Law is mainly an embodiment of ancestral injunctions. The living ruler
able to legislate only in respect of matters unprovided for, is bound by
the transmitted command of the unknown and the known who have passed
away. Hence the trait common to societies in early stages that the
prescribed rules of conduct, of whatever kind, have a religious
sanction.
In societies that become large and complex, there arise forms of
activity and intercourse not provided for in the sacred code; and in
respect of these the ruler is free to make regulations. Thus there comes
into existence a body of laws of known human origin, which has not the
sacredness of the god-descended body of laws: human law differentiates
from divine law. And in proportion as the principle of voluntary
co-operation more and more characterises the social type, fulfilment of
contracts and implied assertion of equality in men's rights become the
fundamental requirements, and the consensus of individual interests the
chief source of law; such authority as law otherwise derived continues
to have being recognised as secondary, and insisted upon only because
maintenance of law for its own sake indirectly furthers the general
welfare.
The theories at present current adapted to the existing compromise
between militancy and industrialism are steps towards the ultimate
theory in conformity with which law will have no other justification
than that gained by it as maintainer of the conditions to complete life
in the associated state.