Outlines of Lectures on Jurisprudence

WHAT IS JURISPRUDENCE?

A developed system of law may be looked at from four points of view:

1. Analytical. — Examination of its structure, subject-matter, and rules in order to reach its principles and theories by analysis.

2. Historical. — Investigation of the historical origin and development of the system and of its institutions and doctrines.

3. Philosophical. — Study of the philosophical bases of its institutions and doctrines.

4. Sociological. — Study of the system functionally as a social mechanism and of its institutions and doctrines with respect to the social ends to be served.

Applied to the study of legal systems generally, these methods are called the "methods of jurisprudence." The propriety of naming a comparative method as a method of jurisprudence may be doubted. The analytical, historical, and philosophical methods, as methods of jurisprudence, must be comparative. When these methods are applied in the study of any particular system, the mode of treatment may be dogmatic, the practical exposition of its principles and rules, or critical, consideration of what its principles and rules ought to be in the light of analysis, history, philosophy, and the social ends to be served. On this side, sociological jurists insist that account must be taken of all the social sciences.