Encyclopaedia of Jurisprudence (American Legal System)

Jurisprudence is the science or body of ordered knowledge which deals with a particular species of law. Law may be defined as the force or tendency which makes for righteousness. We may at once deny for jurisprudence any direct concern with the non human contents of the universe. Natural laws or the physical laws are not the work of the jurist. The study of jurisprudence concerns human thought in relation to social existence. In a wide sense 'Jurisprudence' is used also to describe the legal connections of any body of knowledge: so, 'Dental Jurisprudence', 'Architectural Jurisprudence' or 'Medical Jurisprudence' would be titles for expositions of such aspects of dentistry, architecture or medicine as may be important in law. In French law Jurisprudence is the term(s) applied to the body of law built -up by the decisions of particular courts. At the present time jurisprudence may tentatively be described as any thought or writing about law and its relation to other disciplines, such as philosophy, psychology, economics, anthropology, etc. It is to be distinguished from expositions of the law itself. The present work in five volumes encompasses encyclopaedic information on various aspects of Jurisprudence.