a body of commands of the sovereign authority in a politically organised society as to how men should conduct themselves therein, resting ultimately on whatever basis was held to be behind the authority of the sovereign. So thought the Roman jurists of the Republic and of the classical period with respect to positive law, and as the emperor had the sovereignty of the Roman people developed upon him, the institutes of Justinian could lay down that the will of the emperor had the force of law. 

•The historical school held that a system of precepts discovered by human experience whereby the individual human will may realise the most complete freedom possible consistently with the like freedom of will of others. They deviated from the theory of as command of the sovereign. 

•In the nineteenth century, men have thought of law as a system of principles, discovered philosophically and developed in detail by juristic writing and judicial decision, whereby the external life of man is measured by reason, or in another phase, whereby the will of the individual in action is harmonised with those of his fellow men. The opinion is held after abandoning the then prevailing natural law. 

•The economic interpretation of law considers that law has been thought of as a body or system of rules imposed on men in society by the dominant class for the time being furtherance, conscious or unconscious of its own interest. 

•Finally, there is an idea of law as made up of the dictates of economic or social laws with respect to the conduct of men in society, discovered by observation, expressed in precepts worked out through human experience of what would work and what not in the administration of justice. This type of theory likewise belongs to the end of the nineteenth century, when men had begun to look ford _ physical or biological bases, discoverable by observation, in place of metaphysical bases, discoverable by philosophical reflection. 

CONCLUSION-

Thus, Pound presented the long history of law or the legal institution of the time and place in universal terms through his twelve concepts of what law is in his book 'An Introduction of the Philosophy of Law'. 

DISCLAIMER-

The person behind is a law learner and loves sharing her leaning with all. The purpose is to enlighten nation with general legal knowledge.The gist of this article is full from innumerable sources for edifying purpose.