jurisprudence. We will discuss these schools along with their leading jurists.

Philosophical school or Natural law

Analytical School

Historical School

Sociological School

Realist School

a)The philosophical or ethical school concerns itself chiefly with the relation of law to certain ideals which law is meant to achieve. It seeks to investigate the purpose for which a particular law has been enacted. It is not concerned with its historical or intellectual content.The notable jurists of this school are Grotius (1583-1645), Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) and Hegel (1770-1831). These jurists regard law neither as the arbitrary command of a ruler nor as the creation of historical necessity. To them, the law is the product of human reason and its purpose is to elevate and ennoble human personality.

b)The chief exponents of the Analytical school of Jurisprudence were Bentham and Austin. It is also called the positivist school of jurisprudence because it considers law as it is and not as it ought to be. In fact, it was Sir Henry Maine who coined the word ‘analytical’. This school is also called imperative school because it treats law as a command of the sovereign. Bentham introduced legal positivism and treated legal theory as a science of investigation which should be approached through the scientific method of experimenting and reasoning.

c)Historical school of jurisprudence believes that law is an outcome of a long historical development of the society because itoriginates from thesocialcustom, conventions religious principles, economic needs and relationsofthepeopled)The sociological school of jurisprudence emerged as the synthesis of various juristic thoughts. The exponents of this school treat law as a social phenomenon. According to them, the law is a social function, an expression of human society concerning the external relations of its individual members.Montesquieu, Auguste Comte, Herbert Spencer, Duguit and Rosco Pound are the notable jurists of this school.

in America, Sociological Jurisprudence has developed an extreme wing under the name of the realist school. They are concerned with the study of law as it works and functions which means investigating the social factors that make a law on the hand and the social results on the other. They emphasize more on what the courts may do rather than abstract logical deductions from general rules and on the inarticulate ideological premises underlying a legal system.

American Realism is not a school of jurisprudence but it is a pedagogy of thought. The prominent jurists of this thought are Holmes, Gray and Jerome Frank.