1. That which is laid down, ordained, or established. A rule or method according to which phenomena or actions coexist or follow each other. 2. A system of principles and rules of human conduct, being the aggregate of those commandments and principles which are either prescribed or recognized by the gov- erning power in an organized jural society as its will in relation to the conduct of the members of such society, and which it undertakes to maintain and sanction and to use as the criteria of the actions of such members. “Law” is a solemn expression of legislative will. It orders and permits and forbids. It announces rewards and punishments. Its provisions generally relate not to solitary or singular cases, but to what passes in the ordinary course of affairs. Civ. Code La. arts. 1. 2. “Law,” without an article, properly implies a science or system of principles or rules of human conduct, answering to the Latin “jus;” as when it is spoken of as a subject of study or practice. In this sense, it includes the decisions of courts of justice, as well as acts of the legislature . The judgment of a competent, court, until reversed or otherwise superseded, is law, as much as any statute. Indeed, it may happen that a statute may be passed in violation of law, that is, of the fundamental law or constitution of a state; that it is the prerogative of courts in such cases to declare it void, or, in other words, to declare it not to be law. Rurrill. 3. A rule of civil conduct prescribed by the supreme power in a, state. 1 Steph. Comm. 25; Civ. Code Dak.
Black’s Law Online Dictionary
