When men are pure, laws are useless; when men are corrupt, laws are broken.
-Benjamin Disraeli
Man is rational, but absolute rationality is like Euclid’s point – it exists only in the Philosopher’s mind. Plato had argued that if men were ruled rationally by his Philosopher King, then there would be no need of law – the benevolent rationality of the Philosopher would make any law inferior. However, Plato’s Republic did not come into existence, and what we had was more akin to Hobbes’ conception of the State of Nature, where there was “continuall feare, and danger of violent death; And the life of man, solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short”. This is where law comes in. Law ensures that people regulate their life in such a way that the least harm comes the way of others while he transacts his own business. In 19th century John Stuart Mill gave a sound basis for the construction of law in that all laws should ensure ‘the greatest happiness of the greatest number’.

Law, in politics and jurisprudence, is a set of rules or norms of conduct which mandate, proscribe or permit specified relationships among people and organizations, intended to provide methods for ensuring the impartial treatment of such people, and provide punishments of/for those who do not follow the established rules of conduct. Depending upon the system, laws can be administered by a system of civil, military and religious courts. The principal legal systems of the world are civil law, common law, customary and religious law. Depending upon the parties to a dispute law can be private, public, procedural or international. The practice of law is a necessary concomitant of human organization. Since, what the sovereign commands is law, the infringement of every command must bring to force the whole power of the sovereign for the restitution of the wrong committed; this is done through the practice of law only.

Today, laws are an important device to conduct civil life, politics, business, and in a more abstract sense, simply live. Without laws our safety is only as ensured as the next burglary. As Martin Luther King said, “It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can stop him from lynching me, and I think that's pretty important”.

In this section, we provide links to various law resources.