Note 49 — Chapter XIV · HIPPARCHUS — MINOS.

The first explanation of νόμος advanced by the Companion in reply to Sokrates (viz. Νόμος = τὰ νομιζόμενα, coincides substantially with the meaning of Νόμος βασιλεὺς in Pindar and Herodotus (see above, chap. viii.), who is an imaginary ruler, occupying a given region, and enforcing τὰ νομιζόμενα. It coincides also with the precept Νόμῳ πόλεως, as prescribed by the Pythian priestess to applicants who asked advice about the proper forms of religious worship (Xen. Mem. i. 3, 1); though this precept, when Cicero comes to report it (Legg. ii. 16, 40), appears divested of its simplicity, and over-clouded with the very confusion touched upon in my text. Aristotle does not keep clear of the confusion (compare Ethic. Nikom. i. 1, 1094, b. 16, and v. 5, 1130, b. 24). I shall revert again to the distinction between νόμος and φύσις, in touching on other Platonic dialogues. Cicero expressly declares (Legg. ii. 5, 11), conformably to what is said by the Platonic Sokrates in the Minos, that a bad law, however passed in regular form, is no law at all; and this might be well if he adhered consistently to the same phraseology, but he perpetually uses, in other places, the words Lex and Leges to signify laws actually in force at Rome, good or bad.

Mr. Bentham gives an explanation of Law or The Law, which coincides with Νόμος = τὰ νομιζόμενα. He says (Principles of Morals and Legislation, vol. ii. ch. 17, p. 257, ed. 1823), “Now Law, or The Law, taken indefinitely, is an abstract and collective term, which, when it means anything, can mean neither more nor less than the sum total of a number of individual laws taken together”.

Mr. Austin in his Lectures, ‘The Province of Jurisprudence Determined’, has explained more clearly and copiously than any antecedent author, the confused meanings of the word Law adverted to in my text. See especially his first lecture and his fifth, pp. 88 seq. and 171 seq., 4th ed.