Jurisprudence and legal theory

"No tolerably prepared candidate in any English or American Law School will hesitate to define an estate in fee simple; on the other hand, the greater a lawyer's opportunities for knowledge have been, and the more time he has given to the study of legal principles, the greater will be his hesitation in face of the apparently simple question, "What is Law 7

Thus observed Sir Frederick Pollock, baffled in his efforts to define the apparently simple monosyllable "Law'. However baffling the difficulties may be, Jurists are pursuing those efforts with unabated vigour. The days are past when the study of Jurisprudence used to be regarded as an unnecessary luxury for a practical lawyer. This attitude has now changed and it is being universally recognized that:

"The lawless science of the law,

That codeless myriad of precedent,

That wilderness of single instances"

cannot be mastered and assimilated except with the aid of juri dical science. This recognition of the scientific, didactic and practical importance of Jurisprudence is indeed a promising augury for the future of legal science and for strengthening the Rule of Law in our democracy.

If the Rule of Law on which our Constitution is assuredly

based is not to remain a mere pious aspiration and if vitality is

to be infused into it, it is absolutely necessary that the light of Jurisprudence should illumine the minds of men and bring about a reorientation of attitudes. Then and only then can we hope, in the words of Lord Tennyson, to:

"Ring out old shapes of foul disease; Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;

Ring out the thousand wars of old;

Ring in the thousand years of peace."

In revising the text of this book every care has been taken to keep in mind the requirements of the curricula of legal studies prescribed by various Universities.